Post-conquest Old English Literature

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Mary Swan (University of Leeds)

Ed. by Hugh Magennis, Queen's University Belfast
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.02: English Writing and Culture: High and Late Medieval, 1066-1485.
Vol. editors: Kate Ash-Irisarri (University of Edinburgh), Rory Critten (Université de Lausanne), David Fuller (University of Durham), Natalie Hanna (University of Liverpool), Hugh Magennis (Queen's University Belfast), Jamie McKinstry (University of Durham), Sarah Peverley (University of Liverpool), Sebastian Sobecki (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)

Domains

Literature Topic

Dates

Date of occurrence 1066-1215

Places

England (Location)

Despite the political and cultural changes brought about in England by the Norman Conquest, English remained the spoken language of the great majority of the population. Anglo-Norman and Latin were used after the Conquest for many written texts, especially more formal ones, but Old English continued to be used and to develop as a written language through from 1066 until the early thirteenth century. Earlier histories of the English language, and surveys of English literature, tended to obscure this continuing production of English texts, or to identify it as merely the mechanical reproduction of pre-Conquest texts by a few, scattered, elderly scribes with antiquarian interest. New work on this topic, such as that in Rewriting Old …

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1048 words

Citation: Swan, Mary. "Post-conquest Old English Literature". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 May 2003 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1278, accessed 23 November 2024.]

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Post-conquest Old English Literature

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