Middle English
Categories: History of the English language
Middle English is the name given by historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman invasion in 1066 and the mid-to-late 15th century, when the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the introduction of the printing press into England by William Caxton in the 1470s. The language as spoken after this time, up to 1650, is known as Early Modern English.
Unlike Old English, which tended largely to adopt Late West Saxon scribal conventions in the immediate pre-Conquest period, Middle English as a written language displays a wide variety of scribal (and presumably dialectal) forms. It should be noted, though, that the diversity of forms in written Middle English signifies neither greater variety of spoken forms of English than could be found in pre-Conquest England, nor a faithful representation of contemporary spoken English (though perhaps greater fidelity to this than may be found in Old English texts). Rather, this diversity suggests the gradual end of Wessex's role as a focal point and trend-setter for scribal activity, and the emergence of more distinct local scribal styles and written dialects, and a general pattern of transition of activity over the centuries which follow, as the north east, East Anglia and London emerge successively as major centres of literary production, with their own generic interests.
Contents |
Literary and Linguistic Cultures
Middle English was one of the three languages current in England. Though never the language of the church, which was always Latin, it lost status as a language of courtly life, literature and documentation, being largely supplanted by Anglo-Norman. It remained, though, the spoken language of the majority, and may be regarded as the only true vernacular language after about the mid-twelfth century, with Anglo-Norman becoming, like Latin, a learned tongue of the court. English did not cease to be used in the court: it retained a cartulary function (being the language used in royal charters); nor did it disappear as a language of literary production. Even during what has been called the 'lost' period of English literary history, the late eleventh to mid-twelfth century, Old English texts, especially homilies, saints' lives and grammatical texts, continued to be copied, used and adapted by scribes. From the later twelfth and thirteenth century there survives huge amounts of written material of various forms, from lyrics to saints' lives, devotional manuals to histories, encyclopaedias to poems of moral (and often immoral) discussion and debate, though much of it remains unstudied in part because it evades or defies modern, arguably quite restricted, categorisations of literature. Middle English is more familiar to us as the language of Poetry and its followers, the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century literature cultures clustered around the West Midlands and around London and East Anglia: the poetry of William Langland and the Sir Gawain and the Green Knight|Gawain Poet, or of London writers heavily influenced by European conventions and the city's writers such as Chaucer, Lydgate, and Gower, Malory or Caxton, the work of gifted Chaucerians like Gower and Hoccleve, and in particular of Chaucer himself in his Canterbury Tales and other shorter poems, consistently revalues and reinvents older traditions which it nevertheless refuses to abandon entirely.
History
1000
- Syððan wæs geworden þæt he ferde þurh þa ceastre and þæt castel: godes rice prediciende and bodiende. and hi twelfe mid. And sume wif þe wæron gehælede of awyrgdum gastum: and untrumnessum: seo magdalenisce maria ofþære seofan deoflu uteodon: and iohanna chuzan wif herodes gerefan: and susanna and manega oðre þe him of hyra spedum þenedon;
- -- Translation of Luke 8.1-3 from the New Testament
Although it is possible to overestimate the degree of culture shock which the transfer of power in 1066 represented, the removal from the top levels of an English-speaking political and ecclesiastical hierarchy, and their replacement with a Norman language-speaking one, both opened the way for the introduction of French as a language of polite discourse and literature and fundamentally altered the role of Old English in education and administration. Although Old English was by no means as standardised as modern English, its written forms were less subject to broad dialect variations than post-Conquest English.
Even now, after a thousand years, the Norman influence on the English language is still visible. Consider these Modern English words derived from Old English: pig, cow, wood, sheep, house, worthy, bold.
Contrast these with this set of related but overlapping Modern English words (in Modern English), all derived from Anglo-Norman French: pork, beef, forest, mutton, mansion, honourable, courageous.
The role of Anglo-Norman as the language of government and law can be seen by the abundance of Modern English words for the mechanisms of government derived from Anglo-Norman: court, judge, jury, appeal, parliament. Also prevalent are terms relating to the chivalric cultures which arose in the twelfth century as a response to the requirements of feudalism and crusading activity. Early on, this vocabulary of refined behaviour begins to work its way into English: the word 'debonairte' appears in the 1137 Peterborough Chronicle, but so too does 'castel', another Norman import that makes its mark on the territory of the English language as much as on the territory of England itself.
This period of trilingual activity developed much of the flexible triplicate synonymity of modern English. For instance, English has three words meaning roughly "of or relating to a king": kingly from Old English, royal from French and regal from Latin.
Deeper changes occurred in the grammar. Bit by bit, as we have seen, the wealthy and the government anglicized again, though French remained the dominant language of literature and law for several centuries, even after the loss of the majority of the continental possessions of the English monarchy. The new English did not look the same as the old. Old English had a complex system of inflectional endings, but these were gradually lost and simplified in the dialects of spoken English. Gradually the change spread to be reflected in its increasingly diverse written forms. This loss of case-endings was part of a general trend from inflectional to fixed-order words which occurred in other Germanic languages, and cannot be attributed simply to the influence of French-speaking layers of the population. English remained, after all, the language of the majority. It certainly was a literary language in England, alongside Anglo-Norman and Latin from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. In the later fourteenth century, Chancery Standard (or London English) - itself a phenomenon produced by the increase of bureaucracy in London, and a concomitant increase in London literary production - introduced a greater deal of conformity in English spelling. While the fame of Middle English literary productions tends to begin in the later fourteenth century, with the works of Chaucer and Gower, an immense corpus of literature survives from throughout the Middle English period.
c.1400
The Establishment is using English increasingly around this time. Parliament used English increasingly from around the 1360s, and the king's court used mainly English from the time of Henry V (acceded 1413). With some standardization of the language, English begins to exhibit the more recognisable forms of grammar and syntax that will form the basis of future standard dialects:
- And it is don, aftirward Jesus made iourne bi cites & castelis prechende & euangelisende þe rewme of god, & twelue wiþ hym & summe wymmen þat weren helid of wicke spiritis & sicnesses, marie þat is clepid maudeleyn, of whom seuene deuelis wenten out & Jone þe wif off chusi procuratour of eroude, & susanne & manye oþere þat mynystreden to hym of her facultes
- -- Luke 8.1-3
A text from 1391: Geoffrey Chaucer's Treatise on the Astrolabe.
However, this was a time of upheaval in England. Five kings were deposed between 1399 and 1500, and one of them was deposed twice. New men came into positions of power, some of them from other parts of the country or lower levels in society. Stability only came gradually after 1485 with the Tudor dynasty. The language changed too - there was much change during the 15th century. But towards the end of that century, a more modern English was starting to emerge. Printing started in England in the 1470s. With a standardized, printed, English Bible and Prayer Book being read to church congregations from the 1540s, a wider public became familiar with a standard language, and the era of Modern English was underway.
Construction
Key points
With its simplified case-ending system, Middle English is closer to modern English than its pre-Conquest equivalent.
Nouns
Despite losing the slightly more complex system of inflexional endings, Middle English retains two separate noun-ending patterns from Old English. Compare, for example, the early Modern English words 'engel' (angel) and 'nome' (name):
sing. nom/acc: engel nome
gen: engles* nome
dat: engle nome
plur. nom/acc: engles nomen
gen: engle(ne)** nomen
dat: engle(s) nomen
The strong -s plural form has survived into Modern English, while the weak -n form is rare (oxen, children, brethren).
Verbs
As a general rule (and all these rules are general), the first person singular of present tense verbs ends in -e (ich here), the second person in -(e)st (þou spekest), and the third person in -eþ (he comeþ). (þ is pronounced like the voiced th in "that"). In the past tense, weak verbs are formed by an -ed(e), -d(e) or -t(e) ending. These, without their case endings, also form past participles, together with past-participle prefixes derived from the old English ge-: i-, y- and sometimes bi-. Strong verbs form their past tense by changing their stem vowel (e.g. binden -> bound), as in Modern English.
Pronouns
Post-Conquest English inherits its pronouns from Old English:
First person ||colspan=3| Second person ! || singular || plural || || singular || plural |- | nom. || ich, I || we || nom. || þu || ȝe |- | acc. || me || us || acc. || þe || ȝow, ow |- | gen. || min, mi || ure || gen. || þin || ȝower, ower |- | dat. || me || us || dat. || þe || ȝow, ow |}
Third Person
masc. neut. fem. pl.
nom. he hit ho, heo, hi hi, ho, heo
acc. hine hit hi, heo hi
gen. his his hire, hore hore, heore
dat. him him hire hom, heom
First and second pronouns survive largely unchanged, with only minor spelling variations. In the third person, the masculine accusative singular became 'him'. The feminine form developed into 'she', but unsteadily - 'ho' remains in some areas for a long time. The lack of a strong standard written form between the eleventh and the fifteenth century makes these changes hard to map.
Generally, all letters in Middle English words are pronounced. (Silent letters in Modern English come from pronunciation shifts but continued spelling conventions.) Therefore 'knight' is pronounced 'k-n-i-g-h-t' (with 'gh' as the 'ch' in German 'nacht' or Scots 'loch'), not 'nite'.
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
(Chaucer, Canterbury Tales)
Words like 'straunge' are disyllabic. 'Palmeres' is trisyllabic. The differences between Old English and Middle English (and indeed Modern English) have led some to claim English is a glorified creole.
Chancery Standard
Chancery Standard was a written form of English used by government bureaucracy and for other official purposes from the late 14th century onwards. King Henry V, who reigned from 1413 to 1422, used mainly English, and ordered his government officials to do the same. The Chancery form had become broadly standardized by about the 1430s.
Some points about Chancery Standard:
- It was, at least initially, a written officialese rather than a spoken form.
- It had to be clear and unambiguous as it was used for important documents.
- In its early stages, the clerks using it would already have been familiar with French and Latin, and the strict grammar of those languages.
- It was largely based on the London and East Midland dialects, as those areas were the political and demographic "centres of gravity", but it used other dialect forms where they made meanings clearer, for example the northern they, their, them were used rather than the London hi/they, hir, hem, perhaps because the latter could be confused with words such as he, her, him.
- It developed a standardised grammar which provided a ready-made standard for the first printers later in the 15th century.
- It was disseminated around England by bureaucrats on official business, and slowly gained prestige.
By the mid-15th century, Chancery Standard was used for most official purposes except the church (which used Latin) and some legal matters (which used French and some Latin). It was not the only influence on later forms of English - its level of influence is disputed, and a variety of spoken dialects continued to exist - but it provided a core around which Early Modern English could crystallize.