117-602: The Wings Museum is an aviation museum located in Sussex , United Kingdom . It is housed in a 12,000 square feet (1,100 m) hangar-like former farm building in Brantridge Lane, between Handcross and Balcombe. The museum displays mainly World War II-related flying memorabilia and equipment which have been donated, or which have been recovered and restored by volunteers. The museum was originally located at Redhill Aerodrome. By 2011 it had relocated to Brantridge Lane. In 2013,
234-687: A Koiné language between Old Norse and Old English, though this is disputed. Viking influence on Old English is most apparent in pronouns , modals, comparatives, pronominal adverbs (like hence and together ), conjunctions, and prepositions show the most marked Danish influence. The best evidence of Scandinavian influence appears in extensive word borrowings; however, texts from the period in Scandinavia and Northern England do not provide certain evidence of an influence on syntax. However, at least one scholarly study of this influence shows that Old English may have been replaced entirely by Norse, by virtue of
351-796: A Lib Dem-Independent coalition ( Mid Sussex ) one was run by an Independent-Labour-Lib Dem-Green coalition ( Rother ) and one had a Lib Dem-Green coalition ( Wealden ). Conservative Katy Bourne is the Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner , having first been elected in 2012. In the 2016 referendum on UK membership of the EU , the people of Sussex voted to leave the EU by the narrowest of margins, by 50.23% to 49.77% or 4,413 votes. Headquartered in Lewes, Home Office policing in Sussex has been provided by Sussex Police since 1968. The first-tier Crown Court for all of Sussex
468-582: A blue background, blazoned as Azure , six martlets or . Recognised by the Flag Institute on 20 May 2011, its design is based on the heraldic shield of Sussex . The first-known recording of this emblem being used to represent the county was in 1611 when cartographer John Speed deployed it to represent the Kingdom of the South Saxons . However, it seems that Speed was repeating an earlier association between
585-527: A ceremonial county. Sussex is widely regarded as a single unified entity for some purposes, such as the environment, food and drink and sport . In 2007, Sussex Day was created to celebrate the county's culture and history . The name "Sussex" is derived from the Middle English Suth-sæxe , which is in turn derived from the Old English Sūþseaxe , meaning "(land or people) of
702-732: A demonstrative ( þis , þat ), after a possessive pronoun (e.g., hir , our ), or with a name or in a form of address. This derives from the Old English "weak" declension of adjectives. This inflexion continued to be used in writing even after final -e had ceased to be pronounced. In earlier texts, multisyllable adjectives also receive a final -e in these situations, but this occurs less regularly in later Middle English texts. Otherwise, adjectives have no ending and adjectives already ending in -e etymologically receive no ending as well. Earlier texts sometimes inflect adjectives for case as well. Layamon's Brut inflects adjectives for
819-493: A largely Anglo-Saxon vocabulary (with many Norse borrowings in the northern parts of the country) but a greatly simplified inflectional system. The grammatical relations that were expressed in Old English by the dative and instrumental cases were replaced in Early Middle English with prepositional constructions. The Old English genitive - es survives in the -'s of the modern English possessive , but most of
936-486: A lengthened – and later also modified – pronunciation of a preceding vowel. For example, in name , originally pronounced as two syllables, the /a/ in the first syllable (originally an open syllable) lengthened, the final weak vowel was later dropped, and the remaining long vowel was modified in the Great Vowel Shift (for these sound changes, see Phonology , above). The final ⟨e⟩ , now silent, thus became
1053-488: A lesser extent), and, therefore, it cannot be attributed simply to the influence of French-speaking sections of the population: English did, after all, remain the vernacular . It is also argued that Norse immigrants to England had a great impact on the loss of inflectional endings in Middle English. One argument is that, although Norse and English speakers were somewhat comprehensible to each other due to similar morphology,
1170-549: A lesser scale, with several people being executed for their Catholic beliefs. In Elizabeth's reign, Sussex was open to the older Protestant forms practised in the Weald as well as the newer Protestant forms coming from Continental Europe; combined with a significant Catholic presence, Sussex was in many ways out of step with the rest of southern England. Sussex escaped the worst ravages of the English Civil War , although control of
1287-511: A period of rule by King Offa of Mercia , Sussex regained its independence but was annexed by Wessex around 827 and was fully absorbed into the crown of Wessex in 860, which later grew into the Kingdom of England. The Battle of Hastings was fought in Sussex, the victory that led to the Norman conquest of England . In September 1066, William of Normandy landed with his forces at Pevensey and erected
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#17328441647041404-572: A process called apophony ), as in Modern English. With the discontinuation of the Late West Saxon standard used for the writing of Old English in the period prior to the Norman Conquest, Middle English came to be written in a wide variety of scribal forms, reflecting different regional dialects and orthographic conventions. Later in the Middle English period, however, and particularly with
1521-409: A regional power. Shortly afterwards, Cædwalla returned to Sussex, killing its king and oppressing its people, putting them in what Bede called "a worse state of slavery". The South Saxon clergy were put under the control of West Saxon Winchester . Only around 715 was Eadberht of Selsey made the first bishop of the South Saxons , after which further invasion attempts from Wessex ensued. Following
1638-529: A turn for the worse with an increasing amount of them becoming unemployed, those in work faced their wages being forced down. Conditions became so bad that it was even reported to the House of Lords in 1830 that four harvest labourers (seasonal workers) had been found dead of starvation. The deteriorating conditions of work for the agricultural labourer eventually triggered riots, first in neighbouring Kent, and then in Sussex, where they lasted for several weeks, although
1755-518: A variant of the Northumbrian dialect (prevalent in northern England and spoken in southeast Scotland ). During the Middle English period, many Old English grammatical features either became simplified or disappeared altogether. Noun, adjective, and verb inflections were simplified by the reduction (and eventual elimination) of most grammatical case distinctions. Middle English also saw considerable adoption of Anglo-Norman vocabulary, especially in
1872-614: A wooden castle at Hastings , from which they raided the surrounding area. The battle was fought between Duke William of Normandy and the English king, Harold Godwinson , who had strong connections with Sussex and whose chief seat was probably in Bosham . After having marched his exhausted army 250 miles (400 km) from Yorkshire, Harold fought the Normans at the Battle of Hastings, where England's army
1989-514: Is Bewl Water on the Kent border, while the largest wholly within Sussex is Ardingly Reservoir . The coastal resorts of Sussex and neighbouring Hampshire are the sunniest places in the United Kingdom. The coast has consistently more sunshine than the inland areas: sea breezes, blowing off the sea, tend to clear any cloud from the coast. The sunshine average is approximately 1,900 hours a year; this
2106-436: Is Lewes Crown Court , which has courts in Lewes, Brighton and Hove. Like other first-tier Crown Courts it has its own resident High Court Judge . There is also a third-tier Crown Court at Chichester. The local prison in Sussex for men is Lewes Prison and there is also a Category D prison at Ford . A rape is a traditional territorial sub-division of Sussex, formerly used for various administrative purposes. Their origin
2223-483: Is celebrated annually on 16 June, the feast day of St Richard of Chichester , Sussex's patron saint , whose shrine at Chichester Cathedral was an important place of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages . Sussex's motto, We wunt be druv , is a Sussex dialect expression meaning "we will not be pushed around" and reflects the traditionally independent nature of Sussex men and women. The round-headed rampion , also known as
2340-621: Is currently divided into Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME ) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English period. Scholarly opinion varies, but the University of Valencia states the period when Middle English
2457-614: Is much higher than the UK average of 1,340 hours a year. Most of Sussex lies in hardiness zone 8; the exception is the coastal plain west of Brighton, which lies in the milder zone 9. Rainfall is below average with the heaviest precipitation on the South Downs with 950 mm (37 in) of rainfall per year. The close proximity of Sussex to the Continent of Europe, results in cold spells in winter and hot, humid weather in summer. The climate of
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#17328441647042574-433: Is now rare and used only in oxen and as part of a double plural , in children and brethren . Some dialects still have forms such as eyen (for eyes ), shoon (for shoes ), hosen (for hose(s) ), kine (for cows ), and been (for bees ). Grammatical gender survived to a limited extent in early Middle English before being replaced by natural gender in the course of the Middle English period. Grammatical gender
2691-617: Is the 20th-century north–south development on the A23 - Brighton line corridor , Sussex's main link to London. Sussex's population is dominated by the Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton conurbation that, with a population of over 470,000, is home to almost 1 in 3 of Sussex's population. According to the ONS urban area populations for continuous built-up areas, these are the five largest conurbations: The combined population of Sussex as of 2021
2808-565: Is the highest point in Sussex, or county top . With a height of 248 metres (814 ft) Ditchling Beacon is the highest point in East Sussex. At 113 kilometres (70 miles) long, the River Medway is the longest river flowing through Sussex. The longest river entirely in Sussex is the River Arun , which is 60 kilometres (37 mi) long. Sussex's largest lakes are man-made reservoirs. The largest
2925-542: Is unknown, but they appear to predate the Norman Conquest Each rape was split into several hundreds and may be Romano-British or Anglo-Saxon in origin. At the time of the Norman Conquest, there were four rapes: Arundel, Lewes, Pevensey and Hastings. The rape of Bramber was created later in the 11th century and the rape of Chichester was created in the 13th century. Local government in Sussex has been subject to periodic review over time . Currently, Sussex
3042-494: The American Revolution . Known as 'the radical duke', Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond , was an early supporter of parliamentary reform and US independence. Richard Cobden was a product of Sussex's rural radicalism, and became a campaigner for free trade and peace. Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was another influential radical from Sussex. At the beginning of the 19th century agricultural labourers' conditions took
3159-513: The Augustinian canon Orrm wrote the Ormulum , one of the oldest surviving texts in Middle English. The influence of Old Norse aided the development of English from a synthetic language with relatively free word order to a more analytic language with a stricter word order. Both Old English and Old Norse were synthetic languages with complicated inflections. Communication between Vikings in
3276-574: The Bishop of Chichester and the Earl of Gloucester . These three were to elect a council of nine, to govern until a permanent settlement could be reached. During the Hundred Years' War , Sussex found itself on the frontline, convenient both for intended invasions and retaliatory expeditions by licensed French pirates. Hastings, Rye and Winchelsea were all burnt during this period and all three towns became part of
3393-530: The Catuvellauni , a tribe based around modern Hertfordshire. Much of Sussex was a Roman canton of the Regni , probably taking a similar area to the pre-Roman tribal area and kingdom. Its capital was at Noviomagus Reginorum , modern-day Chichester, close to the pre-Roman capital of the area, around Selsey. Sussex was home to the magnificent Roman Palace at Fishbourne , by far the largest Roman residence known north of
3510-602: The Cinque Ports , a loose federation for supplying ships for the country's security. Also at this time, Amberley and Bodiam castles were built to defend the upper reaches of navigable rivers. One of the impacts of the war and the Black Death , which killed around half of the population of Sussex, was the perceived injustice that led many Sussex people to participate in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Coastal areas suffered most from
3627-592: The Danelaw and their Anglo-Saxon neighbours resulted in the erosion of inflection in both languages. Old Norse may have had a more profound impact on Middle and Modern English development than any other language. The effect of Old Norse on Old English was substantive, pervasive, and of a democratic character. Like close cousins, Old Norse and Old English resembled each other, and with some words and grammatical structures in common, speakers of each language roughly understood each other, but according to historian Simeon Potler
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3744-600: The Early Modern English and Modern English eras. Middle English generally did not have silent letters . For example, knight was pronounced [ˈkniçt] (with both the ⟨k⟩ and the ⟨gh⟩ pronounced, the latter sounding as the ⟨ch⟩ in German Knecht ). The major exception was the silent ⟨e⟩ – originally pronounced but lost in normal speech by Chaucer's time. This letter, however, came to indicate
3861-663: The English Channel to the south, and the ceremonial counties of Surrey to the north, Kent to the north-east, and Hampshire to the west. Sussex contains the city of Brighton and Hove and its wider city region , as well as the South Downs National Park and the National Landscapes of the High Weald and Chichester Harbour . Its coastline is 137 miles (220 km) long. The Kingdom of Sussex emerged in
3978-566: The Norman Conquest , had normally been written in French. Like Chaucer's work, this new standard was based on the East Midlands-influenced speech of London. Clerks using this standard were usually familiar with French and Latin , influencing the forms they chose. The Chancery Standard, which was adopted slowly, was used in England by bureaucrats for most official purposes, excluding those of
4095-643: The Roman departure from Britain around 410 AD. The foundation legend of Sussex is provided by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , which states that in the year AD 477 Ælle landed with his three sons. Having fought on the banks of the Mearcredesburna , it seems Ælle secured the area between the Ouse and Cuckmere in a treaty. Traditionally this is thought to have been against native Britons, but it may have been to secure
4212-571: The South Saxons " (cf. Essex , Middlesex and Wessex ). The South Saxons were a Germanic tribe that settled in the region from the North German Plain during the 5th and 6th centuries. The earliest-known usage of the term South Saxons (Latin: Australes Saxones ) is in a royal charter of 689 which names them and their king, Noðhelm , although the term may well have been in use for some time before that. The monastic chronicler who wrote up
4329-540: The UK Parliament , Sussex is represented by 17 MPs. At the 2024 general election , 6 Labour and Labour Co-op MPs, 5 Conservative MPs, 5 Lib Dem MPs and 1 Green MP were elected from Sussex constituencies. Amongst top-tier local authorities, East and West Sussex County Councils are both held by the Conservatives and Brighton and Hove City Council is led by Labour. Amongst district councils, as of June 2024,
4446-546: The Weald were all part of changes as significant to Sussex as those brought by the neolithic period, by the Romans and the Saxons. Sussex also experienced the most radical and thorough reorganisation of land in England. The county's existing sub-divisions, known as rapes, were made into castleries and each territory was given to one of William's most trusted barons. Castles were built to defend
4563-445: The union with Scotland two members represented the county in the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832. The Reform Act 1832 led to the disenfranchisement of some of the smaller Sussex boroughs and divided what had been a single county constituency into eastern and western divisions, with two representatives elected for each division. The reforms of
4680-609: The "Pride of Sussex", was adopted as Sussex's county flower in 2002. The physical geography of Sussex relies heavily on its lying on the southern part of the Wealden anticline , the major features of which are the high lands that cross the county in a west to east direction: the Weald itself and the South Downs . Natural England has identified the following seven national character areas in Sussex: At 280 metres (920 feet), Blackdown
4797-621: The 12th century, incorporating a unique phonetic spelling system; and the Ancrene Wisse and the Katherine Group , religious texts written for anchoresses , apparently in the West Midlands in the early 13th century. The language found in the last two works is sometimes called the AB language . Additional literary sources of the 12th and 13th centuries include Layamon's Brut and The Owl and
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4914-422: The 13th century and was replaced by thorn. Thorn mostly fell out of use during the 14th century and was replaced by ⟨th⟩ . Anachronistic usage of the scribal abbreviation [REDACTED] ( þe , "the") has led to the modern mispronunciation of thorn as ⟨ y ⟩ in this context; see ye olde . Wynn, which represented the phoneme /w/ , was replaced by ⟨ w ⟩ during
5031-409: The 13th century. Due to its similarity to the letter ⟨p⟩ , it is mostly represented by ⟨w⟩ in modern editions of Old and Middle English texts even when the manuscript has wynn. Under Norman influence, the continental Carolingian minuscule replaced the insular script that had been used for Old English. However, because of the significant difference in appearance between
5148-414: The 14th century, even after the loss of the majority of the continental possessions of the English monarchy . In the aftermath of the Black Death of the 14th century, there was significant migration into London , of people to the counties of the southeast of England and from the east and central Midlands of England, and a new prestige London dialect began to develop as a result of this clash of
5265-597: The 1540s after the printing and wide distribution of the English Bible and Prayer Book , which made the new standard of English publicly recognizable and lasted until about 1650. The main changes between the Old English sound system and that of Middle English include: The combination of the last three processes listed above led to the spelling conventions associated with silent ⟨e⟩ and doubled consonants (see under Orthography , below). Middle English retains only two distinct noun-ending patterns from
5382-669: The 17th century, after which it began to decline. It also brought widespread deforestation of parts of the Sussex Weald. Henry VIII 's separation of the Church of England from Rome and the dissolution of the monasteries led to the demolition of Lewes Priory and Battle Abbey and the sites being given to Henry's supporters. The shrine to St Richard at Chichester Cathedral was also destroyed. Mary I returned England to Catholicism and in Sussex 41 Protestants were burned to death . Under Elizabeth I , religious intolerance continued albeit on
5499-413: The 19th century made the electoral system more representative, but it was not until 1928 that there was universal suffrage. There was a strong radical and republican tradition in Sussex from the 19th century. For most of the 20th century Sussex was a Conservative Party stronghold—from the 1906 to 1997 general elections the only seats in Sussex won by parties other than the Conservatives were in
5616-471: The 5th century; during Roman Britain the area was inhabited by the Regni tribe. In about 827, shortly after the Battle of Ellendun , Sussex was conquered by Wessex . From 860 it was ruled by the kings of Wessex , and in 927 it became part of the Kingdom of England . By the Norman period , Sussex was subdivided into six administrative districts known as rapes , which were themselves divided into hundreds . By
5733-515: The Alps. The Romans built villas, especially on the coastal plain and around Chichester, one of the best preserved being that at Bignor . Christianity first came to Sussex at this time, but faded away when the Romans left in the 5th century. The nationally important Patching hoard of Roman coins that was found in 1997 is the latest find of Roman coins found in Britain , probably deposited after 475 AD, well after
5850-777: The Black Death, and took longest to recover. Instead much economic activity in Sussex was focused on the Weald. Merchants moved north from the coastal towns and many Continental craftsmen, fleeing religious persecution, brought their expertise to the timber, iron, clothmaking and glass industries. Economic and social tensions continued for many years as Sussex people were also involved in Jack Cade 's rebellion of 1450, in which Cade may have been killed at Cade Street , near Heathfield. Demands grew more radical in Sussex in 1451 when John and William Merfold advocated rule by common people. They also demanded that Henry VI be deposed and publicly incited
5967-568: The Church and legalities, which used Latin and Law French respectively. The Chancery Standard's influence on later forms of written English is disputed, but it did undoubtedly provide the core around which Early Modern English formed. Early Modern English emerged with the help of William Caxton 's printing press, developed during the 1470s. The press stabilized English through a push towards standardization, led by Chancery Standard enthusiast and writer Richard Pynson . Early Modern English began in
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#17328441647046084-533: The Lib Dems had a majority in three local authorities ( Chichester , Eastbourne and Horsham ) and the Labour Party had a majority in three local authorities ( Adur , Crawley and Worthing ). Of the six local authorities in no overall control , one had a minority Green administration ( Hastings ), one was run by a Lib Dem-Labour-Green coalition ( Arun ), one was run by a Green-Labour coalition ( Lewes ), one as run by
6201-545: The Nightingale . Some scholars have defined "Early Middle English" as encompassing English texts up to 1350. This longer time frame would extend the corpus to include many Middle English Romances (especially those of the Auchinleck manuscript c. 1330 ). Gradually, the wealthy and the government Anglicised again, although Norman (and subsequently French ) remained the dominant language of literature and law until
6318-571: The Norse speakers' inability to reproduce the ending sounds of English words influenced Middle English's loss of inflectional endings. Important texts for the reconstruction of the evolution of Middle English out of Old English are the Peterborough Chronicle , which continued to be compiled up to 1154; the Ormulum , a biblical commentary probably composed in Lincolnshire in the second half of
6435-544: The Old English -eþ , Midland dialects showing -en from about 1200, and Northern forms using -es in the third person singular as well as the plural. The past tense of weak verbs was formed by adding an -ed(e) , -d(e) , or -t(e) ending. The past-tense forms, without their personal endings, also served as past participles with past-participle prefixes derived from Old English: i- , y- , and sometimes bi- . Strong verbs , by contrast, formed their past tense by changing their stem vowel (e.g., binden became bound ,
6552-406: The Roman army under Julius Caesar that temporarily occupied south-eastern Britain in 55 BC. Soon after the first Roman invasion had ended, the Celtic Regni tribe under their leader Commius initially occupied the Manhood Peninsula . Eppillus , Verica and Cogidubnus followed Commius as rulers of the Regni or southern Atrebates, a region which included most of Sussex, with their capital in
6669-420: The Selsey area. A number of archaeologists now think there is a strong possibility that the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43 started around Fishbourne and Chichester Harbour rather than the traditional landing place of Richborough in Kent. According to this theory, the Romans were called to restore the refugee Verica , a king whose capital was in the Selsey and Chichester area, who had been driven out by
6786-412: The Sussex Downs were the location of the Battle of Lewes , in which Simon de Montfort and his fellow barons captured Prince Edward (later Edward I ), the son and heir of Henry III . The subsequent treaty, known as the Mise of Lewes , led to Montfort summoning the first parliament in English history without any prior royal authorisation. A provisional administration was set up, consisting of Montfort,
6903-440: The Wealden iron industry was strategically important to both sides. In 1642 there was a skirmish at Haywards Heath when Royalists marching towards Lewes were intercepted by local Parliamentarians . The Royalists were routed with around 200 killed or taken prisoner. Shortly after there were sieges at Chichester and Arundel , and a smaller battle at Bramber Bridge . Despite its being under Parliamentarian control, Charles II
7020-710: The abundance of Modern English words for the mechanisms of government that are derived from Anglo-Norman, such as court , judge , jury , appeal , and parliament . There are also many Norman-derived terms relating to the chivalric cultures that arose in the 12th century, an era of feudalism , seigneurialism , and crusading . Words were often taken from Latin, usually through French transmission. This gave rise to various synonyms, including kingly (inherited from Old English), royal (from French, inherited from Vulgar Latin), and regal (from French, which borrowed it from Classical Latin). Later French appropriations were derived from standard, rather than Norman, French. Examples of
7137-472: The area east of the Saxon Shore fort of Anderida from the influence of the Kingdom of Kent, with whom the South Saxons may have had occasional disputes. Ælle was recognised as the first ' Bretwalda ' or overlord of southern Britain. He was probably the most senior of the Anglo-Saxon kings and led the ill-fated campaign against King Arthur at Mount Badon . By the 7th century, South Saxon kings were ruling from sites around Selsey (the pre-Roman capital of
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#17328441647047254-409: The area) and Chichester (the Roman capital of the area) initially with similar borders to the pre-Roman kingdom and Roman canton. For much of the 7th and 8th centuries, Sussex suffered attempts at invasion from the Kingdom of Wessex to its west. King Æðelwealh formed an alliance with Christian Mercia against Wessex, becoming Sussex's first Christian king. With support from St Wilfrid , Sussex became
7371-494: The areas of politics, law, the arts, and religion, as well as poetic and emotive diction. Conventional English vocabulary remained primarily Germanic in its sources, with Old Norse influences becoming more apparent. Significant changes in pronunciation took place, particularly involving long vowels and diphthongs, which in the later Middle English period began to undergo the Great Vowel Shift . Little survives of early Middle English literature , due in part to Norman domination and
7488-456: The armistice to be offered to Germany at the end of World War I were agreed at a meeting at Danny House , Hurstpierpoint . With the declaration of World War II , Sussex found itself part of the country's frontline with its airfields playing a key role in the Battle of Britain and with its towns being some of the most frequently bombed. Sussex was garrisoned by multiple British and Canadian Army units from 1940 until at least May 1942. During
7605-412: The breadline and receiving regular relief. Socially acceptable crimes, including protest, riot, collective action and smuggling were commonplace in Sussex and were seen by many as a legitimate way to address grievances and assert freedoms. At this time, Sussex became a centre for radicalism . Thomas Paine developed his political ideas in Lewes, and later wrote Common Sense which was influential in
7722-469: The ceremonial counties of East and West Sussex in 1974. Boundaries were changed and a large part of the rape of Lewes was transferred from the eastern division into West Sussex, along with Gatwick Airport, historically part of the county of Surrey. From 1290, Sussex returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of England . Each county returned two MPs and each borough designated by Royal charter also returned two MPs. After
7839-420: The change from Old English to Norse syntax. While the Old Norse influence was strongest in the dialects under Danish control that composed the southern part of the Northern England (corresponding to the Scandinavian Kingdom of Jórvík ), the East Midlands and the East of England , words in the spoken language emerged in the 10th and 11th centuries near the transition from Old to Middle English. Influence on
7956-414: The clergy for written communication and record-keeping. A significant number of Norman words were borrowed into English and used alongside native Germanic words with similar meanings. Examples of Norman/Germanic pairs in Modern English include pig and pork , calf and veal , wood and forest , and freedom and liberty . The role of Anglo-Norman as the language of government and law can be seen in
8073-440: The coastal districts is strongly influenced by the sea, which, because of its tendency to warm up slower than land, can result in cooler temperatures than inland in the summer. In the autumn months, the coast sometimes has higher temperatures. Rainfall during the summer months is mainly from thunderstorms and thundery showers; from January to March the heavier rainfall is due to prevailing south-westerly frontal systems. In winter,
8190-507: The comparative and superlative (e.g., greet , great; gretter , greater). Adjectives ending in -ly or -lich formed comparatives either with -lier , -liest or -loker , -lokest . A few adjectives also displayed Germanic umlaut in their comparatives and superlatives, such as long , lenger . Other irregular forms were mostly the same as in modern English. Middle English personal pronouns were mostly developed from those of Old English , with
8307-399: The constituencies of Brighton and Brighton Kemptown . Since 1997 there has been a gradual shift to the left, especially in more urban areas. This has been most notable in Brighton and Hove, where in Brighton Pavilion the UK's first Green MP, Caroline Lucas , was elected in 2010 and the UK's first Green-led local authority was elected in 2011. In the House of Commons , the lower house of
8424-520: The county. The population of Sussex was 550,446 in 1891 and 605,202 in 1901. Finds at Eartham Pit in Boxgrove show that the area has some of the earliest hominid remains in Europe, dating back some 500,000 years and known as Boxgrove Man or Homo heidelbergensis . At a site near Pulborough called The Beedings, tools have been found that date from around 35,000 years ago and that are thought to be from either
8541-478: The development of the Chancery Standard in the 15th century, orthography became relatively standardised in a form based on the East Midlands-influenced speech of London. Spelling at the time was mostly quite regular . (There was a fairly consistent correspondence between letters and sounds.) The irregularity of present-day English orthography is largely due to pronunciation changes that have taken place over
8658-488: The different dialects, that was based chiefly on the speech of the East Midlands but also influenced by that of other regions. The writing of this period, however, continues to reflect a variety of regional forms of English. The Ayenbite of Inwyt , a translation of a French confessional prose work, completed in 1340, is written in a Kentish dialect . The best known writer of Middle English, Geoffrey Chaucer , wrote in
8775-531: The double consonant represented a sound that was (or had previously been) geminated (i.e., had genuinely been "doubled" and would thus have regularly blocked the lengthening of the preceding vowel). In other cases, by analogy, the consonant was written double merely to indicate the lack of lengthening. The basic Old English Latin alphabet consisted of 20 standard letters plus four additional letters: ash ⟨æ⟩ , eth ⟨ð⟩ , thorn ⟨þ⟩ , and wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ . There
8892-512: The east winds can be as cold as further inland. Selsey is known as a tornado hotspot, with small tornadoes hitting the town in 1986, 1998 and 2000, with the 1998 tornado causing an estimated £10 million of damage to 1,000 buildings. Most of Sussex's population is distributed in an east–west line along the English Channel coast or on the east–west line of the A272 . The exception to this pattern
9009-726: The eastern Mediterranean. Sussex is rich in remains from the Bronze and Iron Ages , in particular the Bronze Age barrows known as the Devil's Jumps and Cissbury Ring , one of Britain's largest hillforts. Towards the end of the Iron Age in 75 BC people from the Atrebates , one of the tribes of the Belgae , a mix of Celtic and German stock, invaded and occupied southern Britain. This was followed by an invasion by
9126-493: The emblem and the county, rather than being the inventor of the association. It is now firmly regarded that the county emblem originated and derived from the coat of arms of the 14th-century Knight of the Shire , Sir John de Radynden . Sussex's six martlets are today held to symbolise the traditional six sub-divisions of the county known as rapes . Sussex by the Sea is regarded as
9243-468: The end of the Middle English period only the strong -'s ending (variously spelled) was in use. Some formerly feminine nouns, as well as some weak nouns, continued to make their genitive forms with -e or no ending (e.g., fole hoves , horses' hooves), and nouns of relationship ending in -er frequently have no genitive ending (e.g., fader bone , "father's bane"). The strong -(e)s plural form has survived into Modern English. The weak -(e)n form
9360-574: The entry classifying the invasion seems to have got his dates wrong; recent scholars have suggested he might have been a quarter of a century too late. In the Domesday Book of 1086, Sussex is recorded as Sudsexe . Three United States counties (in Delaware , New Jersey and Virginia ), and a former county/land division of Western Australia , are named after Sussex. The flag of Sussex consists of six gold martlets , or heraldic swallows , on
9477-418: The exception of the third person plural, a borrowing from Old Norse (the original Old English form clashed with the third person singular and was eventually dropped). Also, the nominative form of the feminine third person singular was replaced by a form of the demonstrative that developed into sche (modern she ), but the alternative heyr remained in some areas for a long time. As with nouns, there
9594-412: The indicator of the longer and changed pronunciation of ⟨a⟩ . In fact, vowels could have this lengthened and modified pronunciation in various positions, particularly before a single consonant letter and another vowel or before certain pairs of consonants. A related convention involved the doubling of consonant letters to show that the preceding vowel was not to be lengthened. In some cases,
9711-456: The killing of the nobility and clergy. The Wealden iron industry expanded rapidly, especially after the first blast furnace arrived in Sussex in 1496, from the Low Countries , which greatly improved efficiency. Skilled Flemish workers moved to Sussex, followed again by Huguenot craftsmen from France, who brought new techniques. The industry was strategically important and flourished into
9828-457: The last Neanderthals in northern Europe or pioneer populations of modern humans. The thriving population lived by hunting game such as horses, bison, mammoths and woolly rhinos . Around 6000 BC the ice sheet over the North Sea melted, sea levels rose and the meltwaters burst south and westwards, creating the English Channel and cutting the people of Sussex off from their Mesolithic kinsmen to
9945-453: The last major Anglo Saxon kingdom to become Christian. South Saxon and Mercian forces took control of what is now east Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Cædwalla of Wessex killed Æðelwealh and "ravaged Sussex by fierce slaughter and devastation". The South Saxons forced Cædwalla from Sussex and were able to lead a campaign into Kent , replacing its king. At this time Sussex could have re-emerged into
10062-616: The lead up to the Dieppe Raid and D-Day landings, the people of Sussex were witness to the buildup of military personnel and materials, including the assembly of landing crafts and construction of Mulberry harbours off the county's coast. In the post-war era, the New Towns Act 1946 designated Crawley as the site of a new town . As part of the Local Government Act 1972 , the eastern and western divisions of Sussex were made into
10179-459: The main difference lied on their inflectional endings, which led to much confusion within the mixed population that existed in the Danelaw, this endings tended gradually to become obscured and finally lost, "simplifying English grammar" in the process. In time, the inflections melted away and the analytic pattern emerged. Cultural and linguistic arguments have been made for Early Middle English being
10296-417: The masculine accusative, genitive, and dative, the feminine dative, and the plural genitive. The Owl and the Nightingale adds a final -e to all adjectives not in the nominative, here only inflecting adjectives in the weak declension (as described above). Comparatives and superlatives were usually formed by adding -er and -est . Adjectives with long vowels sometimes shortened these vowels in
10413-427: The more complex system of inflection in Old English : Nouns of the weak declension are primarily inherited from Old English n -stem nouns but also from ō -stem, wō -stem, and u -stem nouns, which did not inflect in the same way as n -stem nouns in Old English, but joined the weak declension in Middle English. Nouns of the strong declension are inherited from the other Old English noun stem classes. Some nouns of
10530-547: The most part, being improvised. By the end of the period (about 1470), and aided by the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1439, a standard based on the London dialects (Chancery Standard) had become established. This largely formed the basis for Modern English spelling, although pronunciation has changed considerably since that time. Middle English was succeeded in England by Early Modern English , which lasted until about 1650. Scots developed concurrently from
10647-521: The museum hosted a fundraiser for the upkeep of the Bomber Command Memorial in nearby Green Park. In 2015, volunteers restored a Bristol Beaufighter Mk1f which had crashed 75 years earlier. Visitors to the museum can walk inside a complete fuselage from a Douglas C-47 Dakota which was used on D-Day and later during the filming of the television series Band of Brothers . There are some very rare aircraft from World War II and some of them are
10764-681: The old insular g and the Carolingian g (modern g ), the former continued in use as a separate letter, known as yogh , written ⟨ȝ⟩ . This was adopted for use to represent a variety of sounds: [ɣ], [j], [dʒ], [x], [ç] , while the Carolingian g was normally used for [g]. Instances of yogh were eventually replaced by ⟨j⟩ or ⟨y⟩ and by ⟨gh⟩ in words like night and laugh . In Middle Scots , yogh became indistinguishable from cursive z , and printers tended to use ⟨z⟩ when yogh
10881-546: The only ones of their type in the UK. [REDACTED] Media related to Wings Museum (Sussex) at Wikimedia Commons Sussex Sussex ( /ˈsʌsɪks/ ; from the Old English Sūþseaxe ; lit. ' South Saxons '; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England which was historically a kingdom and, later, a county . It includes the ceremonial counties of East Sussex and West Sussex . The area borders
10998-423: The other case endings disappeared in the Early Middle English period, including most of the roughly one dozen forms of the definite article ("the"). The dual personal pronouns (denoting exactly two) also disappeared from English during this period. The loss of case endings was part of a general trend from inflections to fixed word order that also occurred in other Germanic languages (though more slowly and to
11115-403: The prestige that came with writing in French rather than English. During the 14th century, a new style of literature emerged with the works of writers including John Wycliffe and Geoffrey Chaucer , whose Canterbury Tales remains the most studied and read work of the period. The transition from Late Old English to Early Middle English had taken place by the 1150s to 1180s, the period when
11232-518: The replacement of the top levels of the English-speaking political and ecclesiastical hierarchies by Norman rulers who spoke a dialect of Old French , now known as Old Norman , which developed in England into Anglo-Norman . The use of Norman as the preferred language of literature and polite discourse fundamentally altered the role of Old English in education and administration, even though many Normans of this period were illiterate and depended on
11349-564: The resulting doublet pairs include warden (from Norman) and guardian (from later French; both share a common ancestor loaned from Germanic). The end of Anglo-Saxon rule did not result in immediate changes to the language. The general population would have spoken the same dialects as they had before the Conquest. Once the writing of Old English came to an end, Middle English had no standard language, only dialects that evolved individually from Old English. Early Middle English (1150–1350) has
11466-736: The second half of the 14th century in the emerging London dialect, although he also portrays some of his characters as speaking in northern dialects, as in " The Reeve's Tale ". In the English-speaking areas of lowland Scotland , an independent standard was developing, based on the Northumbrian dialect . This would develop into what came to be known as the Scots language . A large number of terms for abstract concepts were adopted directly from scholastic philosophical Latin (rather than via French). Examples are "absolute", "act", "demonstration", and "probable". The Chancery Standard of written English emerged c. 1430 in official documents that, since
11583-458: The second person singular in -(e)st (e.g., þou spekest , "thou speakest"), and the third person singular in -eþ (e.g., he comeþ , "he cometh/he comes"). ( þ (the letter "thorn") is pronounced like the unvoiced th in "think", but under certain circumstances, it may be like the voiced th in "that"). The following table illustrates a typical conjugation pattern: Plural forms vary strongly by dialect, with Southern dialects preserving
11700-526: The sixteenth century, the eastern three rapes and the western three rapes had been combined for most meetings of the court of quarter sessions , a division which was reinforced when the administrative counties of East Sussex and West Sussex were established in 1889. Subsequent local government reforms maintained the division into east and west. The county retained a single lord lieutenant and sheriff until 1974, when they were replaced with separate posts for East and West Sussex and Sussex lost its status as
11817-577: The south. Later in the Neolithic period, the area of the South Downs above Worthing was one of Britain's largest and most important flint -mining centres. The flints were used to help fell trees for agriculture. The oldest of these mines, at Church Hill in Findon, has been carbon-dated to 4500 BC to 3750 BC, making it one of the earliest known mines in Britain. Flint tools from Cissbury have been found as far away as
11934-409: The strong type have an -e in the nominative/accusative singular, like the weak declension, but otherwise strong endings. Often, these are the same nouns that had an -e in the nominative/accusative singular of Old English (they, in turn, were inherited from Proto-Germanic ja -stem and i -stem nouns). The distinct dative case was lost in early Middle English, and although the genitive survived, by
12051-537: The territories including at Arundel, Bramber, Lewes, Pevensey and Hastings. Sussex's bishop, Æthelric II , was deposed and imprisoned and replaced with William the Conqueror's personal chaplain, Stigand . The Normans also built Chichester Cathedral and moved the seat of Sussex's bishopric from Selsey to Chichester. The Normans also founded new towns in Sussex, including New Shoreham (the centre of modern Shoreham-by-Sea), Battle, Arundel, Uckfield and Winchelsea. In 1264,
12168-588: The unofficial anthem of Sussex; it was composed by William Ward-Higgs in 1907, perhaps originally from the lyrics of Rudyard Kipling 's poem entitled Sussex . Adopted by the Royal Sussex Regiment and popularised in World War I , it is sung at celebrations across the county, including those at Lewes Bonfire , and at sports matches, including those of Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club and Sussex County Cricket Club . The county day, called Sussex Day ,
12285-501: The unrest continued until 1832 and became known as the Swing Riots . During World War I , on 30 June 1916, the Royal Sussex Regiment took part in the Battle of the Boar's Head at Richebourg-l'Avoué . The day subsequently became known as The Day Sussex Died . Within five hours the 17 officers and 349 men were killed, and 1,000 men were wounded or taken prisoner. In 1918 the terms of
12402-589: The written languages only appeared from the beginning of the 13th century, this delay in Scandinavian lexical influence in English has been attributed to the lack of written evidence from the areas of Danish control, as the majority of written sources from Old English were produced in the West Saxon dialect spoken in Wessex , the heart of Anglo-Saxon political power at the time. The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 saw
12519-639: Was able to journey through the county after the Battle of Worcester in 1651 to make his escape to France from the port of Shoreham. In 1681 Charles II granted William Penn lands in what became Pennsylvania and Delaware . Amongst those whom he carried to North America as colonists were 200 people from Sussex, mostly Quakers, who founded settlements named after places in Sussex including Lewes and Seaford in Sussex County , Delaware and Horsham Township and Chichester in Pennsylvania. The Sussex coast
12636-533: Was about 1.7 million. In 2021, Sussex had a population density of 451 per km , higher than the average for England of 434 per km . The decline of the Sussex ironworks probably accounts for the small increase in population during several centuries, although after the Massacre of St Bartholomew upwards of 1,500 Huguenots landed at Rye, and in 1685, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes , many more refugees were added to
12753-415: Was defeated and Harold was killed. It is likely that all the fighting men of Sussex were at the battle, as the county's thegns were decimated and any that survived had their lands confiscated. William built Battle Abbey at the site of the battle, with the exact spot where Harold fell marked by the high altar. Sussex experienced some of the greatest changes of any English county under the Normans, for it
12870-410: Was greatly modified by the social movement of sea bathing for health which became fashionable among the wealthy in the second half of the 18th century. Resorts developed all along the coast, including at Brighton, Hastings, Worthing, and Bognor. Poverty increased and by 1801 Sussex had the highest poor law rates in England, with 23 per cent of its population (37,000 people out of 160,000) living on
12987-425: Was indicated by agreement of articles and pronouns (e.g., þo ule "the feminine owl") or using the pronoun he to refer to masculine nouns such as helm ("helmet"), or phrases such as scaft stærcne (strong shaft), with the masculine accusative adjective ending -ne . Single-syllable adjectives added -e when modifying a noun in the plural and when used after the definite article ( þe ), after
13104-520: Was not yet a distinct j , v , or w , and Old English scribes did not generally use k , q , or z . Ash was no longer required in Middle English, as the Old English vowel /æ/ that it represented had merged into /a/ . The symbol nonetheless came to be used as a ligature for the digraph ⟨ae⟩ in many words of Greek or Latin origin, as did ⟨œ⟩ for ⟨oe⟩ . Eth and thorn both represented /θ/ or its allophone / ð / in Old English. Eth fell out of use during
13221-417: Was ousted by it in most dialects by the 15th. The following table shows some of the various Middle English pronouns. Many other variations are noted in Middle English sources because of differences in spellings and pronunciations at different times and in different dialects. As a general rule, the indicative first person singular of verbs in the present tense ended in -e (e.g., ich here , "I hear"),
13338-469: Was some inflectional simplification (the distinct Old English dual forms were lost), but pronouns, unlike nouns, retained distinct nominative and accusative forms. Third person pronouns also retained a distinction between accusative and dative forms, but that was gradually lost: The masculine hine was replaced by him south of the River Thames by the early 14th century, and the neuter dative him
13455-589: Was spoken as being from 1150 to 1500. This stage of the development of the English language roughly coincided with the High and Late Middle Ages . Middle English saw significant changes to its vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and orthography . Writing conventions during the Middle English period varied widely. Examples of writing from this period that have survived show extensive regional variation. The more standardized Old English literary variety broke down and writing in English became fragmented and localized and was, for
13572-524: Was still 10 to 25 per cent lower than it had been in 1066. It was also during the Norman period that Sussex achieved its greatest importance in comparison with other English counties. Sussex was on the main route between England and Normandy , and the lands of the Anglo-Norman nobility in what is now western France. The growth in Sussex's population, the importance of its ports and the increased colonisation of
13689-434: Was the heartland of King Harold and was potentially vulnerable to further invasion. In the immediate aftermath of the Normans' landing at Pevensey and the Battle of Hastings and to put an end to any rebellion, the Norman army destroyed estates and other assets on their route through Sussex, leading to a 40 per cent reduction in Sussex's wealth, a situation worse than any other southern or midland county. By 1086 wealth in Sussex
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