The Norman-French

aunt minerva collection
The Foster Family by W.T. Foster, cont.



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We are now dealing with the Norman-French, a new race of people who conquered England in October 1066, governed it absolutely from that time till about 1216, against the will and opposition of the Saxons, Angles and Celts who had misruled England for 200 years. About 600 A.D. the dissatisfied Saxons and Angles, whome th Wends had conquered, abandoned the Baltic provinces, crossed the North Sea and conquered England. Our ancestors were not in that war. About 800 A.D. the Wends and the Angles of Denmark, southern Sweded and other Baltic states, under command of Anacher, our ancestor, with their Viking ships, with a great army and navy, crossed the North Sea , conquered northern Europe and organized a new state which they called Flanders. A little later Rolf, another Wend, son of a Norway chief, conquered northern France, west of Flanders and organized another new state, naming it Normandy.
The Normans of Normandy, under William, their Duke, and the Normans of Flanders, under their County, Baldwin IV,our ancestor, whose family name was Forrester, ,united their forces, conquered England, OCt. 1066 A.D. and became the Norman-French of England. Their language was French and they refused to mix or associate with the Angles, Saxons and Celts. This new race was made up principally of descendants of the Wends but was mixed with a few of the old Angles of Denmark, Belgians of Flanders, and Saxon, Scandinavians of Norway. Lord Macauley was England's greatest historian. As he was a descendant of the Scot and Celt tribes of Scotland, with every reason to dislike the Norman-French, he would probably not say anything favorable to the Norman-French that is not fully due them. On page 8, Volume I, Macauley's History of England, he says: "The Normans were then the foremost race of Christendom. Their valor and ferocity had made them conspicious among the rovers whom Scandinavia had sent forth to ravage Western Europe. Their sails were long the terror of both coasts of the English channel. Their arms were repeatedly carried into the heart of the Carlovingian empire," (Western Roman Empire under martel and Charlemagne,)"and were victorious under the walls of Paris adn the capitol of Limburg, Later one of the feeble heirs of Charlemgne ceded to the strangers a fertile province, (Normandy) watered by a noble river, (The Seine) and contiguous North Sea, which was their favorite element. In that province they founded a mighty state which gradually extended its influence over the neighboring principalities of Brittany and Maine. Without laying aside that dauntless valor which has 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 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 (French) 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 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 renounceed tht 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 strking contrast to the carse voracity and drunkenness of his Saxon and Danish neighbors. (In England), 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, adn wines remarkeable for their exquisite flavor rather than for their intoxicating power. That chivalrous spirit which has exercised so powerful an influence on 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 pleasing address. They were also distinguished by their skill in negotiation and by a natural eloquence which they assiduously cultivated. It was the boast of one of their historians that from the Norman gentlemen were orators from the cradle. But their chief fame was from their military exploits. Very country, from the Atlantic ocean to the dead sea, witnessed the prdigies(? this is the spelling? deb) of their discipline and valor. One Norman Knight, at the head of a hand ful of warriers, scattered the Celts of Connaught (Ireland). Another founded the monarchy of the Two Siscilies and saw the Emperors of both the East and the West fly before their arms. A third, Ulysses of the first crusade, (this was a Foster) was invested by his fellow soldiers with the Soverignity of Antioch (Capitol of Palestine) and fourth, the Tanored, whose name lives on in the great poem of Tasso, was celebrated throughout Christendom as one of the bravest and most generous of the champions of the Holy sepuldher(?their spelling? deb) . The vicinity of so remarkable a people early began to produce an effect on the public mind of England."
(ends page 17)

to be cont....