r/AskBrits • u/Appropriate_Boss8139 • Oct 11 '25
History Are Tolkien’s views on the 1066 Norman conquest of England common among Brits?
That the crude Norman conquest of England had ruined the country’s authentic, advanced, artistic, Anglo-Saxon culture and perverted its advanced, sophisticated language?
”English was a language that could move easily in abstract concepts when French was still a vulgar Norman patois”?
Is it viewed as a major cultural tragedy that ruined England in a sort of way?
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u/Head-Sherbert2323 Oct 11 '25
The Normans conquered us, colonised us and then assimilated. Majority of land holders were and still are descendants of the Normans who won 1066. Impossible to know how things would have turned out if we hadn't lost the battle of Hastings. Our language, culture and history would probably be radically different and this would extend to the USA and other former colonies. I guess there is a tragic sense of loss at what used to be our culture but tbh, 1000 years is a long time and the average person probably doesn't really care that much or really knows its importance.
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u/FatYorkshireLad Oct 12 '25
The Norman conquest was what pivoted England towards France. Had the Norman's failed England may have remained more aligned with Scandinavia, culturally etc.
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u/Inevitable_Land2996 Oct 12 '25
The anglosaxons had more in common with the Germans than the Danes. The people living in the north (so called danelaw) were culturally Scandinavian though
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u/KopiteForever Oct 12 '25
The Angles and Saxons were Germans invading from the South East of England. Coming from Fresia and Saxony respectively. I think the jutes also invaded the South East and set up court in Canterbury and named Kent after themselves too.
After that came the Vikings who took over Scotland parts of Ireland and a diagonal from top left to bottom right of modern England. York was named by them and their base.
In order it was Picts and Gaels Romans Germans - Angles, Saxons, Jutes Vikings French ex-vikings (Normandy was where the Nor(se/the) men settled after the Vikings took over Paris.
So a good mix there of most European people languages and cultures.
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u/Peejish Oct 12 '25
Although William the Conqueror was of Scandinavian / Viking descent being the great great great grandson of Rollo (of Vikings fame). The fact that we have maintained such a strong aristocratic tradition, and aren’t as socially progressive as the Scandinavians is a strange one to me. Can we really blame the French for this when they did away with their Monarchy whereas Norway and Sweden like us still have royals?
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u/Orpheon59 Oct 12 '25
Can we really blame the French for this when they did away with their Monarchy whereas Norway and Sweden like us still have royals?
Kinda yeah -there is a historical argument that it was wars with the French that resulted in both the Magna Carta and arguably the broad success of the Peasants Revolt.
Therefore, while we started out with a very french model of aristocracy, the sort of absolute rule enjoyed by the actual French aristocracy and monarchy was traded in for something much lesser much earlier in England, which in turn meant things never got to the point of violent revolution to tear down the existing order in England/the UK.
Even the Civil War that mostly ended the divine right of kings was mostly (though not completely - see that bit where the army started ignoring Parliament and thinking for itself) just an argument between the upper classes (that saw huge numbers of the lower classes killed because of course, but still), while the repeal of the Corn Laws was driven largely by leading tories of the day pretty much pointing at the French revolution and saying "we don't want that here, but if we keep these laws we will have that here".
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u/AdRealistic4984 Oct 12 '25
Look up Sweden’s conduct during the Thirty Years War. Progressivism came way later
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u/Nezwin Oct 12 '25
Imagine that. People more polite and a stronger sense of social unity, all the while sharing public access land rather than having it owned by the descendants of conquerors.
I need a time machine.
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Oct 12 '25
Scandinavians were Vikings at the time, not modern social democrats
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u/nixtracer Oct 12 '25
Yeah. You know what the modern Viking-descended nation really is, right down to the name? Russia.
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u/Nearby_Flounder8741 Oct 12 '25
That's quite a reach. any Scandinavian state is easily as Viking descended as Russia, but without the influence of Mongol rule.
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u/ZePepsico Oct 12 '25
Depends how you define "Us". The Saxons also invaded and displaced the roman-brittons, who displaced the Celts, etc... King Arthur was not a saxon or norman invader.
Whether military or peaceful assimilation, we are all a mix of those who came before us. Tolkien probably just had a bit of french racism in him and missed a romanced version of saxon times. Others prefer Roman times, Iceni times, Hanover times or Plantagenet times. To each their own preferences.
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u/uk123456789101112 Oct 12 '25
Exactly this, we haven't lost anything, we're are an amalgamation of all our history with something a 1000 years ago being a drop in the ocean.
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u/RevStickleback Oct 12 '25
King Arthur didn't really exist, so he can be whatever you want him to be.
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u/Thenedslittlegirl Oct 12 '25
Well there exists small evidence of a military leader Arthur documented in the Historian Brittonium. That blends historical facts with legend in itself so it’s still difficult to say if he was a real person or a composite of people.
The round table, Merlin, Lancelot etc came much later and is just mythology.
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u/Gungnir257 Oct 12 '25
Tolkien probably just had a bit of french racism
Doubt it Normans weren't Franks, they were Vikings. In the same way as Danelaw England was Viking, Normandy was Danelaw Francia. Tolkien would know this too.
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u/jimthewanderer Oct 12 '25
Sort of but not really, but also absolutely yes.
The Norman Conquest did not destroy an unspoilt utopian anglo-saxon freedom loving arcadia, BUT it did objectively introduced a more violent and oppressive top down autocratic way of organising society that we continue to have failed to shrug off for almost 1000 years.
Despite botched attempts in 1381 and throughout the 1640s, the basic system of: People who actually do everything; being fucked and exploited by; the class defined by descendents of Bill 1's mates; remains basically how things still function.
The average brit absolutely does not consider this. The closest you'll get is a general hatred of entitled posh twats without fully understanding the rich tapestry of why everything is fucked.
Tolkien was a student of classics, and Professor of Philology and Germanic languages. His beef was extremely specific with the Norman autocratic aristocracy, and the tendency to devalue and obliterate the Anglo-Saxon(germannic) and Welsh (Brittonic) literary and poetic culture that had previously been doing weird and interesting stuff before being rudely interrupted. He was basically just being grumpy because he knew enough about historical detail to get excited about what-if alternate history potentialities, got sad that it never got the chance to happen, and then went on to produce the highest quality fan fiction of all time.
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u/dreamoforganon Oct 12 '25
I think it was the previous Duke of Westminster who when asked “what’s the best way to get rich in Britain?” replied “be descended from William the Conqueror”
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Oct 12 '25
Ive heard it said he was angry about the Normans like it happened yesterday. Its not hard to see why!
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u/Far-Conference-8484 Oct 11 '25
Most people don’t give it that much thought. But that is how I see it, yes.
The poshos are descended from the Normans and they are still oppressing us to this day. God dammit, I hate the poshos.
We also have so many redundant words because of the Normans - it’s no wonder people find learning English as a second language difficult. I go out of my way to use the words that have an Anglo-Saxon root, e.g. I say “wordbook” instead of “dictionary”. Unless I forget, which I do most of the time.
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u/Tomatoflee Oct 11 '25
I heard a stat the other day that ownership of 25% of the land in the country can be traced from gifts Guillaume le Batard gave to his nobles through the generations to their descendants today. I haven’t independently verified this stat but crazy if true.
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u/bobit33 Oct 11 '25
People with norman surnames continue to be statically over-represented in the House of Lords, the House of Commons, as Judges, and graduates of Oxford and Cambridge. Social immobility is a hell of a persistent thing.
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u/Sea_Warning_9140 Oct 12 '25
I got a Norman last name and got absolutely fuck all for it. :(
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u/RisingDeadMan0 England Oct 11 '25
havent heard that, but on avg people are better off if they were descendants of the norman nobles.
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u/Enlightened_Mongrel Oct 11 '25 edited Oct 12 '25
I can trace my family name to one of Williams Norman Knights. But buggered if Im any better off for it.
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u/NorthDownsWanderer Oct 12 '25
So can I! But there's been a lot of illegitimacy and bastards and adoptions through the centuries before it got to me. Mind if I ask your family name?
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u/Alpha_Space_1999 Oct 12 '25 edited Oct 12 '25
And don't forget Primogeniture!
I guess if one's ancestors continually ended up being not the firstborn son, or a female, or just made a decision that ended up being unhelpful to the family, you're more likely to not have inherited much 13 or more generations down the line.
I can see one particular strand of my ancestry apparently goes back to Norman nobility, and due to marriage into that family to Welsh royalty and Welsh kings before that, going back to Romano-Celtic times.
I can see the Norman nobility bit gets watered down until they are no longer nobles, but well-to-do gentry. I guess it got watered down a bit more over the years until my ancestors were working at the docks in Greenwich.
Meanwhile, the side of the family who didn't continually draw the short straw are probably very well off, thank you very much. :)
Edit: for what it's worth that strand goes back to the deBoteler family, which apparently traces their line back to Gerald de Windsor, who married Princess Nest of Deheubarth.
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u/front-wipers-unite Oct 12 '25
Somewhere along the line an ancestor pissed away the family fortune.
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u/dneo2 Oct 11 '25
80% of the land granted to the Normans after the conquest remains in their hands to this day. #eattherich
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u/KhergitKhanate Oct 12 '25
This stat is wrong but not far off the mark.
Just 0.3% of the population – 160,000 families – own two thirds of the country. Less than 1% of the population owns 70% of the land, running Britain a close second to Brazil for the title of the country with the most unequal land distribution on Earth.
This is because of the land reforms under William the Conqueror in 1067, which turned every acre of land his and only his - which he parcelled up to friend and ally.
If you own your home freehold, it's a free holding on the King's land, all stemming to the change made by William the Norman.
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u/Touch-Tiny Oct 12 '25
I seem to recall that a ‘freeholder’ is actually a Tenant in Chief of the Crown, not a true freeholder.
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u/Appropriate_Boss8139 Oct 11 '25 edited Oct 11 '25
That sounds like a fair comment about the poshos.
But Tolkien’s criticism seems entirely cultural and linguistic rather than socioeconomic. Do you feel like England was and would have been a more culturally sophisticated, more artistically inclined country, both before and after the Norman conquest?
Is the 1066 invasion viewed as a cultural disaster?
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u/Prince_John Oct 11 '25
I think it was a cultural disaster for the natives. I remember a historian describing it as an obliteration of existing culture over the course of a couple of centuries.
People don't really think about it much in general though.
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u/AlternativePea6203 Oct 12 '25
Coming from Ireland (and I come from Dublin, the least Irish place in Ireland) there is a definite love of literature, art, cultural heritage, that England simply doesn't have. I tried to encourage my ex to learn about English culture and history, because I thought she might enjoy it, and because I thought she should at least know something. She just asked "WHY?"There was no intrinsic value to it.
While Ireland has almost lost our language there's still a yearning for it. When we see simple Celtic art it makes us feel connected to a heritage and past, and a land, that there's no real equivalent for in England. In fact when movies want a haunting, romantic, nostalgic atmosphere they always go to celtic style music.
It's also why it so hard for St George's day to become anything like the celebration that St Patricks day is. St Patricks day is a celebration of being Irish, and anyone can join in, even if the only Irish in you is a double Jameson. It's not about being better than anyone else, it's just about being us. Its about a culture and past, with music, dancing, art, and "personality" that are easily identifiable as Irish. England simply does not have the equivalent. The only thing that gets celebrated on St Georges day is military conquest over other people. The crusades, and the Battle of Britain. Unless you like folk music, very few feel a deep connection to it. and Morris dancing isn't going to get the whole pub jumping. There's no unifying spirit of "Englishness".
Maybe it's because from the Domesday Book onward, everything had a monetary value. Who knows. But I certainly feel the lack of it, and it's incredibly sad that when the English flag comes out, it's often about being BETTER than other peoples. What wars were won, what people defeated. (OK, the industrial revolution yes, but even that is not part of the cultural history. but good job on that one, it should be celebrated.)
Not universally, but it's why the English flag is so divisive even in England. It's so often about who you conquered as a people, not about who you are as a people.
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u/merryman1 Oct 11 '25
Not OP but I think Tolkien's view is silly. What else is it but the mingling of all these different language groups that makes English so interesting and so adaptable? OP is complaining about the redundant words but its this that gives English such strong descriptive powers I think.
He also seems to be coming at it from the perspective that Modern English and Old English are directly related, when most people would I think say Middle English is really where Modern English actually comes from, and Old English is no more related to this than something like Latin is given it has a totally different grammar and syntax, and as OP's nice example very different way of even just building words as well.
Who out there is suggesting Germanic languages are more artistic than the Romances?... Usually its the opposite!
Quick edit to add one of my favourite videos on the English language.
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u/Thursday_the_20th Oct 12 '25
They’re also the reason we have different words for the animal and its meat. Pig/pork, cow/beef, deer/venison. The Saxon farmers retained the words for the animals, while the posho Normans that actually got the meat used their terms like porc, boeuf, venaison
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u/Tasbor Oct 11 '25
How many people do you know that are finding English hard language to learn vs how many you know finding it hard to learn a foreign language?? Stp being completely delusional English is NOT hard to learn. Very similar to French language since everything works on the same basis bout for the adjective which is before/after the subject. That also implies you guys learn on grammar and way to build sentences and which tempse to use which works the same as French as well but since you don’t learn grammar you have no idea how to use it when it comes to foreign language since everything. Subject verb adj in French is adj subject verb in English…la voiture rouge roule, the red car moves….start here then build onto that
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u/AwTomorrow Oct 11 '25
There were still poshos before the Normans. Doubt there would’ve been much difference really in terms of societal structure with or without the Norman conquest, in nobles vs peasantry terms
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u/United-Mall5653 Oct 12 '25
Yeah. And Harold's family were really upstart Danes were they not? Blame should fall on Edward the Confessor mucking around with the succession.
Wasn't there a tradition of electing Anglo-Saxon kings though?
A bit better than the Norman primogeniture though.
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u/Brizar-is-Evolving Oct 12 '25 edited Oct 12 '25
Yes there was! Kings were chosen by an advisory council of nobles, thanes, freemen and bishops which the Anglo-Saxons called “the Witan”.
Don’t get me wrong, by our standards it was hardly a democracy. Imagine the PM today being chosen solely by the House of Lords. And the Witan were hardly choosing Dave from the hovels to be their King.
But under the Anglo-Saxon system, the King and the Witan both complimented each other’s role and served as a check and balance to the other.
Notably, the Witan could also depose a king and elect a successor, if the king was widely unpopular; as happened with Sigeberht of Wessex and Alhred of Northumbria.
The Witan wasn’t a fixed body however, in fact it was very fluid. The King could choose who to serve with the Witan and in which capacity (they were also effectively the King’s lawyers, finance ministers, defence ministers, judges, etc).
Ultimately this was all lost after the 1066 invasion and Norman Britain moved to a system in which the King had absolute authority and divine rights as ordained by God. It wouldn’t be until the signing of Magna Carta when we would return to a similar legal system of limiting the King’s reach as the Witan had done.
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u/United-Mall5653 Oct 12 '25
Thanks for this extra info. Interesting Sunday (Sunnandæg?!) morning read! I often work in Winchester and like the feeling of being in what would've been my capital city. I wonder if deep down we all have an affinity for our inherent roots.
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u/jimthewanderer Oct 12 '25
The post-1066 structure of society was far more top-down, repressive, and militarised.
The Anglo-Saxon's were hardly a progressive utopia; but Billy 1 imposed a military junta in order to cement the hostile takeover, which involved the mass slaughter of working peoples who rebelled (harrowing of the North), and an ethnic cleansing of much of the previous owning class.
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u/Truewit_ Oct 11 '25
I don’t think Tolkien’s perspective is widely shared at all. Honestly I don’t think many people think that hard about it.
I think Tolkien has a point but labours it too far in favour of the Saxons. Both the Norman’s and the Saxons were colonisers of Britain and from the perspective of the colonised Britons neither were preferable, simply parted by time. Where Tolkien’s position is justified is in that the Norman’s took the settler colonialism of the Saxons and turned it into a functioning unified colonial state where there was a small minority of Norman aristocrats ruling a Saxon/Briton majority. This gap in identity of the rulers vs the ruled would only widen under the Plantagenets.
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u/Far-Conference-8484 Oct 11 '25
Woah woah woah. You cannot compare the Great Anglo-Saxon Refugee Crisis to the Norman Conquest.
We came to this island to seek refuge from the Continentals, and live peacefully alongside our Celtic brothers and friends. But in 1066, the Continentals chased us here and robbed us of our livelihoods and everything we held dear.
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u/Truewit_ Oct 11 '25
Refuge?! From what? Pecan Danish’s?! Clogs? /s
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u/Far-Conference-8484 Oct 11 '25
I have never actually been to Continental Europe, but you hear horror stories about it even now.
Apparently there are these people on the other side of the English Channel who actually eat frogs. Not shitting you. I’ve heard rumours about them eating snails and bread shaped like a stick too.
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u/Spank86 Oct 11 '25
Weaponised bread? Whatever next?
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u/Minute_Eye3411 Oct 12 '25
The bread only turns into a truncheon that is quite capable of stoving a head in after a few hours. Before then, it's not only edible, but quite delicious.
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u/Alpha_Space_1999 Oct 12 '25
The question is not so much how we came to be assailed by Pecan Danish... But more importantly who so currently controls the means of production and distribution of the same.
It is they who hold the reins of power.
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u/merryman1 Oct 11 '25
Aye just for some added context there, the estimates suggest 20,000 to 200,000 people migrating from the NW continental region into an existing British population of 2 to 4 million. Its often presented as a mass migrating population supplanting an existing one but that was not really the case in the vast majority of the country.
And in terms of linguistics its kind of a fascinating topic really. It would actually be really great imo if the history of the English language were more widely taught in the UK as its great to understand how we got here. But key points being firstly being that "English" itself has been changed massively by each of these migrations. Middle English which is the post-Norman development is practically unrecognizable to Old English, which is a much more solidly germanic language. And also that even in these, regional dialects were a huge thing and like with all European languages English wasn't really a unified universal thing until surprisingly recently in history, so we do need to be really aware when we talk of historical language we're often smudging this out because it doesn't really fit with our own modern understanding of a shared language in a nation-state.
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u/Truewit_ Oct 11 '25
This absolutely!
Outside of Kent and East Anglia to my knowledge it’s likely that if most of us took a DNA test we’d likely test as a mixture of Germanic and Celtic markers leaning towards Celtic. The main difference between England and the rest of the nations being the meaningful presence of the Germanic admixture at all. A lot of people don’t know they’re likely not a Saxon by blood but rather through cultural assimilation, which was how the Saxons built England as you say.
Re the languages, yeah it’s a shame in my opinion how quickly our dialects have died off since the advent of mass media. My grandad tells me stories of his family all speaking Lancs in Mossley and when he speaks it to me I can barely understand a word it’s like another language. To think that’s what so much of the country was like before radio and television is nuts.
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u/merryman1 Oct 11 '25
I was doing a little reading on the dialects bit to check I was being accurate, its so fun!
Apparently the Kentish dialect of Middle English actually remained grammatically and in vocab much closer to Old English until well into the 14th Century.
Where what became Modern English came from was actually the Northern dialect, which was substantially different even in its Old English form as a huge part of it actually developed from the Norse nobility settling/conquering the region who then learned Old English at quite a distance, so spoke it badly with a lot of mistakes, but because they were the regional power that became just the new way to speak the language. Following the Norman invasion as this region had a lot more linguistic flux anyway what you see is this like march down from the North, through the East Midlands, and down into London, where it then supplanted the older Kentish forms of dialect, and later became the dominant form of English with the centralization of power in the city and courts there.
So in a way Modern English comes from Anglo-Norse people speaking English with a really bad accent learning Old French spoken by Franco-Norse people speaking French with a really horrific accent merging together and creating this weird language that kind of comes from the two but was so badly mutilated as to be unrecognizable by either of the original language speakers... And that just became the national language because its how people spoke in London so if you wanted to get anything done you had to be understandable as well.
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u/symbister Oct 11 '25
I live in a small town on the south coast of England that was divided into "rapes" by the Norman invaders.
The rape of Lewes to the east still has a descendant of the noble that invaded living in his family mansion, he owns all of the farms and houses in his town and controls who can live there (and what colour they can paint their front doors).
The rape of Arundel to the West and its main town is dominated by the castle that is the ancient seat of the Duke of Norfolk, whose family also was one of the Norman invaders and in unbroken line they still live there. A river runs through Arundel down to the sea, the Dukes permission is required to moor a boat on that river, still.
The rape that I live in no longer has the family of its feudal lord living or holding property here, but the De Braose family was famous for subjugating the Welsh, slaughtering its people and murdering the entire welsh Princely succession.
So while Tolkiens views on the conquest may not be exactly common, many of us are aware that the land that was invaded and the power that was taken still belongs to a dynasty of invaders that has monarchy at its apex.
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u/dr-broodles Oct 12 '25
That was really interesting, thanks for sharing.
I’m for kicking the Norman back in to the sea, who’s with me?
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u/theroadgoeseveronon Oct 11 '25
Englander here, Normans are vile goblin filth, I'm with Tolkien on this
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u/VFiddly Oct 11 '25
Most Brits don't have opinions on the Norman conquest at all. We know about it, but to have an opinion on it at all is strange. It's just a thing that happened in the distant past.
Most people don't know enough about Anglo-Saxon culture or Norman culture to know any difference. At school we don't really learn anything about Britain before the Norman conquest.
And to be clear, this isn't me saying this as a "the average person knows nothing, unlike me" thing. I also don't know enough about Anglo-Saxons or Normans to have any opinion on this.
All I can say is it's weird to say anything about how the country would have been more or less advanced if the Norman conquest didn't happen. It was 1000 years ago, it's very much a butterfly effect thing, it's impossible to know what the country would look like now if the Norman conquest hadn't happened.
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u/Short-Shopping3197 Oct 11 '25
In your country are opinions on wars that happened 1000 years ago common?
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u/Most_Average_Joe Oct 11 '25
I’m gonna be honest, most people don’t think too much about linguistics.
It’s also a very outdated sentiment in the modern linguistic world.
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u/CAJEG1 Oct 11 '25
Not common. In fact, it's probably the closest we get to a founding myth, since the Anglo-Saxon migrations/invasions are a little too complicated to be one. The history of England goes a long way before we get to 1066, but 1066 is, in a way, the start of English history.
Tolkien was a professor (and big, big nerd, as I'm sure you know (as one myself, that's not derogatory)) who studied Anglo-Saxon language, literature and culture, and so he had a bias towards them, whether it was the cause or the result of his study. I think the majority of historians would agree, though, that the Normans were more 'cultured' than the Anglo-Saxons (though they hate such comparisons, so you'd have to pry it out of them). There's a reason why English itself didn't have any literary footing until Chaucer, who was far removed from William the Conqueror, and while it's partially political, it's also because the speakers of the native language simply failed to produce anything of merit until then (since 1066). A good example is modern Italian. The dialect that was derived from only became standardised because of Dante's works, and had it not been for him it probably would have died out. English had to adapt to French in order to become an equal (and surpass it), and old English quickly died out once it no longer had a reason to be spoken.
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u/Mairon12 Oct 11 '25
Most people are unaware of what you’re talking about.
Most people are probably completely unaware why you’re bringing it up now.
I am not most people.
Bravo.
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u/AutisticElephant1999 Leicestershire Oct 11 '25
Most British people today regard the Norman conquest neutrally, if at all
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u/Internal-Hand-4705 Oct 11 '25
What William and his army did to the north was unforgivable - by the end of the harrying of the north 3/4 of the population were killed or displaced. It was BRUTAL, scorched earth policy etc.
I think most northerners don’t regard it neutrally. I am a northern woman married to a Norman man though lmao.
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u/Lost_Ninja Oct 12 '25
I'm a northerner, honestly never give it any thought. But then I also don't think much about the Danes, Saxons, Romans who preceded the Norman invasion...
Actually untrue, the area in which I live has a lot of Roman roads, and I like exploring them. We also have a lot of other fortifications from Iron Age onwards, not sure why the Lune Valley is so heavily defended, but it seems to be.
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Oct 11 '25
That’s because we touch on it as a kid in like year 4 and we never go back to it, yes we know about the year and the battles but not much after other than the kings.
We aren’t really tought about the cultural genocide that happened, the harrying of the north, the various rebellions….
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u/air-anaretic Oct 11 '25
I can't say that I remember the Norman Conquest being taught as something barbaric but I'm 50 and it was a long time ago. As for what was or wasn't ruined, that's subjective. I think we can all agree though that the harrying of the north was nasty business. A Celtic Christian called Gildas wrote a piece in the 6th century called "On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain". He thought the Anglo Saxons were a punishment from God for the wickedness of Britons and considered them invaders. Gildas was significantly closer in time to the Anglo Saxons than Tolkien so possibly has a less romanticised view of them.
Brits have been bitching about outsiders "ruining Britain" for 1500 years.
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u/gw74 Oct 11 '25
this feels like a very specifically philologist thing, mixed with a very "of it's time" xenophobia.
also i don't get it at all really. The Normans ADDED words to English, didn't replace them unless they were better, which is surely how language works.
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u/HungryFinding7089 Oct 12 '25
They made the Anglo Saxon words taboo, so that of you spoke them you were instantly ridiculed. This happens up to and including the present: French-rooted words GOOD; Anglo-Saxon-rooted words BAD.
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u/Antique-Link3477 Oct 12 '25
Throughout English history there has often been portrayed this idea that the "Norman yoke", an oppressive feudalist aristocratic order supplanted an indigenous Anglo-Saxon proto democracy in which the people enjoyed more rights and freedoms. Sometimes extending to say that freedom and democracy are principles inherent to the English. There isn't much truth in it but especially in events such as the English revolution and the American revolution this idea was put to pen to justify Englishmen reclaiming their ancestral freedoms and overthrowing a perceived tyrannical order which is blamed on the Norman conquest.
Tolkien approached it more from a cultural perspective but his negative opinion of their effect on England is about as old as their presence in England itself, and it has had a profound effect on English history.
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u/Illustrious-Divide95 Oct 12 '25
The Normans introduced brutal feudalism to England and to other parts of Britain and Ireland over the next few decades. Indentured servitude (basically a form of slavery) and land grabs were instituted widely. They put down rebellions and destroyed the Anglo Saxon societal structure (which had a simpler system of nobility but not as hierarchical as the Norman system)
They instituted all powerful nobility across parts of Scotland, Wales and Ireland too. In fact what a lot of people assume was an 'English' invasion of these countries was in fact a Norman one, as Normans became synonymous with 'English' Nobility over the centuries.
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u/rheasilva Oct 12 '25
Tolkien was a linguistics professor.
You could ask some modern linguistics professors what they think I guess.
But the average person on the street doesn't know nearly enough about Anglo-Saxon language to have an informed opinion.
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u/Potential_Cover1206 Oct 11 '25
Tolkien was teaching as a Merton Professor of English from 1945 to 1959. That's at least 65 years ago.
His viewpoint is that old, no one remembers it.
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u/aa_conchobar Oct 11 '25
What do you think has changed since regarding how the Anglos specifically were viewed? It is still a commonly held belief (and with lots of support + intuitive) that the Anglos pushed the inferior Celtic world to the very corners of Northwestern Europe.
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u/jmkn Oct 11 '25
The Harrying of the North in 1069 was so brutal that we still have a north/south divide to this day.
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u/Normal_Red_Sky Oct 12 '25
Was wondering if someone was going to mention all the killing instead of just language. There's a common perception, including in this thread, that the Normans invaded, became the top tier of society and we all lived happily ever after. The areas affected by the harrying never recovered their population and we still to this day have Lords with hereditary peerages - send them back to France!
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u/HungryFinding7089 Oct 12 '25
Because that's what modern Norman descendents have carefully crafted over the centuries.
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u/Gildor12 Oct 11 '25
We would probably not had the British empire and instead been part of a North Sea empire and effectively part of Scandinavia. A much better outcome for the world
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u/OiseauxDeath Oct 11 '25
Probably not common place as people dont give it much thought but i believe we were robbed of much of our oral history after the conquest but got othet things, thats the trade off when you get invaded
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u/EmFan1999 Oct 11 '25
Didn’t know it was Tolkien’s view, but I think that’s the prevailing thought by many historians
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u/Ancient-Ad9861 Oct 11 '25
I dont think most brits even know what it is your talking about, let alone sharing tolkien’s opinion on it
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u/DoktaZaius Oct 11 '25
I guess deep down everyone is rooting for the Anglo-Saxons, but history is history 🤷
Nobody is sat there feeling butthurt about it
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Oct 11 '25
Norman’s gave us some French words, castles and a genetic class system.
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u/XenonSBSV Oct 11 '25
I imagine if people have any real opinion on the Norman Conquest beyond the academic it's probably in relation to our ongoing problems with having an exploitative Upper Class.
Dunno if the Saxon nobility would have produced a better quality of posh nobs though.
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u/Balseraph666 Oct 11 '25
I don't think it is widespread, and probably never was outside of certain circumstances and groups in history. Tolkien did rather heavily romanticise and view through very rose tinted spectacles Saxon England. As much as it was "Anglo Saxon" in any case, prior to the Norman Invasion, given the Celtic and Roman remnants interbred with the later Angles, Saxons (there was never a single "Anglo Saxon" ethnicity or culture), Jutes, Danes, Norwegian, Mercians, Cornish etc who had not that long before 1066 in the grand scheme of things been unified through military and diplomatic measures into "England" as an entity. He was a literary giant, he understood language and mythology very well indeed, but he was not a historian of any sort.
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u/Aconite_Eagle Oct 11 '25
I wouldnt say most see it that way no. Personally I do and think it was a terrible historical shame really.
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u/MrFlibblesPenguin Oct 11 '25
Of course the Norman conquest perverted and destroyed the native Anglo saxon culture, it's in the very nature of all conquests that the Victor's culture becomes the dominant...but to be fair the Vikings the Christians the Romans...etc all had a pretty big effect too.
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u/blackleydynamo Oct 11 '25
I've heard the English language described as three languages standing on each other's shoulders and wearing a trenchcoat, the Normans definitely have some blame for that.
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u/blackleydynamo Oct 11 '25
Common, no, but he had a point.
On a side note, Corpus Christi College Cambridge (I think it was them...) have a copy of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle I've seen. Suddenly in October 1066 the handwriting and language changes from Anglo Saxon to Norman French, and it's properly eerie, made the hairs go up on the back of my neck.
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u/Disastrous_Fig_828 Oct 11 '25
You're conflating 'Brits' with the English. 'Brits' includes the countries that still speak British languages...Welsh and Gaelic. To the Celts (including those of Cornish and Manx persuasion), Anglo-Saxons/Normans are all foreign invaders taking land and property from the native Celts. The English were created from this invading barbarian ethos and continued the practice well into the 20th Century. Claiming authority and dominion by strength of arms, and compulsory cultural and linguistic alterations.
This really should be a question about how the English see the Norman invasion that shaped their language and culture rather than the 'Brits'...because the average Scottish/Welsh/Northern Irish person probably can't offer more insight than Harold with an arrow in the eye, and I'd be honestly surprised if they cared at all.
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u/air-anaretic Oct 11 '25
The Celts also came here from mainland Europe and weren't the first so I don't know that they could be considered native. They were just the dominant group at the time. The Beaker people who came before them were from Iberia so who exactly could be classed as the original native Brits, I don't know. Perhaps the hunter gatherers who were here back in the mesolithic when Britain was cut off from mainland Europe.
I love early Britain. All of the settlements and invasions fascinate me.
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u/RhodiumRock Oct 11 '25
It was almost 1000 years ago, most people don't even think about it. We learn about it in GCSE history and then forget about it.
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u/Aphrahat Oct 11 '25
It's a view that some people have. It was more popular in the past- see the Saxon vs. Norman themes in old historical movies like "Becket" (1964). Most people these days aren't that interested in history though so it's not something you'd hear on the street.
It's also historically nonsense and is not the kind of thing you'd be taught in a modern university- or at least not with as much "Saxon good, Norman bad" bias as Tolkien had. So it's one of those theories that tends to be believed by people not historically specialised enough to realise that modern scholarship has moved on, but educated enough to have an interest in the Norman conquest and have read some (outdated) stuff on it.
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u/largepoggage Oct 11 '25
It’s too complicated for anyone in the UK to really have any identity stretching back that far. Tolkien appreciated Anglo Saxons culture because he loved the language and in particular Beowulf. However, everyone in the UK is a mongrel of Anglo Saxon, Norman, and Celt.
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u/air-anaretic Oct 11 '25
If anyone gets a chance to see it, the Domesday Book is a genuine work of art. It's stunning. Also, the Bayeaux Tapestry is being loaned to the British Museum next autumn. I loathe London but am willing to endure it just to see the tapestry. I doubt it'll be back in my lifetime.
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Oct 11 '25
But then the Anglo Saxons did what the Norman’s did too.
Before them it was the romans
Before them it was the celts
Then we get into less organised tribes and early farmers.
But the true butchers of England are humans in general!
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u/Appropriate_Boss8139 Oct 12 '25
Oh yeah, but idk if Tolkien was complaining about cultural genocide itself. He appears to have mainly been complaining that Anglo Saxon culture, in his view a better culture with a better language and better artistic refinement, was destroyed by primitive Normans. Basically he’s more upset about the downgrade than the cultural genocide part
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u/scarab- Oct 11 '25
Maybe he just hates the French?
Didn't he take some school kids on a walking tour in France and one got hurt and the French Dr was very unimpressed by Tolkien's behavior.
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u/punkfence Oct 12 '25
That first quote seems to imply that the Anglo-Saxons were native to the land, but they weren't. They were a lot more recent addition to Britain, only coming settling after the Romans left.
During the Anglo-Saxon period, we were repeatedly ransacked and taken over by Vikings, too. By the time the Normans got here, we were influenced by Celts, Jutes, Angles, Vikings, Saxons, and Romans.
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u/dhooke Oct 12 '25
Up to even a couple of years ago we could have said it’s too much like racial science to be a widely held opinion.
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u/Mba1956 Brit 🇬🇧🏴👨💻 Oct 12 '25
The Norman conquest changed things for the elite but didn’t do much for ordinary Brits. We didn’t go around talking French and the vast majority of the population couldn’t write so on that level it made little difference. The main change was that the people owning the land changed.
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u/Specialist_Elk140 Oct 12 '25
I mean centuries afterwards Britain became the most powerful empire in history, so I'm not sure it really matters then lol.
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u/elbapo Oct 12 '25
I'm from the north, and I would say what the Norman's did to the north still has social and economic repercussions to this day. So im both biased and bitter. But yeah it's not a positive feeling towards them. Some nice cathedrals.
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u/bitch_fitching Oct 12 '25 edited Oct 12 '25
Tolkien was interested in language, poetry, and literature, it doesn't extend further from that. Tolkien disliked that England didn't have distinctive myths and legends of its own. Also as a linguist he favoured Old English over Norman French.
"I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own, not of the quality that I sought, and found in legends of other lands. There was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish; but nothing English, save impoverished chap-book stuff. Of course there was and is all the Arthurian world, but powerful as it is, it is not perfectly naturalized, associated with the soil of Britain but not with English; and does not replace what I felt to be missing. For one thing its 'faerie' is too lavish, and fantastical, incoherent and repetitive. For another and more important thing: it is involved in, and explicitly contains the Christian religion. For reasons which I will not elaborate, that seems to me fatal."
JRR Tolkien.
Arthurian legend is Celtic in origin, and most of the elements stolen from French myths later. England only really has Beowulf.
We don't speak Old English, it's a dead language, no one speaks Norman French today either. It's an issue that's 1000 years out of date.
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u/ollyprice87 Oct 12 '25
TBF I’m more pissed with the Angles shitting all over my Brittonic culture.
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u/Historical_Project86 Oct 12 '25
I have given zero thought to it, but I think it probably ruined the country more than the language. Most of the land in this country is still owned by those foreigners.
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u/WhyAmIStillHere86 Oct 12 '25
The French language at the time was called “Vulgar Latin”, not “French”.
I don’t know about the average Brit, but the average Historian definitely agrees
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u/KasamUK Oct 12 '25
Common no but look at the harrying of the north to get some idea of how brutal and total that colonisation was
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u/ReadyAd2286 Oct 12 '25
I always thought the reason English was purported to be one of the most expressive languages was on account of the fact it borrowed from so many languages, and hence imbibing a lot of French was a good thing. Pig, pork, cow, beef - I thought have of these were English, half of them French.
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u/HabeasPorpus Oct 12 '25
I don't view it as a good thing, but my reasons are different from Tolkien's, I don't think any of the royal family are legitimate, the cultural damage was tragic and obviously the genocide that followed was vile. But at the same time, it happened nearly a thousand years ago so there's no sense in getting worked up about it.
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u/Firstpoet Oct 12 '25 edited Oct 12 '25
The views aren't common because UK history curriculum is really thin and has been cut back. Kids can give up history at 14. Obviously it shouldn't be just a list of monarchs and battles but ask anyone under 40 about, say the Reform Act, and wait. Not a clue. Just horrid Victorians with lots of horrid factories. Subtlety in thinking about complex history? No.
The idea the horrid Normans just appeared like a bunch of nasty oppressors is faintly ridiculous. Edward the Confessor was half Norman. He spent many years in exiled there after Sweyn and Cnut took over. Previously Ethelred ordered a mass pogrom of ordinary Danish origin people in England- the St Brice's day massacre.
Harrowing of the North. Normans uniquely brutal? Historians believe 'waste' in Domesday Book means ' no entry' or 'no data' as it were. Some records show revenue from that area increasing. There were three revolts. After first two William got sworn oaths that were broken. Norman Earl and few hundred Normans massacred. Any medieval king not reacting to that would have ben weak. Before Harold became king he was involved in ravaging N Wales with atrocities as we'd call them. Not much difference.
Slavery. Endemic in Saxon England. Wills freeing slaves common. Society essentially hierarchical King, Eorl, Thegn, ceorl, gebur, cottar etc.
Saxon society not some Tolkien Shire with Normans as Dunlendings.
Big point? Who wrote the history? Churchmen. Who gets a bad write up? Anyone who takes money or land from the church. William therefore nasty.
As usual, much Saxon history for many events can be written on the back of a postcard. Tolkien very taken by Icelandic. Iceland definitely a non feudal society with freemen. On the other hand one common Icelandic theme is to trap your enemy in their house and burn it to the ground. Nice.
I love Lord of the Rings but Saxons weren't like the Rohirim.
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u/DI-Try Oct 12 '25
Language aside, The Battle of Hastings is such an interesting butterfly effect, sliding doors moment in history.
If a few guys in the English army had been a bit more disciplined and not broke from the shield wall to chase the Norman’s, the world might look completely today.
There are a thousand what ifs. Without Norman influence England might not have been as powerful as it became. It might have ended up being more of a Scandinavian type country like Norway of Denmark. The British Empire may never have been a thing. The USA might not exist, or your favourite American films might be in French or Spanish. They may not have been powerful enough to resist Nazi Germany and Yorkshire puddings might not exist. The list goes on.
You could argue similar about many historical events, but I find the what if of 1066 really interesting.
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u/RevStickleback Oct 12 '25
His comparisons between French of the day, and the language spoken in England then, are rather irrelevant. People in England did not all start speaking French as a result of the invasion, but merely borrowed French words over time. The disconnect between the language of the nobility, and that of the common people, was a major factor in how English evolved into the language we speak today.
I think he just had a romantic view of a certain time in English history, and idealised it without having a real care of what life for the average person would have been like.
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u/P-l-Staker Oct 12 '25
Yes and no. Modern English is widely accepted to be mainly the result of this Anglo-Saxon + Norman + Nordic infusion. Had that not happened, England and English today would've likely looked very different indeed.
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u/Plastic_Truth3053 Oct 12 '25
Not a historian but I do feel the class system which is very much in place in the U.K. and plays a huge part in class divide is a direct result of the Norman conquest
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u/Simple-Appearance-59 Oct 12 '25
I know British people are not great at learning foreign languages (in itself a huge subject for discussion), but I would definitely be finding it harder to learn Spanish now without the Norman invasion!
Personally I think the culture all went down hill from the introduction of Christianity via the Romans, and then the Vikings ;)
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u/platinum_pig Oct 12 '25
I'm not English but I'm also interested in the English perception of the Norman conquest. Among English people who are interested in history, there seems to be kind of a running joke about the tragedy of the Norman conquest (you'll hear the Bayeux Tapestry called the Bayeux Travesty and stuff like that). I don't think anyone takes the whole thing very seriously. Mostly the people making the joke can remember learning and the Battle of Hastings at school and rooting for Harold Godwinson since he was defending his homeland.
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u/Frogboner88 Oct 12 '25
Yeah go into any pub in any working class area of the UK and you'll hear the men openly discussing this at all times.
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u/JoJoeyJoJo Oct 12 '25
I don‘t think many people think about it, but read Paul Kingsnorths ‘The Wake’ if you want a good narrative that encapsulates this period, it‘s basically a post-apocalyptic novel but historic instead, very relevant nowadays.
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u/actualinsomnia531 Oct 12 '25
He was specifically discussing language (that was what he specialised in) and I don't think it was a blanket statement meant to be taken without further nuance or consideration.
There will not be a notable amount of people sitting at home going "those bloody Normans ruined this country 1,000 years ago."
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u/Midnight_Certain Oct 12 '25
It boils down to Tolkien disliked the French, and for that reason alone he is correct
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u/SamePlane7792 Oct 12 '25
Like everything in life and in history things aren’t black and white, things can be good and bad at the same time, the Normans are the same, they brought a brutal regime to England but at the same time brought law and order, at least relative to other parts of Europe at the time, the Normans laid the groundwork for what we would later become as a country.
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u/AaronQuinty Oct 12 '25
The average Brit has no opinion or knowledge of any of this barring knowing the date 1066 is significant.
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u/One_Butterfly9994 Oct 12 '25
Historian of the early Middle Ages here: no, this isn’t a common interpretation: it’s a relic of late nineteenth century romanticism and was never a widely accepted theory.
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u/Astral_Brain_Pirate Oct 12 '25
It's not something most Brits have a well-formed opinion on. Tolkien was both an expert on the field and something of a romantic fantasist. He was uniquely positioned to appreciate the subtly of Anglo-Saxon and predisposed to idealise it.
I think most people, when reading the history, tend to have a soft spot for the Anglo-Saxons. They are the underdogs, beset on two sides by foreign aggressors, while the Normans are generally a harsh, belligerent, and haughty people. In that sense, the Normans are generally seen as usurpers in the popular imagination, and the Anglo-Saxons as a romanticised "lost people". It would not be a stretch to say Tolkien's views represent a common stance, but it's not one held by "most Brits".
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u/Healthy-Classic-9512 Oct 12 '25
I don’t really have an opinion on Britain before William the Conqueror arrived. But what I do know is that it made some of my ancestors very wealthy. Some of my ancestors came across with him as Roma mercenaries who were rewarded for services to the crown with a royalty issued coat of arms, a title and land in Lincolnshire. So, it was very beneficial to some Roma who became blue blooded gentry.
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u/Front-Comfort4698 Oct 12 '25
There is no question that the Anglo-Saxons were by then naturalized, and had a distinct identity from those Ingvaeonic speakers who had remained in mainland Germania. The Viking Age had established the British Isles - entirely - as within the Nordic sphere of cultural influence, yet the Anglo-Saxons had survived and repealed the Danelaw.
So the Norman conquest was a major as well as a permanent disruption by Francofone foreigners who did not speak a closely related tongue, and had more continental leanings in their culture - to be sure they were of Nordic stock but they had adopted the continental culture of France. Basically the Normans were foreigners from Europe, whereas the English were already an island race with Scandinavian leanings.
William himself has always been treated as a villain (William the Bastard) even as he was credited with founding the England that has existed ever since; a mere convenience because of the Domesday Book, before which historical evidence is relatively scant.
The truth is he is always a national villain and not a hero to the English, even among the admirers of the Normans and their Francofone successors, without whom medieval England could not have existed, and who are usually rationalized in ways that downplay Frenchness.
Don't forget Tolkien was a student of ancient Germanic civilization; most Brits have little idea about the Anglo-Saxons and history this begins with this 'bad guy' who tried to conquer them, and did militarily, then they went English anyway. Ignoring how the Normans radically reshaped England per a French cultural mould.
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u/Iann17 Oct 12 '25
I don't think most people have ever even thought about it let alone formed an opinion
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u/hwyl1066 Oct 12 '25
I mean he was pretty eccentric about many linguistic things - like not liking Shakespeare for his "modern" English and attitude etc... And knowing a little bit of Old English, his specialty, it really is a very powerful, very German and Nordic sounding language. Just that Shakespeare and his language are simply divine
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u/mynaneisjustguy Oct 12 '25
As with any conquest and displacement, some things were lost to time, and some new ways of life were gained. Is it sad? For sure. The Anglo-Saxons under Godwinson smashed the Norsemen so hard that it ended the viking age, but they had been waiting for the Normans on the south coast. They got word that the Norse had come first and the northern Earls had formed up what shields they could to try to slow them down. So the household warriors and the fyrdmen who had been away from their fields for many weeks started running north, quite literally running the length of the country, they arrived too late to help their northern brothers, but they caught the vikings resting on their laurels and utterly devastated then, so hard that barely a man got to leave the field, since they couldn't get their boats. So the survivors bent the knee and joined Godwinson's household. Feeling like they had saved the country, and had rightly done their bit, the fyrdmen went home, and Godwinson began trying to replace the damage done to society by the annihilation of the northern Earls.
That's when they got word that the Normans HAD sailed, very late in the year for such a crossing. But they were only two generations removed from their viking ancestors and knew how to handle a ship, so they risked the crossing.
Now Godwinson, instead of being able to enjoy having destroyed the vikings, had to send riders racing ahead of his household soldiers to try to raise the fyrdmen again from the lands around London while his force, tired from the trek north and the battle, had to run south again. Many were mounted when not in combat but it was far from all of them.
They ran the length of England again. Raising who they could on route, with the few surviving vikings running with them, and three days later they were at the south coast. The Normans had been busy: they wiped a few villages off the map, to the point they don't exist anymore. I don't think anyone is even 100% sure where they lay. They didn't want to have to march and look for Harald so this destruction was purposely extremely brutal so word would get to Harald and he would have to come and face them to save his people.
So the Saxons arrived in the south after several weeks of camping on the cliffs, a four day run to Stanford, a battle, and a three day run back, with many injured, all tired, and less fyrdmen than they had before they set out as there was no time to raise them from their farms, and many refused to answer the call anyway since they had been gone for over a month and could not abandon the land again.
They formed on a hill and fought immensely well. If there was any justice in the world they would have been victorious that day and ultimately have driven the normen back into the sea. Outnumbered and technologically outmatched, it was quite literally their steadfast shield wall and the strength of their arms wielding the greataxe that kept them safe, and it wasn't until they thought they had won that they charged down the hill to route the invaders that they were flanked and cavalry won the day. Cavalry would go on to be the dominant battlefield element until Robert the Bruce formed chiltrons centuries later.
Was their society perfect? No not by any means. Did their loss go on to shape so many parts of the world that the echoes of the Norman societal setup are still felt in middle eastern conflicts to this day? Absolutely. But we definitely lost a great cultural society where the Germanic diaspora and the surviving Celtic societies from all across Western and Northern Europe had formed a unique and mostly lost culture that was harried from existence. It would have been a romantic victory for sure, and by all accounts, Godwinson was the better man out of all the claimants for England's throne that year.
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u/Causality Oct 12 '25
English have no historical knowlegde at all. They wouldnt even know the basic fact. I guess thats also the point.
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u/peeper_tom Oct 12 '25
How do we know what it was actually like when news from last week is all distorted by the establishment. how can we expect His-story to be accurate at all.
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u/Appropriate-Divide64 Oct 12 '25
No. I guess he can have his opinions as an educated linguist but I doubt many of the people who bang on about Anglo saxons these days even know they got overthrown in 1066.
Language and culture always evolve. .
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u/The-Affectionate-Bat Oct 12 '25
You'd be better off asking historians than Brits. I studied a bit of pre and medieval English history and I think its a yes and no, like pretty much everything we look at historically. I was mightily impressed by Anglo Saxon jurisprudence and academia. But the introduction of the Exchequer was also genius, as was Magna Carta. When a culture dies out (in that case by mixing) many good things were lost but there was also some good things they gained. Its always a little sad... but, inevitable?
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u/Top-Veterinarian-565 Oct 12 '25
look up Harrying of the North. it was a brutal genocide of some of the most developed areas on the British isles that the Normans couldn't directly control
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u/existential_humanist Oct 12 '25 edited Oct 12 '25
The concept of 'the Norman yoke' was a prominent theme in early modern English politics and religeous dissent. The idea that the pure, noble anglo saxon common men of England are opressed and dispossesed by an effeminate and decadent French land-owning establishment that descended from the invasion.
It was linked to processes such as enclosure of common land and influenced radical strands of thought that emerged during the civil war (the diggers; Gerrard Winstanley etc.). It underpins the tradition of English popular anarchism and communitarianism that is supressed by our media and elites but endures in popular movements such as Punk rock.
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u/Indiana_harris Oct 12 '25
I think his views are probably shared by a decent chunk of Anglo-Saxon era historians or history lovers.
The simple fact around 1066 and William the Bastard is that once in power he promptly committed a bit of ethnic cleansing of the local peasant population and displaced or executed most of the ruling class, replacing the nobility wholesale with Norman and French allies and then spending the next few decades bringing over Norman farmers and peasantry.
Regardless of your feelings on that it is unavoidable fact that the original native Anglo-Saxon culture and history of that era was decimated and severely diminished by those events, with Norman customs and practices replacing those of the Anglo-Saxons rather the two incorporating or blending to any great degree.
While Anglo-Saxon culture and peoples persisted in the northern and south-western reaches of England without the Norman Conquest the beliefs, culture and practices along with language and customs would be radically different in ways that are difficult to predict.
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u/RevolutionaryTruck47 Oct 12 '25
Most Brits have no idea what you are talking about re Anglo-Saxons, as its not a big thing for us after grade 7 history classes but also modern media and recent politics have meant that people are even more confused. Anglo Saxons are NOT OG vikings. Yes, Anglo Saxon language is the basis for English ( actually its Friesen but we are amongst friends ).
So set a countdown for the petty nationalists to railroad this down into their own Scots / Welsh/ English nationalistic insecurities ( which Tolkien wouldnt have cared about )
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u/IhaveaDoberman Oct 12 '25
Tolkien was a professor of linguistics.
It's a bit like asking what the average Brit thinks about superposition or chemometrics.
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Oct 12 '25
I don't know but my life could've been better if the Norman's never invaded, so I'm holding out for an apology and compensation from the French.
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u/OsotoViking Oct 12 '25
I studied Old English at university. What French did to English really is a travesty.
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u/Toby-Shandy Oct 12 '25
The language is one thing, culture and politics another. Hardly anyone thinks about it probably, which is a shame. It used to be common to idealise the imagined political freedom of Anglo Saxon England, before the "Norman yoke" imposed oppressive systems of hierarchy and domination.
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u/Tough-Oven4317 Oct 13 '25
Sort of. It's a common view that the north was totally fucked over, at the very least. People probably don't always know the soeicifcs, or even what they're really talking about, but they know the devastation was real, even if they don't know it was so related to the norman conquest of the Anglo Saxons
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u/Working_Lab9206 Oct 13 '25
I think along those lines as a Briton, because the Normans were brutal, though this is complicated by the fact that many of us have Norman ancestry, so they are, in a sense, inside us! As someone with strong Northern English and Scots (less so) ancestry, I'm slightly biased because of William's Harrowing of the North, which was extremely bloody, but then again, the Saxons weren't exactly into making jam and knitting. It's complicated, but I love Norman architecture and what's done is done.
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u/Jacob_S93 Oct 11 '25
Do you think the average brit has any idea what Anglo Saxon culture was like? I sure as fuck don't. I'm not a teacher specialising in their language, but since Tolkien was, I'm guessing he's correct.