Post-conquest Old English Literature

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Mary Swan (University of Leeds)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

Resources

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 English in the Twelfth Century

, ed. by Mary Swan and Elaine…

1048 words

Citation: Swan, Mary. "Post-conquest Old English Literature". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 May 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1278, accessed 14 December 2024.]

1278 Post-conquest Old English Literature 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.