The Normans

When William the Conqueror became King in 1066, Essex was very different to today. The Domesday Book gives an idea as to how. The City of Chelmsford had only four households, while Southend-on-Sea didn’t exist. Compare this with Writtle, Great Waltham, Stebbing, Hatfield Broad Oak, and High Easter, all of which were home to over 100 families each. Some are such small villages that you might need to look up where they are today! Colchester was the biggest town in the area with 448 households. Just 300 Normans in total came to Essex but they controlled over 14,000 Saxon families.
The Saxons had been in charge for over five hundred years, and most of the place names they gave the villages and hamlets in Essex are still used today. The names people gave themselves, however, changed. William, Richard and Robert replaced Ethelred and Godwin to name just a few! The Normans also used new words for food which have stuck with us to the present day. Basically, if a word describes an animal standing in a muddy field covered in poo, it’s a good bet it’s a Saxon word (e.g. cow, sheep and pig). When the meat appears on the plate ready to eat, we use the Norman word (e.g. beef, mutton and pork). Of course, the language of the Normans’ native country has also changed, mixing regional dialects and developing over the years to give us French. Click the button to translate this page into modern French.