To
answer your question, we first need to establish the length of the respective periods: the
Anglo-Saxon period is considered to be between 250 CE and 1066 CE, and the Anglo-Norman Period
is between 1066 CE and about the middle of the fourteenth century. This is when, in 1362, Edward
III replaced French with English in law courts. By 1385, English became the dominant language
for schools.
We must also acknowledge that the periods overlapped to some
degree in terms of the literature being written. And to respond to your question about which
period treasured its literature more and contributed more to English literature, I would have to
say that the cultures of both periods treasured their literature equally and both contributed to
the heritage of literature in England equally, perhaps with a slight edge to the Anglo-Saxon
Period.
During the Anglo-Saxon Period, for example, an anonymous monk
composes the epic poem Beowulf, not only the only surviving epic poem in
Old English but the only surviving epic in any Germanic language. Beowulf,
which survives in only one manuscript, is a foundational work of English literature because it
holds a mirror up to the culture that dominates England for almost a millennium. A shorter epic,
the Finnsburg Fragment, is included in
Beowulf but recounts a Scandinavian dynastic struggle separate from the
Beowulf epic and, unlike Beowulf, does not contain
Christian references.
Another culturally important poem is
Widseth, written about 725 CE, which recounts the journey of a bard named
Widseth who tells of his journey around the courts of several Anglo-Saxon kings. Other
significant poems that we study in order to understand the Anglo-Saxon world view are
The Seafarer, The Wanderer, Deor's Lament, Wulf and Eadwacer, and
The Wife's Lament, which is about a woman separated from her
husband.
In about 670, we have the advent of a flood of ecclesiastical works,
beginning with the Venerable Bede's of the English People, which recounts
the history of the English people from the Roman invasion in 54 BCE to 731 CE, the best history
we have of the English people until the 1600s. During the reign of Alfred the Great (ca. 849 to
900 CE), and most likely at his direction, a group of monks began compiling the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a year-by-year history of the Anglo-Saxon people,
which extends beyond Alfred's life and is considered the most significant example of prose in
Old English. The Chronicle, in its longest version, records events as late
as 1153 CE, and linguists are able to study the transition from Old English to early Middle
English.
Although it is commonplace to say that Anglo-Saxon literature ends
with the Norman Conquest in 1066, the fact is, the culture and language persists among the
common people even though the literate classclerics and the aristocracyspeaks French and Latin,
and much of the literature begins to mirror the language of its readers and listeners.
In about 1140, Geoffrey of Monmouth, a Benedictine monk who is considered the founder
of the Arthurian epic produces the Historia Regum Britanniae, introducing
King Arthur to the English landscape. A few years later, Robert Wace, another cleric,
essentially translates Geoffrey's Historia into French, adds a few details
to the Arthurian legend (the Round Table), and incorporates many of the elements of French
chivalry into the story. In about 1205, Layamon (pronounced Lagamon) writes
what we refer to as Layamon's Brut, essentially a verse translation of
Wace, yet another work about Arthur but, perhaps most important, it is written in early Middle
English and relies heavily on Old English alliterative verse and .
Following
the flowering of Arthurian romances, we have many religious poems in early Middle
EnglishAncrene Riwle (Rule for Anchoresses), Ayenbite of Inwit (Remorse of
Conscience)and several secular poems like The Owl and the
Nightingale (ca. 1255), a debate about whether a religious life or worldly life is
better. After the mid-1200s, the French language is declining steadily even among the
aristocracy, and the literature that remains is increasingly rendered in Middle
English.
The Anglo-Norman Period, although it lasts from 1066 to about 1350,
ends almost in a whimper, and its literature, though certainly a vital part of English literary
historywhere would we be without Arthur and the Round Table?is absorbed by a language, English,
that is so central to most of the population that French-centered literature, no longer
representative of even the aristocracy, cannot survive.
href="https://parker.stanford.edu/parker/catalog/2H7BKEPR">https://parker.stanford.edu/parker/catalog/2H7BKEPR
