nts in later
times, probably had their children taught French because it was
considered aristocratic.

Until 1204 a knowledge of French was an absolute necessity to the
nobles, as they frequently went back and forth between their estates
in Normandy and in England. In 1204 King John lost Normandy, and in
the next reign both English and French kings decreed that no subject
of the one should hold land in the territory of the other. This
narrowing of the attention of English subjects down to England was a
foundation stone in building up the supremacy of the English tongue.

In 1338 began the Hundred Years' War between France and England. In
Edward the Third's reign (1327-1377), it was demonstrated that one
Englishman could whip six Frenchmen; and the language of a hostile and
partly conquered race naturally began to occupy a less high position.
In 1362 Parliament enacted that English should thereafter be used in
law courts, "because the laws, customs, and statutes of this realm, be
not commonly known in the same realm, for that they be pleaded,
shewed, and judged in the French tongue, which is much unknown in the
said realm."

LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 1066-1400

Metrical Romances.--For nearly three hundred years after the Norman
Conquest the chief literary productions were metrical romances, which
were in the first instance usually written by Frenchmen, but sometimes
by Englishmen (_e.g._ Layamon) under French influence. There were four
main cycles of French romance especially popular in England before the
fifteenth century. These were tales of the remarkable adventures of
King Arthur and his Knights, Charlemagne and his Peers, Alexander the
Great, and the heroes at the siege of Troy. At the battle of Hastings
a French minstrel is said to have sung the _Song of Roland_ from the
Charlemagne cycle.

These long stories in verse usually present the glory of chivalry, the
religious faith, and the romantic loves of a feudal age. In _Beowulf_,
woman plays a very minor part and there is no love story; but in these
romances we often find woman and love in the ascendancy. One of them,
well known today in song, _Tristram and Iseult_ (Wagner's _Tristan und
Isolde_), "a possession of our composite race," is almost entirely a
story of romantic love.

The romances of this age that have most interest for English readers
are those which relate to King Arthur and his Knights of the Round
Table. The foundation suggestions for the mos