2.2 The influence of Norman French

In the sixth century, the Latin of the Christian church added such words as monastery and minster, pope and noon (from nona hora = ninth hour = 3pm) to the language, which was then essentially Anglo-Saxon. When William the Conqueror and his Normans came to Britain in the eleventh century, a vast number of words, derived both from Norman French and from written Latin, entered English. Among these are duke, general, soldier, army, palace, law, chivalry, merchant, mutton, beef and pork. In some instances, English was further enriched by having two versions of what was originally a single Latin word.