Impact of immigration in the Medieval era - OCR AThe impact of the Norman Conquest

The Norman conquerors and their descendants, who controlled England for centuries, had a huge impact on our laws, land ownership and system of government which is still felt today. They invaded and colonised England and organised the fastest and deepest transfer of land and wealth in the country’s history. Within a few years of William the Conqueror becoming king, over 40 per cent of the land was in the hands of a small number of people, all of whom were foreign.

The Normans abolished slavery after information collected for the Domesday Book had revealed that about 10 per cent of the people were enslaved. The way we name ourselves also comes from the Normans because they introduced the system of surnames to show people’s occupations or where they had migrated from.

The Normans also introduced a new language, a dialect of Old French, although for some time only the conquerors would have understood it which meant that there was one language for the rulers and another for the ruled. Over time Old English and Old French came together in one language, but the separation between ‘higher’ words of French origin (eg, commence) and the ‘common’ words of English origin (eg, begin) persists and is reflected even in 21st century newspapers.