th theological and anthropological--to be utterly unsound.

ANGLO-NORMAN LITERATURE:--The French language (_q.v._) came over
to England with William the Conqueror. During the whole of the 12th
century it shared with Latin the distinction of being the literary
language of England, and it was in use at the court until the 14th
century. It was not until the reign of Henry IV. that English became
the native tongue of the kings of England. After the loss of the
French provinces, schools for the teaching of French were established
in England, among the most celebrated of which we may quote that
of Marlborough. The language then underwent certain changes which
gradually distinguished it from the French spoken in France; but,
except for some graphical characteristics, from which certain rules
of pronunciation are to be inferred, the changes to which the language
was subjected were the individual modifications of the various
authors, so that, while we may still speak of Anglo-Norman writers, an
Anglo-Norman language, properly so called, gradually ceased to exist.
The prestige enjoyed by the French language, which, in the 14th
century, the author of the _Maniere de language_ calls "le plus bel et
le plus gracious language et plus noble parler, apres latin d'escole,
qui soit au monde et de touz genz mieulx prisee et amee que nul autre
(quar Dieux le fist si douce et amiable principalement a l'oneur et
loenge de luy mesmes. Et pour ce il peut comparer au parler des angels
du ciel, pour la grand doulceur et biaultee d'icel)," was such that it
was not till 1363 that the chancellor opened the parliamentary session
with an English speech. And although the Hundred Years' War led to a
decline in the study of French and the disappearance of Anglo-Norman
literature, the French language continued, through some vicissitudes,
to be the classical language of the courts of justice until the 17th
century. It is still the language of the Channel Islands, though there
too it tends more and more to give way before the advance of English.

[v.02 p.0032]

It will be seen from the above that the most flourishing period of
Anglo-Norman literature was from the beginning of the 12th century to
the end of the first quarter of the 13th. The end of this period is
generally said to coincide with the loss of the French provinces to
Philip Augustus, but literary and political history do not correspond
quite so precisely, and the end of the first period w