Talk:Anglo-Normans

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"by the 13th century the Anglo-Normans had merged with the Anglo-Saxons to form the English." - This seems a disappointingly sweeping and unsupported statement to conclude an otherwise excellent article. Linguistic differences gradually disappeared for sure, but is it really true to suggest that ethnic and cultural distinctions also perished? After all, the "Anglo"-Normans (perhaps "Normans settled in England" would be a more accurate if unweildy term) established a hereditary aristocracy which, out of family ambition, often inter-married not with the English but with other Norman families settled in England. One need only compare the surnames of Elizabeth I's noble courtiers with lower-class English surnames at the time to notice that the nobility still clearly has a Norman flavour. In view of the tendency to marry within the nobility, is it realistic to conclude that this was merely a nominal inheritance? I won't even begin to consider the degree of Englishness of the Royal family! + - I don't want to edit the article because the author has done such a good job, I just wish he/she would qualify or support the above statement, or at least explain how he/she believes this process took place. + - + - I agreee with the above. The Normans were only English when it suited them. The long Wars with France required an English nationalism and the mighty became English when they needed to. One suggestion for their partial adoption of English is that the French were rude about the poor 'French language" spoken by the Norman nobility so they moved to English. Others point out that the Saxon produces the Cow and Pig whilst the Norman-French eats the Beef and Pork. To suggest that the Normans and the English became sort of equals is wrong. + - Until the Great Reform Act of 1832 most of the political power rested with the landed gentry who can generally trace their ancestory back to William the Bastard's invasion. + - + - :The 13th century is certainly wrong, and it isn't internally consistent. If you didn't know otherwise you would assume that the Hundred Years War must have ended in the 13th century. I'm changing it to 15th. As for later centuries, I think the English identity was clear. Aristocrats always traced their ancestry as far back as possible, but it didn't necessarily undermine their identification with the country they lived in. They would all have claimed descent from patrician Romans if they could, but it wouldn't have made them culturally Roman, or even made them think they were. And by 1832 there were many aristocrats and gentry who couldn't trace their ancestry to the Normans, including some ducal families. 82.35.34.11 12:25, 28 August 2005 (UTC) +

Just because some of the landed gentry can trace some of their lineage back to the Normans in the 19th Century doesn't mean that equally their lineage was not part Anglo-Saxon. There was still a sizable amount of Anglo-Saxon gentry in the middle ages and you only have to look at Scotland or Ireland to see how the the Normans had fully assimilated after a few centuries and gentry didn't always marry other gentry. And your argument that the Anglo-Normans adopted English because they were poor at speaking French is pretty tenuous. Try because they were outnumbered by English speakers who were not all peasants as your argument intentionally/unintentionally suggests.

+ The section covering the Normans in Ireland should by right be redirected to 'Hiberno-Normans' rather than here under 'Anglo-Normans'. There are many, many reasons why this should be the case. In the first place, most Normans came from Wales, not England and thus the epithet 'Cambro-Normans' is used to describe them by leading late medievalists such as Seán Duffy. Indeed the only Norman you mention is "Richard de Clare, second earl of Pembroke", and yet you refer to him as "Anglo-Norman" when clearly 'de' is Norman, and Pembroke is in Wales. Furthermore, contrary to common belief the term 'Old English' only came into use to describe them in 1580- i.e. over four centuries after the first Normans arrived in Ireland. In addition, if they were Anglo-Normans four centuries after arriving in Ireland (from Wales!) can we hear more about the "Norman-English" 400 years after 1066? It is ahistorical in the extreme to deny the very Hiberno-Norman cultural and political world they developed in these centuries and hide it under the simplistic misnomer, "Anglo-Normans". To simplify my argument somewhat: while not all Normans, or even a majority of them, in Ireland were of English/Anglo origin, all those of Norman descent in Ireland were Hiberno-Normans.

The Map of Norman Possessions

The map of Norman Possessions in the 12th century should really include the Lordship of Ireland which was established by 1171. (Cmount 10:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC))

Link added to ‘Anglo-Celtic’ article

Hello, in the ‘See also’ section here I have just added a link to Wikipedia’s relevant ‘Anglo-Celtic’ article. Kind regards, Pconlon 11:35, 27 June 2007 (GMT)

First use of 'Anglo-Norman'?

This article has no mention of when the term 'Anglo-Norman' was first used to describe the community, or even the language. It obviously was not in 1066, and equally obviously there could never have been an 'Anglo-Norman' invasion of England then. Does anybody know? 86.42.98.32 (talk) 21:24, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Picture

Can anybody tell me what that picture is supposed to signify? ie. what date, what it stands for etc. Ace blazer (talk) 10:12, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

The map? It is supposed to represent 'Norman possessions in the 12th century'.--Celtus (talk) 07:31, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Definitional problems

Do the FitzAlans, who were Breton in origin, really count as Anglo-Norman? I've been thinking about the same problem in relation to the darras famly, who were obviously from Artois. Sjwells53 (talk) 15:45, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Norman switch to 'English' identity

Was actually much sooner than the article suggests. Many Normans were self-identifying as 'English' by the end of the 1100s. Plantagent England further encouraged an 'English' identity in the face of continental retainers being granted titles, positions and land in England. The surviving chronicles are packed with declarations of Englishness in this era. Some linguists suggest that Norman had ceased being a first language among the gentry by the end of the 1100s too (except the Angevin/Aquitanian Plantagenets), and undoubtedly this was true of many. They may have retained Norman, then French 'proper' and a touch of Occitan due to Aquitanian influence as a court language, but spoke it purely as Churchmen spoke latin - as an in-club affectation. French and German were spoken across Europe as prestige court languages. This wasn't peculiar to England. The Scandinavian courts spoke German into the 18th centuries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.186.174.69 (talk) 13:09, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Wrong, the Normans and the Norman aristocracy couldn't speak any English until centuries later, William the conquer and his descents couldn't speak a word of English for the next several centuries. King henry who invaded Ireland was born and died in France and Normans in England didn't self identify as English or Anglo-saxons until the 14th century long after they invaded and settled in Ireland. The Norman who self Identified as English in England was very rare in the 1100s, this is only a 100 years off the boat from France, infact many of the Normans who invaded Ireland were born in Wales and France— Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.152.208.89 (talk) 03:45, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

"See also" section

At present, the "See also" section is a subsection of "Anglo-Norman families". Since the only link in it is Companions of William the Conqueror, I'm wondering if this is intentional. If it is, maybe Template:See also would be more appropriate? —Ringbang (talk) 03:18, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Cambro-Normans

Both here and in the main Cambro-Norman article it is asserted that Cambro-Norman is the usual term for Normans who conquered parts of Wales. This is not the case. The only context I am aware of it being used is in dealing with the Norman invasion of Ireland, to refer to the Norman (and Welsh) soldiers. Unless there are historians of medieval Wales who use this term the article should only mention it in passing. Martinlc (talk) 21:29, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Anglo-Norman language which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 09:59, 9 November 2017 (UTC)