Anglo-Normans

Under their duke, William, they conquered England itself in 1066, and there set up a strong insular monarchy.

Their foothold in France, however, brought the Anglo-Norman kings in conflict with their neighbor, and wars were to rage between the two countries with only rare intermissions until 1815.

At first, their object was largely territorial possession.

Later, economic factors grew more apparent, until in the eighteenth century, and under Napoleon, the struggle had become one for oversea colonial empire.

And so, early in the reign of Stephen, grandson of the conqueror, the clerk Geoffrey of Monmouth, drawing on the store of British legend and altering it freely, ventured to publish his History of the Kings of Britain, an alleged chronicle in Latin prose.

Here we have for the first time in literary form the story of Arthur, king of Britain, of his wide conquests, and of his death at the hands of traitorous Mordred.

Soon other authors, mostly Anglo-Norman or subject to Anglo-Norman influence, began to use material similar to Geoffrey's.

They celebrated Arthur's round table and various knights whom Geoffrey had not mentioned.

And then I suppose the more research we did, again, you know, battles and stuff are recorded, but cultural activity wasn't really recorded as much in the history books.

But we do kind of see that in the old halls before British rule and Anglo-Norman rule totally took hold that the harpist would sit next to the king and then after that would be the poet.

And that they would often work together.

So often storytellers would often work with harpists, percussionists, primitive Bauron bones, different things.

Our Anglo-Saxon literature, for instance, is not represented by any contemporary copies.

The Anglo-Norman writer's had a contempt for the old english manuscripts and turned them into palimpsests without the slightest idea that there could be any value in them and attached far more importance to the writing they themselves were about to make thus it happens that we are in the same position with regard to anglo-saxon literature as with regard to classical authors no original documents exist and it is known to us solely through copies single copies in most cases beowulf for instance is represented only by a manuscript of the first half of the eleventh century and caedmon by a manuscript of the tenth century With the invention and spread of the knowledge of printing, however, the risk of loss was greatly reduced.

Such ancient writings, as came into the printer's hands, were given a fresh lease of life, which in many cases was of indefinite length, or rather of practically eternal duration.

But the fact of being printed was not invariably a safeguard.

Even today, large urban centers are few and are situated without exception on the coastal periphery.

None of them were of Gaelic foundation, all being opposed or Gaeldom from without by Scand, Saxon or Anglo-Norman.

Even a village on the Saxon model with dwellings centred around a church is uncharacteristic here, where the isolated holding or the scattered hamlet called the townland is more typical.

The word anglicized as Bally in many place names is the Irish Bale, meaning not town as often translated, but the very different concept of the town land.