The French Element

T HE Norman Conquest imposed on England a foreign aristocracy organised for war. It was a conquest, not a settlement or national migration. The victors at Hastings numbered little more than some 6,000 men. These Normans were descendants of Vikings whose presence in northern France had been tolerated in the hope that they would keep out others. They were the dominant race, but a minority; they remained a race of fighters, but adopted the language and religion of the country; they became Normans, Northmen by race, speaking a northern French dialect, born and bred in Normandy, a Duchy of France. In England, too, they were a dominant minority; Normans ultimately merged with the English; their language was absorbed by that of the defeated natives.