English language in Europe following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Anglo-Norman language was the language of administration and few Kings of England spoke English. A large number of French words were assimilated into Old English, which lost most of its inflections, the result being Middle English. Around the year 1500, the Great Vowel Shift marked the transformation of Middle English into Modern English. The most famous surviving work from Old English is "Beowulf", and from Middle English is Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales". The rise of Modern English began around the fifteenth century, with Early Modern English reaching its literary pinnacle at the
Anglo-Norman language (corporation), (court)). Place-names in Norman are few, but there is Buttevant (from the motto of the Barry family: , "Push to the Fore"), the village of Brittas (from the Norman , "boarding, planking") and the element "Pallas" (Irish , from Norman , "boundary fence": compare palisade, The Pale). Others exist with English or Irish roots, such as Castletownroche, which combines the English "Castletown" and the Norman , meaning rock. Only a handful of Hiberno-Norman-French texts survive, most notably the "The Song of Dermot and the Earl" (early 13th century) and the Statutes of Kilkenny (1366). Anglo-Norman language Anglo-Norman, also known