A new Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded study of early medieval manuscripts written in the English language has revealed that the Normans, who conquered England in 1066, were not the destructive force of popular belief, sweeping away everything that had gone before.
The project, ‘The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060-1220’ provides contextual information and a catalogue of all the surviving books that were written between 1060 and 1220 that contain text written in the English language. This descriptive catalogue is freely available to other scholars in the field.
The new study shows English people living under Norman rule continued to write, read and preach in the English language as they had done under the Anglo-Saxon kings in earlier centuries, in the new social and political climate.
In particular it challenges the long-held view about the English language being driven underground after the Norman Conquest.
“Hundreds of texts are written in English between 1060 and 1220 right across England – laws, sermons, saints’ lives, land charters, medicinal recipes and prayers,” said Dr Orietta Da Rold, Lecturer in Chaucer and Medieval Literature at the University of Leicester, and Co-Director of the project.
Elaine Treharne, Professor of Early English at Florida State University and Co-Director of the project, explained: “Individuals worked in big libraries, monasteries and cathedrals, reading English books and adding notes and extra material in English, French and Latin.
“Some manuscripts are probably owned by wealthy people; others are the property of a church broadcasting to ordinary men and women by preaching, and by providing spiritual and medical care and guidance.
“An ordinary person in late twelfth-century Worcestershire, for example, would have been preached to in English at their local parish church, and the instruction they would be given would echo the content and language of that given before the Conquest, but it would have new resonance.”
Men or women trained to write down texts would probably have worked in English, Latin and Anglo-Norman with equal ease. Monks and nuns across England would be used to reading a range of languages, and drawing on traditional English texts to think about new theological ideas.
This multilingualism means that scholars cannot think about people’s identities in simple terms - Anglo-Saxon, or Anglo-Norman, for example. The different languages of England from the late eleventh to the early thirteenth century were not operating in opposition to each other.
Latin and French quickly acquired high status in the worlds of state and church, but English carried on along-side them.
‘The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060-1220’ has also begun to show interesting regional variations in the writing of English manuscripts, and also routes of transmission of books and scribes across the country.
Dr Mary Swan, Director of Studies of the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds and Co-Director of the project, commented: “We undertook the project because we knew that there was a wealth of material which had never been looked at together. We had come across lots of examples of manuscripts written in English after the Conquest.”
“What we needed was a full research project to map all the examples in a way which would allow us to look at them together, and to see how they fit geographically and chronologically.”
“We can expect exciting results for years to come from our findings,” said Dr Da Rold. “Because our data is freely available, we hope many researchers will use it to the advantage of the field”.
The launch of the AHRC-funded Project 'The Production and Use of English Manuscripts, 1060 to 1220' will take place on Wednesday November 10th.
‘The Production and Use of English manuscripts 1060-1220’ was funded by the AHRC, with support from the School of English, the University of Leicester and the University of Leeds. The project team was supported in its work by an international Advisory Board.
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Media Contact: Jake Gilmore, AHRC Communications Manager; T: 0797 099 4586,
E: j.gilmore@ahrc.ac.uk
Notes to Editors:
Further details are available from Dr Orietta Da Rold, School of English, University of Leicester, Tel. +44 (0)116 252 2778
e-mail: odr1@le.ac.uk
The University of Leicester is at the international forefront in this field of study, with a range of medieval research strengths across a number of related disciplines within the College of Arts, Humanities and Law. The Medieval Research Centre fosters international research across departments and schools.
The University of Leeds is the partner institution in this project; the Project’s two PhD students are based in the Leeds Institute for Medieval Studies and co-supervised by Mary Swan and Orietta Da Rold. The IMS has fostered Interdisciplinary Medieval Studies since the late 1960s. It currently runs postgraduate MA and PhD programmes in Medieval Studies, and is the home of the International Medieval Congress, Europe’s largest conference on the Middle Ages. Amongst the training available to postgraduate students in the IMS is palaeography (the reading of medieval manuscript handwriting), Medieval Latin, Old English and Old French.
Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC): Each year the AHRC provides approximately £112 million from the Government to support research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities, from languages and law, archaeology and English literature to design and creative and performing arts. In any one year, the AHRC makes approximately 700 research awards and around 1,350 postgraduate awards. Awards are made after a rigorous peer review process, to ensure that only applications of the highest quality are funded. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK.