If the Hundred Years War Never Happened

IF THE 100 YEARS WAR NEVER HAPPENED

History of English Language

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Contents

Introduction        2

Hundred Years War        2

English Language – The Rebirth        3

Conclusion        3

Introduction

The “magistra vitae”, as the history is called, gives us the information about the times and people who lived before us. The times and people who made certain changes in the flow of life. The times and people who effected our lives and perspectives towards the past and the feature also. Those events will always be remembered and be the topic to talking about until the end of human kind. Those events are the writers of our destinies, and one of them is the Hundred Years war.

Hundred Years War

The history tells us that the war called Hundred Years war raged from 1337 until 1453, which tells us that Hundred Year war did not last for hundred years, but exactly hundred and sixteen years. The cause of the war was that Edward III, king of England, claimed he has the legacy to the throne by his mother side who was the daughter of Philip the Fair. Another reason says the war began due to economic reason. The French wanted to raise the taxes to the northern part of country where the England ruled. The war had begun.

The huge number of battles and the figures who fought them marked the history with their names and places. The kings and ordinary people had their roles in this part of time. On one side England had its heroes, the Kings: Edward, Richard, Henry, and France: Philip, John, Charles, and etc., but among all of them one name has the brightest shine in history of the war. A girl, a child, named Joan of Arc. The girl who inspired French soldiers, was also a soldier. She was the guiding star to the French men in battles. During one of the fights she was captured and after that burned as the enemy of England. The star got to the sky, guiding French people since then.

The war took many lives. The mercenaries belong to no side, and for them the money was the side they had belonged to. Armies developed new strategies to conquer the territory. Attacking strategies relied on the longbows and the loyal and honoured knights were replaced by them. Siege made armies to build new weapons and techniques in order to achieve the goals.

The end came when the War of Roses left England had in no position to wage war with France. For some, the war was matter of death, and for others war became the rebirth.

The war was the beginning of many changes. There were no big differences in classes between people. Middle and lower class got their rights in society.  The marriages were made no matter to which order broom or bride belonged. New technologies were used to produce weapons, war equipment, and new clothes or shields. But the biggest change, the main change which was brought by this war is the rebirth of the English language.

English Language – The Rebirth

Before the war the language of literature and language of the aristocracy was not English, but French.  As the Norman conquests established the monarchy who spoke French, even the kings who ruled the England spend more time outside the island, on continent. French language was used in law, for writing proclamations, governmental business, and served as source of communication of gentry and middle class.