Britain ... - Blue-Lite

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NOTES.
this dull and savage isle,
A land of vile barbarians .... p. 261.
Henry of Huntington says, that the English were all reduced
to servitude and sorrow, and that to be called an Englishman
was a reproach.
" William of Poictou, in describing the battle of Hastings,
at which he was present, frequently denominates the English,
the barbarians." Dr. Henry. Guitmund, when offered a bishopric
in England by William, said in reply, "I know not how
1 can preside over those, whose foreign names and barbarous
language I do not understand."
2
( ) Go, bid thy slaves
Some Saxon fair one to thy chamber . bring.
p. 262.
"After that fatal battle, (Hastings,) the native English sunk
into great contempt and wretchedness. Their estates were
confiscated, their persons insulted, their wives and daughters
dishonoured before their
eyes. The Normans, says an ancient
historian, were astonished at their own power, became as it
were mad with pride, and imagined that they might do whatever
they pleased to the English." Ibid.
Matilda, daughter of Malcolm Canmore, king of Scotland,
and the Queen of Henry I., was compelled, during her education
in England at this period, to wear the veil of a nun to secure
her person from insult and violence.
3
( ) Give me the sweet Provencal tongue for love. .
p. 262.
At the period of the Norman conquest, France was moulding
into two great divisions of : language that which, from our
own connexion with it, and from its chief cultivators, we call
Norman French j and that which is popularly called the Pro-
venc^al, a peculiar and not ungraceful language." Middle Ages.
"
Frankis specli is cald Romance,
So sais clerkes and men of France."
Wartoni Hist. Poet.