Episode 66: Broken Promises and the Eve of Conquest

Many scholars consider the Norman Conquest of England to be the most important event in the history of the English language. The man who directed that conquest was William of Normandy. In this episode, we examine William’s rise from a young Duke to the eve of the Norman Conquest. It was a rise marked by a series of broken promises. Along the way, we will examine more features of Norman French which impacted English. And we will return to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to see how this history was documented in the Old English language which was soon to be wiped away.

TRANSCRIPT: EPISODE 66

8 thoughts on “Episode 66: Broken Promises and the Eve of Conquest

  1. Great episode, as always! Regarding the discussion about the dropping of the ‘s’ sound in many words in French, I would add that this is marked in the majority of cases in modern French with a circumflex accent on the preceding vowel. So if you look at some of the words you cited, in modern French they are spelled: fête, bête, forêt, hôtel, août.

    • Thanks! I didn’t discuss that point in the episode because I didn’t want to get too bogged down in French spelling and phonetics. But it is a very important point for those who have a specific interest in French.

  2. All great stuff. Only minor whinges when Mr Stroud sometimes takes American usage as read, although he does try with the more obvious differences.

    I know lawyers famously can’t count so I had to smile when he referred to ‘three’ kings of 1066 and then promptly goes on to describe four in the following episode.

    Keep up the good work.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.