In the Reign of King John by Dan Jones

Author:Dan Jones [Jones, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781800240643
Publisher: Head of Zeus

So England in 1215 was a land of many languages –not quite Babel, but certainly a place where men and women were divided and defined by the words they used. And nowhere can we see how language reflected social stratification more starkly than in the field of names. Without exception, the names of the men involved in making Magna Carta on both the royal and the baronial side had a continental flavour. The king is named in Magna Carta as Johannes, although he would have been more familiar to his companions by the French version, Jean. He was the son of a Henry and his brothers had been called William, Henry, Richard and Geoffrey. In 1215 these were all distinctively French-sounding names, as befitted a dynasty that had its roots in Anjou, Normandy and Aquitaine, rather than in England.

Around the king too were rich and powerful men with uniformly un-English names. The archbishop of Canterbury was a Stephen; the two most prominent leaders on the rebel side were Robert (Fitzwalter) and Eustace (de Vesci). With them, arrayed on either side, were more Roberts and Richards, Henrys and Geoffreys. Even the few unusual names whom we find connected to the Great Charter – men like Saer de Quincy or Serlo the Mercer, mayor of London – came originally from across the Channel. Of traditional Anglo-Saxon names – Edmunds and Edwards, let alone Edwigs and Ethelstans – there are none. This shows how complete the Norman colonization of English aristocratic life had been since 1066.

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