The History of England from the Accession of James II, vol 1 | Page 9

that
dauntless valour which had been the terror of every land from the Elbe
to the Pyrenees, the Normans rapidly acquired all, and more than all,
the knowledge and refinement which they found in the country where
they settled. Their courage secured their territory against foreign
invasion. They established internal order, such as had long been
unknown in the Frank empire. They embraced Christianity; and with

Christianity they learned a great part of what the clergy had to teach.
They abandoned their native speech, and adopted the French tongue, in
which the Latin was the predominant element. They speedily raised
their new language to a dignity and importance which it had never
before possessed. They found it a barbarous jargon; they fixed it in
writing; and they employed it in legislation, in poetry, and in romance.
They renounced that brutal intemperance to which all the other
branches of the great German family were too much inclined. The
polite luxury of the Norman presented a striking contrast to the coarse
voracity and drunkenness of his Saxon and Danish neighbours. He
loved to display his magnificence, not in huge piles of food and
hogsheads of strong drink, but in large and stately edifices, rich armour,
gallant horses, choice falcons, well ordered tournaments, banquets
delicate rather than abundant, and wines remarkable rather for their
exquisite flavour than for their intoxicating power. That chivalrous
spirit, which has exercised so powerful an influence on the politics,
morals, and manners of all the European nations, was found in the
highest exaltation among the Norman nobles. Those nobles were
distinguished by their graceful bearing and insinuating address. They
were distinguished also by their skill in negotiation, and by a natural
eloquence which they assiduously cultivated. It was the boast of one of
their historians that the Norman gentlemen were orators from the cradle.
But their chief fame was derived from their military exploits. Every
country, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Dead Sea, witnessed the
prodigies of their discipline and valour. One Norman knight, at the
head of a handful of warriors, scattered the Celts of Connaught.
Another founded the monarchy of the Two Sicilies, and saw the
emperors both of the East and of the West fly before his arms. A third,
the Ulysses of the first crusade, was invested by his fellow soldiers
with the sovereignty of Antioch; and a fourth, the Tancred whose name
lives in the great poem of Tasso, was celebrated through Christendom
as the bravest and most generous of the deliverers of the Holy
Sepulchre.
The vicinity of so remarkable a people early began to produce an effect
on the public mind of England. Before the Conquest, English princes
received their education in Normandy. English sees and English estates

were bestowed on Normans. The French of Normandy was familiarly
spoken in the palace of Westminster. The court of Rouen seems to have
been to the court of Edward the Confessor what the court of Versailles
long afterwards was to the court of Charles the Second.
The battle of Hastings, and the events which followed it, not only
placed a Duke of Normandy on the English throne, but gave up the
whole population of England to the tyranny of the Norman race. The
subjugation of a nation by a nation has seldom, even in Asia, been
more complete. The country was portioned out among the captains of
the invaders. Strong military institutions, closely connected with the
institution of property, enabled the foreign conquerors to oppress the
children of the soil. A cruel penal code, cruelly enforced, guarded the
privileges, and even the sports, of the alien tyrants. Yet the subject race,
though beaten down and trodden underfoot, still made its sting felt.
Some bold men, the favourite heroes of our oldest ballads, betook
themselves to the woods, and there, in defiance of curfew laws and
forest laws, waged a predatory war against their oppressors.
Assassination was an event of daily occurrence. Many Normans
suddenly disappeared leaving no trace. The corpses of many were
found bearing the marks of violence. Death by torture was denounced
against the murderers, and strict search was made for them, but
generally in vain; for the whole nation was in a conspiracy to screen
them. It was at length thought necessary to lay a heavy fine on every
Hundred in which a person of French extraction should be found slain;
and this regulation was followed up by another regulation, providing
that every person who was found slain should be supposed to be a
Frenchman, unless he was proved to be a Saxon.
During the century and a half which followed the Conquest, there is, to
speak strictly, no English history. The French Kings of England rose,
indeed, to an eminence which was the wonder and dread of all
neighbouring nations.