The early Saxon handwriting was bold and clear. Most of it now existing consists of monastic copies of books or charters. The Saxons were a clever and industrious people, plodding and practical. Their abbeys were more of the nature of large seminaries or colleges, where learning was carried on; and in this respect the northern parts of England were better supplied than the south, a result caused probably by each fresh influx of tribes landing on the northern and eastern coasts of the country, and spreading inland from thence. There seems to be no doubt that the reign of King Alfred did much to promote study and an increased attention to literature, previously neglected except among a few professed scholars.
A learned King would naturally set the fashion to his subjects, and Alfred must have possessed immense energy. It was an extraordinary thing for a middle-aged man to be able to educate himself sufficiently to master the difficulties of a foreign language so opposed in construction to his own native tongue as Latin, which in nowise resembles Saxon. He must have toiled hard to have completed the many translations from Latin into Saxon which are accredited to him.
Alfred was a popular hero, and, like all heroes, was invested by tradition with the credit of every improvement in literature or art which took place within his era. Be this as it may, there is no doubt that he did stimulate his fellow-countrymen to make efforts towards self-improvement, by setting them a practical example in himself. Such examples are unfortunately rare; they must always be productive of good results—an ‘ounce of practice is worth a pound of precept.’
From the time of King Alfred’s re-introduction of Latin into this country it gradually gained ground as the language of scholars. Learned ecclesiastics coming to England found it convenient as the medium for exchange of thoughts and ideas. It was for many centuries the accepted ‘Volapuk,’ understood by all who professed any learning.
Rome was the light of the Western world, the centre from whence religion and learning was disseminated to the less enlightened parts of Europe. Careful study of the old authors necessitated an acquaintance with both Greek and Latin. The emissaries of the Pope, either as legates or missionaries, spread all over civilized Europe, and carried with them the learning of their age.
Intercourse between England and France was somewhat checked by dissensions and wars both at home and abroad, but with the Conquest came a large body of monks. The chief wealth of Normandy was invested in its rich abbeys, from whence Duke William had borrowed large sums of money to fit out his expedition upon the security of his future possession of England. These loans he honestly and amply repaid by large grants of land out of his new kingdom; hence new abbeys sprang up in England, filled with foreign monks, who brought over their language, arts and sciences, to teach in the new country they had adopted as their own. The language of the court was of necessity Norman-French, which differs as much from the French of to-day as ancient from modern English. But a knowledge of French makes these early deeds easy to understand.
NORMAN-FRENCH DEED.
The lower orders of the people clung persistently to their own old Saxon tongue, a fact clearly demonstrated by the way the old Saxon field-names are to the present day retained, and flowers, animals, and matters of everyday country-life bear names of evident Saxon origin. The Saxons were a conquered race, and as such became the servants of their conquerors. The animals which in life they tended were eaten by the Norman nobles, who called them, when used as food, by names of French derivation. Thus the Saxon ‘sheep’ when dead became ‘mutton’; ‘pig’ turned into ‘pork’; ‘calf’ into ‘veal,’ etc.
With the names of many wildflowers French origin is traceable, especially with cultivated sorts. We know the monks of the Middle Ages were clever gardeners, and probably by them the wildflowers were named. In Berkshire the village children call field-daisies ‘margs,’ abbreviated, without doubt, from the French marguerite. Among garden flowers there are pansies, French pensé; gillyflower, giroflél, and many others; but as a whole there are few words of distinctly Latin origin to be found in the English dialects relating to everyday affairs. Norman-French did not come into immediate use in legal documents after the Conquest. The earliest deeds of the Norman kings were written in Latin, but after a while French, the everyday language of the upper classes, superseded it for law work—possibly there were duplicate copies of the deeds in both languages—but only for a comparatively short period, a statute being passed in the thirty-sixth year of King Edward III. deciding upon Latin as the law language of the realm, and from this date the use of Norman-French died out, and the English language may be said to have commenced.