A few years later that French force became
overwhelming, for in 1066 William of Normandy came to our shores,
and with his coming it seemed for a time as if the life of
English literature was to be crushed out forever. Only by the
Chronicle were both prose and poetry kept alive in the English
tongue. And it is to Alfred the Great that we owe this slender
thread which binds our English literature of to-day with the
literature of a thousand years ago.
Chapter XVI WHEN ENGLISH SLEPT
"William came o'er the sea,
With bloody sword came he.
Cold heart and bloody sword hand
Now rule the English land."
The Heimskringla
WILLIAM THE NORMAN ruled England. Norman knights and nobles
filled all the posts of honor at court, all the great places in
the land. Norman bishops and abbots ruled in church and
monastery. The Norman tongue was alone the speech in court and
hall, Latin alone was the speech of the learned. Only among the
lowly, the unlearned, and the poor was English heard.
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