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For about 300 years following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Norman kings and their high nobility spoke only one of the langues d'oïl called Anglo-Norman, which was a variety of Old Norman used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles during the Anglo-Norman period and originating from a northern dialect of Old French, whilst English continued to be the language of the common people. Middle English was influenced by both Anglo-Norman and, later, Anglo-French (see Anglo-Norman language, "Characteristics").

The English language has been shaped by a number of other languages over the centuries, and many English speakers know that Latin and German were two of the most important. What many people don't realize is how much the French language has influenced English.

The French state has its origin in the middle ages. Before the 13th century, the king of France had very little power. He had to deal with many other feudal lords, some of which were more powerful than him. He had, however a model : the Roman catholic Church who had just reorganized itself. The pope was surrounded by jurists as advisors. Roman law had been rediscovered too : the corpus iuris civilis of Justinian. Canon law had been codified according to this model with the decree of Gratien.

The Romance language group (or Gallo-Romance) in the north of France is that of the langue d'oïl, the languages which use oïl (in modern usage, oui) for "yes". These languages, like Picard, Walloon, and Francien, were influenced by the Germanic languages spoken by the Frankish invaders; Norman was later also heavily influenced by the Norse settlers who founded the Norman state of Normandy. From the time period Clovis I on, the Franks extended their rule over northern Gaul. Over time, the French language developed from either the Oïl language found around Paris and Ile-de-France (the Francien theory) or from a standard administrative language based on common characteristics found in all Oïl languages (the lingua franca theory). Oïl derives from the Latin hoc ille ("that is it").

"The remains of a noblewoman buried at the Convent of the Jacobins in the northwestern French city of Rennes in 1656 have been found in exceptional condition. Discovered in March of 2014, the remains have been quietly studied by a multidisciplinary team who are now revealing the results of their investigations."

"NPR's Sheilah Kast speaks with Eric Jager, author of The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal and Trial by Combat in Medieval France. At about this time of year in 1386, two knights in armor faced a duel to the death at a monastery in Paris -- it would be the last time the French government authorized a duel to settle a legal dispute."

CARTE INTERACTIVE DES LIEUX D'HISTOIRE ET DE MÉMOIRE - prehistory, antiquity, middle ages, modern times, contemporary history.  In French

Another famous collection, now known as Le Viandier de Taillevent, was originally compiled at the beginning of the 14th century; later it was attributed to the head chef of the Valois court, Guillaume Tirel, also known as Taillevent, who had a long and distinguished career as a professional chef. Tirel had the status of a squire and the coat of arms on his tomb, at St Germain en Laye outside Paris, incorporates a row of three cooking pots. The collection has the distinction of being the first printed cookery book; this occurred in the 1480s and the book went through several subsequent editions. The contents were modified considerably with the passage of time; the first printed version contains an additional group of contemporary recipes that have been described as the 15th century French 'nouvelle cuisine'! - you can see an online version at:

The Way of St. James or St. James' Way (Galician: O Camiño de Santiago, Spanish: El Camino de Santiago, French: Chemin de St-Jacques, German: Jakobsweg) is the pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tradition has it that the remains of the apostle Saint James are buried.

Chartres Cathedral is among the best preserved of the major French cathedrals, with extensive programmes of sculpture and stained glass.  It was a major site of pilgrimage in honour of the Virgin Mary, to whom the cathedral is dedicated. This website provides access to a comprehensive collection of images and detailed descriptions of Chartres Cathedral.

Dance of Death, also variously called Danse Macabre (French), Danza Macabra (Italian and Spanish), Dança da Morte (Portuguese), Totentanz (German), Dodendans (Dutch), is a late-medieval allegory on the universality of death: no matter one's station in life, the Dance of Death unites all. There is also a strong element of estates satire. The Danse Macabre consists of the dead or personified Death summoning representatives from all walks of life to dance along to the grave, typically with a pope, emperor, king, youngster, and labourer. They were produced to remind people of the fragility of their lives and how vain were the glories of earthly life.[1] Its origins are postulated from illustrated sermon texts; the earliest recorded visual scheme was a now lost mural in the cemetery of the Holy Innocents in Paris dating from 1424-25.

The subject of The Life of King Louis the Fat  was Louis VI, the first important Capetian king of France, who reigned from 1108 to 1137.  Louis's main achievement was to consolidate royal power within the Ile-de-France by suppressing the castellans who dominated the royal domain lands. (The term "castellan" refers to a noble who possessed one or more castles.) Louis's success owed much to an alliance he forged between the French monarch and the great Churchmen (bishops and abbots) and the leading townsmen of northern France.  Suspicious of the power of his barons, Louis used clergy and burghers rather than great nobles as royal administrators. His efforts to establish peace and maintain order facilitated the development of agriculture, trade and intellectual activity in the Ile-de-France. Under his rule, Paris began its expansion which would make it by 1200 the greatest Christian city north of the Alps. The following excerpts describe Louis's military actions against the "robber barons" of the Ile-de-France and the King of England Henry I (r.1100-1135).

ETHNIC CLEANSING OF THE ENGLISH 'THE HARRYING OF THE NORTH'   The previous article talked of the ethnic cleansing of the English known as the Harrying of the North, and how much of the northern counties of England was laid waste*. The Normans seemed to combine up to date military skill and tactics, with their own violent Scandinavian Viking heritage. They had many vengeful Bretons with them. They were the Romano-Brythons (who some mistakenly call Celts,) who had fled the English / Saxon onslaught in 458 AD to Brittany in northwestern France and sought some weird revenge. French mercenaries accompanied them. Later English retaliation on northern France was furious. In their blood lust the Normans killed 150,000 English. The Harrying of the North was a brutal act that wouldn't have been worthy of an English King, but was certainly worthy of the usurper William Duke of Normandy. His 'harrying' not only affected Northumberland and Cumberland, and Yorkshire, but also large tracts of Cheshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire.

Richard and the French King, Phillip, slowly broke the city's walls, weakening its defenses while simultaneously starving the occupiers into submission. Finally, on July 12, the Muslim defenders and Crusaders agreed to surrender terms.

Monarchs and Monasteries: Knowledge and Power in Medieval France

Conçu en lien avec les programmes français d'histoire du moyen-âge etdestiné autant aux élèves du primaire que du secondaire I, le jeudidactique «Construis ta cité médiévale» donne aux apprenants une idéede ce qu'était une ville à cette époque et permet de suivre sonévolution au fil du temps