Even after Kiev and the surrounding region ceased being a part of Poland, Poles continued to play an important role. In 1812 there were over 43,000 Polish noblemen in Kiev province, compared to only approximately 1,000 Russian nobles. Typically the nobles spent their winters in the city, where they held Polish balls and fairs.[31] Until the mid-18th century Kiev was Polish in culture.[32] although Poles made up no more than ten percent of the city's population and 25% of its voters. During the 1830s Polish was the language of Kiev's educational system, and until Polish enrollment in the university of St. Vladimir was restricted in the 1860s they made up the majority of that school's student body. The Russian government's cancellation of the city's autonomy and its placement under the rule of bureaucrats appointed from St. Petersburg was largely motivated by fear of Polish insurrection in the city.[31] Warsaw factories and fine Warsaw shops had branches in Kiev. Józef Zawadzki, founder of Kiev's stock exchange, served as the city's mayor in the 1890s. Poles living in the city tended to be friendly towards the Ukrainian national movement in the city, and some took part in Ukrainian organizations.[33] Indeed, many of the poorer Polish nobles became Ukrainianized in language and culture and these Ukrainians of Polish descent constituted an important element of the growing Ukrainian national movement. Kiev served as a meeting point where such activists came together with the pro-Ukrainian descendants of Cossack officers from the left bank. Many of them would leave the city for the surrounding countryside in order to try to spread Ukrainian ideas among the peasants.[32]
More Than A Conqueror: Greater He That Is 11 contemporanea street
After their coronation Henry and Eleanor roared procession along the Strand and it's reported that thepeople shouted wishing them long life in English and in Latin. English was still alive in the streets. In thecourt and royal palaces new ideas from across the channel were in the air and new words to express them.The vocabulary of romance and chivalry was heard in England. Eleanor, England's new queen wasconsidered the most cultured woman in Europe. It was she more than any other who patronized the poetsand troubadours, whose verses and songs created the romantic image of the Middle Ages as the age ofchivalry a glorious vision that was never realized outside the pages of medieval literature.
It was now almost 150 years since the Norman Conquest. Though the people at the top had changed theascendancy of French was still absolute. Written English that triumphant achievement of Alfred and Englishscholars was dead and spoken English was being progressively colonized throughout society by Frenchwords but the balance of power and of languages was about to shift. Of course, early 13th century Englishsociety consisted of more than English peasants grubbing the land and French-speaking nobility lording it in
Chaucer wrote The Canterbury tales in 1387. For millions of people the Canterbury tales have been theflowering of the medieval English language and a great staging post for English literature. Chaucer wasn'tthe only writer of his time and he didn't invent the language he was working with. He more than any otherrecognize its richness to potentially in having at his disposal vocabulary from high and low society, drawnfrom French and Old English and he worked it to the full. Chaucer was a Londoner and an important manwith connections to the royal family and a high position in the civil service. He travelled widely, perhapseven been a spy and he knew Latin and French. He might have been expected like many other English poetsat the time to write it either of those languages for an exclusive audience, but he chose to write in English,the English that was spoken in London. Chaucer's characters are constructed cross section of medievalsociety live on in his writing. The pilgrim set off for Canterbury journey of about three days then and to passthe time they told each other stories. The stories have a range of styles from serious, moral fables to bawdyfarces. What Chaucer did most brilliantly was to choose and tailor the language to suit every tale and itsteller. The creation of mood and tone and the realization of characters through the language is somethingwe expect of writers today, so it's difficult to realise how extraordinary was when Chaucer did it. He showedhe proved that reformed English was fit for great literature.
During this time, nobody was more keenly aware of such developments than Geoffrey of Monmouth. Had he not possessed an intricate understanding of the cultural self-awareness of different groups of Britons in his own time, he would not have been so careful to distinguish between the origins of the Cornish, Bretons, and Welsh in his history. Most remarkable is the distinction made between the Cornish and the rest of the Britons. Geoffrey attributed to the Cornish an ethnic distinction that arose prior to the foundation of Britain by Brutus. While Brutus and his band of Trojan exiles were navigating the Tyrrhenian sea, they encountered another group of Trojan exiles, descended through four generations from those who had fled from Troy with Antenor: 2ff7e9595c
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