Continued from Christmas Songs of My Ancestors: English
About the time of the Norman invasion of England (1066), my family tree begins to
fill with Norman French ancestors who migrated northward from Normandy to
England.
|
| Normandy. Fobos92, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons |
Northern France was originally populated by Celtic peoples. In the 9th
century, the Vikings began raiding, and eventually, the territory was awarded
to the Viking leader Rollo, who became the first duke of Normandy. Consequently,
Norman French evolved as the language of Normandy. Also known as
"Viking French" it was greatly influenced by the language of the Northmen.
(Northman easily contracts to Norman, so that's easy to
remember.) Two centuries later, Rollo's descendant Duke William of Normandy
invaded and conquered England.
For this blog series, I find that the farther back I go, the harder it is to find examples of authentic Christmas songs in the original old languages. If I'm remembering my music history correctly, songs at the time were either sacred or secular. Christmas songs would have been sacred and sung in Latin as Gregorian chant.
For this blog post, I offer two video clips. The first is what my ancestors
might have heard when they attended Christmas Day Mass. The second isn't a song, but a sample
of spoken Norman French. Maybe those of you who speak French will hear the difference.
4 comments:
I didn't know all that about Normandy; fascinating!
Michelle, I find the history of the times to be one of the fun things about genealogy. :)
Thanks for posting Leigh!
Norman French is a surprising language: At one time it was carried by the Normans to what is now Italy, Sicily, Dalmatia, and the Byzantine Empire - and of course, became the language of the administration of England following the Norman Conquest until the 15th Century. It does still exist as a regional language in France.
(As a sidebar, it is odd to think that at one point in history, someone living in England could have been working in at least five languages: Anglo-Norman, Latin, Middle English, Welsh, Cornish, and even Gaelic depending on how far north one was.)
TB, I read a little about Anglo-Norman, and wonder how predominant it was in England after the Norman invasion. I didn't realize it was in use for that long! It's fascinating to think that so many languages could have been a part of everyday life in England at that time. Thank you so much for the details!
Post a Comment