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History of English- Final! > Middle English Summary > Flashcards

Middle English Summary Flashcards

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1
Q

When was the Norman conquest?

A

1066

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2
Q

what happened at the norman conquest?

A

William (the Conqueror) of Normandy defeated Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings.

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3
Q

The Normans spoke _____

A

Norman (not Parisian) French.

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4
Q

The Normans were originally _____ (Northmen, Norse), who had settled in northern France in the____ century.

A

Vikings, ninth

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5
Q

By 1066, they had integrated and no longer spoke _____

A

Norse

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6
Q

Which English kind died in 1066 so there were battles for succession to the English throne?

A

Edward the Confessor

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7
Q

Edward was ________; his mother was _____.

A

half-Norman, Norman

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8
Q

Although the English Norse had integrated with the English population, they did not forget their ______ and still maintained contact with their _______ ______

A

heritage, Norse relatives

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9
Q
  • Three claimants to the throne in 1066:
A
  • Harald Hardrada, King of Norway
  • Harald Godwinson, Earl of Wessex and powerful nobleman with ties to the Norse.
  • William of Normandy
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10
Q

who was Harald Godwinson?

A

Earl of Wessex and powerful nobleman with ties to the Norse

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11
Q

who was Harald Hardrada?

A

King of Norway

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12
Q
  • Edward (allegedly) named _____ as his successor to the throne, but he retracted this proclamation on his
    deathbed and named _____ ______ instead.
A

William, Harald Godwinson

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13
Q

who did the Witenagemot select as king?

A

Harald Godwinson

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14
Q

Who invaded England in the northeast.?

A

Harald Hardrada

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15
Q

Who sent his forces and defeated Harald Hardrada and what was that battle called?

A

Harald Godwinson, the Battle of Stamford Bridge.

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16
Q

what was happening at the same time as Harald H and Harald G were fighting the battle of Stamford Bridge?

A

William attacked from the south. Harald G. and his troops, weary from battle, had
to hustle back to the south to fend off William

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17
Q

what did William do?

A

managed to capture the high ground and prevailed

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18
Q

what happened to Harald?

A

was killed by an arrow which pierced his eye.

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19
Q

Bayeux Tapestry?

A

was killed by an arrow which pierced his eye.

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20
Q

what happened after William became King of England (actually the Anglo-Norman Kingdom)?

A
  • French became the language of government, administration, military, and the judicial system for roughly the next 200 years.
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21
Q

English administrators and nobility were replaced by :

A

normans

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22
Q
  • The status of English and French:
A

French was spoken and used by the aristocracy

  • small but powerful minority
  • The common people (the vast majority) continued to use English with each other.
    • It had no power or prestige
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23
Q

The English had to use French in dealing with the :

A

government

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24
Q

Was French imposed on the population, and English prohibited?

A

NO!

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25
Q

The early Norman kings spoke :

A

No English!

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26
Q

Some Norman kings spent all or most of their lives in :

A

Normandy

27
Q

There was certainly some bilingualism from the beginning via intermarriage and work relationships, as
suggested by loanwords such as:

A

table, boil, roast, serve, dine, tax, estate, trouble, duty, pay

28
Q

Was The impact of the Norman Invasion on the English language gradual or abrupt?

A

gradual

29
Q

what was abandoned in 1131?

A
  • The Peterborough Chronicle
30
Q

______ replaced Wessex as the centre of power?

A

London

31
Q

Initially there was much ________ _______ since there was no longer an English centre of power.

A

dialect variation

32
Q

how many ways were there to spell “through”?

A

500

33
Q

with the norman conquest, in English there was the Loss of many what?

A

grammar inflections

34
Q

Eventual rise of a new standard:

A

Chancery English (based on the English of London and environs)

35
Q
  • Spellings were introduced by who?
A

Norman scribes (French speakers writing English!)

36
Q

some spelling changes from OE to ME:

A
  • The use of capital letters to begin a sentence and for proper names
  • þ and ð were replaced in some cases by th.
  • a replaced æ.
  • wh replaced hw.
  • ū became ou.
  • Introduction of h following the Old French convention of
    adding h to signal a modified consonant
  • The doubling of vowels to signal long vowels: see, food
  • The doubling of consonants to signal short vowels
  • The retention of final -e (no longer pronounced) to signal a preceding long vowel
37
Q

were there glides in middle english pronunciation?

A

NO!

38
Q

how was time pronounced in ME?

A

TEAM

39
Q

in ME grammar, what happened with pronouns?

A
  • Norse they / them / their replaced hie / him / hira

- The feminine pronoun heo was replaced by she.

40
Q

The number of cases was reduced to how many?; the ____ gradually disappeared. Its function was
assumed by the _______.

A

3, dative, accusative

41
Q

the 3 cases?

A
  • Nominative (subject)
  • Accusative (direct & indirect object, object of preposition)
  • Genitive (possessive)
42
Q

With the loss of grammatical markings, grammatical gender was replaced by:

A

biological, or natural gender

43
Q

The number of declensions (groups of nouns that follow different patterns) was reduced to how many?

A

2

44
Q

The –as plural (stan - stanas) declension:

A

hūs – hūs => hūs – hūses, scip – scipu => ship - shipes

45
Q

The –an plural declension:

A

(ox – oxen, eye – eyen, child - children)

46
Q

The –as declension became dominant in the ____, the –an declension in the _____, but then what happened?

A

north, south, the –as declension gradually spread south and replaced –an in most words by Shakespeare’s time.

47
Q
  • Old habits are hard to change. A number of commonly-used nouns retained their original plural forms. They are relics of other declensions and of i-mutation (examples):
A

foot – feet; mouse – mice; tooth – teeth, deer – deer; sheep – sheep

48
Q

what happened when The weakening and loss of inflections required another mechanism for identifying sentences
functions (subjects, objects, agents, others)?

A

Prepositions and word order took on a more important role in signalling sentence functions

49
Q

The Anglo-Norman Kingdom included :

A

England and Normandy.

50
Q

King John lost Normandy to the French in :

A

1204

51
Q

what happened when - King John lost Normandy to the French in 1204?

A
  • The nobility had to choose England or Normandy.
    • Many chose England because they had estates there and because many of them spoke English by
      this time.
52
Q

what were Two reasons for the decline of English according to John of Trevisa?

A
  1. Children are required to learn French
    1. Upper class children are taught to speak French from birth.
  • The situation has changed.
    • Children are now taught English (grammar).
    • They have an advantage on the one hand:
      • They learn grammar more quickly.
    • But they also have a disadvantage:
    • They can’t speak French when they go abroad.
53
Q

who was the first English king since the Norman

Conquest to speak English?

A
  • Edward I (1272)
54
Q

what brought speakers of various English dialects together?

A

the Crusades

55
Q

what happened in the Late Middle Ages (13th, 14th centuries)?

A

French declined; (Middle) English re-emerged

56
Q

in the late middle ages, what had become the capital, the centre of government, wealth, & power?

A

London

57
Q

what became the main centres of learning?

A

Oxford (1167) & Cambridge (1209)

58
Q

which became the most influential dialect in

many aspects of life?

A

Southeast Midland (London, Oxford, Cambridge triangle)

59
Q

what killed 30 - 50% of the population and when?

A

the Plague, 14th century

60
Q

what were the results of the plague?

A
  • shortage of bodies for production
    • labour was in high demand.
    • the breakdown of feudalism, where peasants were tied to the land under an overlord
      • Urbanization: more people moved to the cities (mainly from the East Midlands to London)
        • Trades people were needed.
      • The common people gained in economic power.
      • In the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381, they demanded higher wages and better working conditions.
    • This increasingly influential middle class spoke English.
61
Q

what was the Chancery standard?

A
  • Spelling and grammar were to a large extent normalized in government writings.
62
Q

what was one of the main factors leading to an eventual English standard language?

A

the Chancery Standard

63
Q

Three distinct periods of Middle English:

A
  • Decline after the Norman invasion (1066-1204)
  • Resurgence of English (1204-1350)
  • Toward a new standard (1350-1500)

History of English- Final! (8 decks)

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