8.4 Emigration to the Byzantine Empire

Thousands of Anglo-Saxon nobles and soldiers ultimately found Norman domination unbearable and emigrated to Byzantium, placing themselves at the service of the Byzantine Emperor. Anglo-Saxon emigres came to dominate an elite unit called the Varangian Guard, which served as the Byzantine Emperor’s own bodyguard and continued in existence until at least 1204.

9. Legacy

As early as the 12^th century the Dialogue concerning the Exchequer attests to considerable intermarriage between native English and Norman immigrants. Over the centuries, particularly after 1348 when the Black Death pandemic carried off a significant number of the English nobility, the two groups largely intermarried and became barely distinguishable.

The Norman conquest was the last successful conquest of England, although some historians identify the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as the most recent successful invasion from the continent. Major invasion attempts were launched by the Spanish in 1588 and the French in 1744 and 1759, but in each case the combined impact of the weather and the attacks of the Royal Navy on their escort fleets thwarted the enterprise without the invading army even putting to sea. Invasions were also prepared by the French in 1805 and by the Germans in 1940, but these were abandoned after preliminary operations failed to overcome Britain’s naval and, in the latter case, air defences. Various brief raids on British coasts were successful within their limited scope, such as those launched by the French during the Hundred Years War and the Barbary pirates in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, the Spanish landing in Cornwall in 1595 and the Dutch raid on the Medway shipyards in 1667.

10. Language

10.1 Old English

10.1.1 Also about Old English

Old English, also called Anglo-Saxon, Englisc by its speakers, is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and southern Scotland between the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. What survives through writing represents primarily the literary register of Anglo-Saxon. It is a West Germanic language and is closely related to Old Frisian. It also experienced heavy influence from Old Norse, a member of the related North Germanic group of languages.

The term Anglo-Saxon came to refer to all things of the early English period by the 16th century, including language, culture, and people. While this is still the preferred term for the latter two aspects, the language starting from the 19th century began to be called Old English. This is because the language itself began to be studied in detail, and scholars recognized the continued development of the English language from the Anglo-Saxon period to Middle English and through to the present day. However many authors still use the term Anglo-Saxon to refer to the language. [17]

Old English was not static, and its usage covered a period of approximately 700 years – from the Anglo-Saxon migrations that created England in the fifth century to some time after the Norman invasion of 1066, when the language underwent a dramatic transition. During this early period it assimilated some aspects of the languages with which it came in contact, such as the Celtic languages and the two dialects of Old Norse from the invading Vikings, who were occupying and controlling large tracts of land in northern and eastern England, which came to be

known as the Danelaw. [18]