h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: William the Conqueror - A5674575
Author: uncharted666 - But why is the rum gone? - U1572880

Now that my first entry's been picked, I thought I'd brave Peer Review again...

Cool.

I'm thinking you might want to have an introductory paragraph, before you jump into the chronology of William's existence. Something like who he was, when he lived and why he's important enough to have an entry written about him.

And all your s should be s.

Nice to see you mention William link to Alfred the Grat you can actually link to the endited entry on Alfred like this

Alfred the Great

Good entry 666 I like it.

Agree with emr about an intro paragraph. I also think you could have as summing up para (see below)

Info in first para about his reign and marriage was presumably his adulthood, wasn’t it?

>>Edward the Confessor lived in Normandy until he claimed the throne in 1042,<< The English throne?

I think you need to explain what the Witenagemot and the Witan were.

>>One of the longest lasting changes<< Perhaps >>One of the most far-reaching changes<<

>>was the language barrier.<< This sounds odd. Perhaps change to something like >>was the impact on the language spoken in Britain<<

>>The connection between England and France also became more important.<< In what respects? Economically? Socially? And was the connection with the whole of France, or just Brittany? Didn’t last terribly long – they were clocking seven bells out of each other within a century or two

What was the legacy that he left? Language and what else? Children? Succession of the throne? Laws? Financial system? It would sum it up nicely.


Six Frenchbean

I can't find a single spelling mistake in here

I'm a bit obsessive about spelling

Thanks for everyone's comments so far. I'll sort them out tomorrow, ? I especially agree with the need for an intro and conclusion.

Let us know when you've made changes

OK, I've made some changes.

I put in an intro and a conclusion. In the conclusion I just put his heirs as his legacy. Anything else would just be repeating what I've already said.

Changed the subheaders to headers

Linked to Alfred the Great

Changed the 'childhood' heading

Put in a footnote about the witenagemot

I reworked the whole 'norman control' paragraph, and added some bits. I think it makes more sense now.

Good stuff 666

Check your footnotes. They should start with a capital letter and should end with a fullstop.

I like the additions and agree that the whole entry reads better now - and is more rounded (a beginning, middle and end).

However, these two paras are a wee bit repetitive and could possibly be rejigged a bit to give you the smooth read of the rest of the entry:

>>Of the many changes in England after the Norman invasion, one of the most significant was the widened gap between the nobility and the common people caused by a language barrier. The Normans spoke French, and French became the official language of government and nobility until the 15th century. Few common people could speak French, and few nobles deigned to learn Saxon English, although William did make an effort to learn the language.

After William lead the Saxon Conquest and became England's first Norman king, the power base in England changed immensely. Normans took the powerful political and religious positions for themselves, and the former Saxon ruling class were reduced to tenants of the land they once owned. Of the hundreds of Saxon noble families that existed before the invasion, only four survived in the new Norman ruled England.<<

I suggest something like the following:

>>>>After William became England's first Norman king, the power base in England changed immensely. Normans took all of the significant political and religious positions for themselves, and the former Saxon ruling class were reduced to tenants of the land they once owned. Of the hundreds of Saxon noble families that existed before the invasion, only four survived in the new Norman ruled England. There was a subsequent widening of the gap between the nobility (the Normans) and the common people (the Saxons) which was exacerbated by the language barrier. The Normans spoke French, which became the official language of government until the 15th Century. Few commoners spoke French and few nobles deigned to learn Saxon English, although William did make the effort.<<

Just a thought: what about Latin? At some point in British history, Latin was the language of court and 'society'. When was that? Must have been before Henry VIII, so the suggestion that French was predominant until the 15th Century might be worth checking. Probably one of your other Peerers will know


Fb

I fixed the footnotes and fiddled with the paragraphs. I'm not very sure about Latin. I put in what I know about it (not much!) but I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks

(BTW, would you mind calling me "uncharted" rather than 666? Thanks!)

Latin vs French: Latin was the *written* lingua franca in Europe through the 17th century, and was commonly used to record official documents (like laws and proclamations) and to communicate between people who didn't share a vernacular language (for example, a scholar who lived in France and one who lived in Germany). But the majority of people, no matter how high-born, did not speak Latin to each other. The thing about Norman French is that before the Conquest, people had been speaking Old English, including the monarchs and nobles. When William came in, the peasants were still speaking Old English, but he and his court spoke their native language, Norman French. Because he and his successors were all Normans for a while, French just became the standard language of the nobility. Sort of like when the Hanoverian kings only spoke French, except more so, because William had all his Norman barons too. Eventually, the French seeped into English and so the vernacular language became what we now know as Middle English - as immortalised in the works of Chaucer.

Through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Latin was used by intellectual types like philosophers and theologians, and if you went to university you would have learnt Latin, but no one spoke it normally. Again, the main difference is that Latin was used for recording things, but Norman French was the language of choice for nobles in 11th and 12th century England. The peasants, however, stuck with their English, and as we can see today their vernacular eventually won out.

Is that any help?

Sorry - I just looked at what you wrote: French didn't replace Latin at all! By the 15th century, when the Renaissance started, English had assimilated some French words, but certainly by the time of the Wars of the Roses it was the main language even among the elite. French was spoken by the French, English by the English, and Latin by all educated people who wrote books or needed to communicate with people who didn't speak the same language. By the end of the 17th century, Latin was slowly being eclipsed by the major vernaculars, like English. More and more books were published in vernacular and as languages such as English increased their hold over Europe and the world, there was less need for a completely different language to communicate. Furthermore, as more people were educated and became literate in their vernaculars, but not necessarily in Latin, they needed to be able to understand whatever was written down as well.

That was probably way more than you ever wanted to know.

And I think it might be a good idea to add a bit more to the explanation of the Battle of Hastings. Something along the lines of where the major forces were situated, how Harold's army had to come straight from the Battle of Stamford Bridge and was therefore tired out when it came to fighting William's men, some of the strategy William employed, that sort of thing.

There's already a EG entry about Hastings - I don't want to step on the author's toes. I linked to it.



I know - French was spoken by the elite and English by the peasants until around the 15th century. Latin began to replace French as the 'thing to know' around the same time (I think) but it was never spoken as an official language. I believe I said that Latin was spoken as the language of culture and learning. I think some Greek stories were translated *into* Latin, because Latin was seen as the language for the educated.

Oh dear, my apologies: I'd misread what you wrote in the entry.

Any other comments?

This is an excellent entry! I don't know any English history so I can't add to the content, but it reads very well and is interesting.

I spotted two tiny mistakes:

"forbad" should be "forbade"

"After William lead" should be "After William led"

Thanks! I actually fixed both of those in the original (someone else noticed them then too) but I've missed them again!

Fixed now, thanks!

I think this is a quite marvellous entry - it's about my favourite period of history (medieval Europe) and it's extremely well written and easy to understand.

Hurrah for Uncharted!

Paully