ABSTRACT
In the twelfth century the manufacture of cloth for sale, although widespread, was centred on a dozen or so towns mainly in eastern and southern England. After the Norman Conquest radical changes took place in the types of personal names used in England. While on the more positive side everyone would have seen the castles and cathedrals, and slightly later, the new abbeys and parish churches that resulted from the Norman Conquest. By the time of the death of the last of the Norman kings in 1154 the Norman presence in England was in any case beginning to diminish. The conquerors were being absorbed into English society and although a French connection was maintained through the Angevin kings and persisted throughout the Middle Ages it was no longer Norman either in name or character. The areas covered by ‘borrowed’ words from French in the English language tell much of the social pattern imposed by the Conquest.
