Spoken French was restricted to the court, the regional aristocracy, the well-educated clergy, and a handful of others

Written French was an elite language of government

Latin was another powerful rival of French and was widely used as the language of law, administration, literature, and the Church.

Domesday Book (1086-7), the first national survey of land resources, was written in Latin

Most of the ensuing administrative record-keeping continued to be in Latin

Latin also continued to be the primary language of religious expression

Although French came to be used more and more in formal domains, such as law, literature, and the arts, it never became the sole medium of officialdom