Middle English

- 1200
The Re-establishment of English 1200 - 1500. The
Middle

English Literature
Middle English Dialects

- 1200
At the beginning of the 11th century the whole

of England came under the Scandinavian rule – the Scandinavian invasion was completed and the Danish king was seated on the English throne.
In 1042 England was back under English power, the English king who came to the throne – Edward the Confessor – was to be the last English king for more than three centuries.

Duke William, profiting by the weakness of King Harold who

succeeded King Edward on the English throne, invaded England.
He assembled an army, landed in England and in a battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066 managed to defeat Harold and proclaimed himself King of England.

the Normans, who by 1087 composed almost 10% of the

total population.
Each landlord, in return for his land, had to take an oath of allegiance to the king and provide him with military services if and when required.
The Saxon machinery of government was immensely reinforced, with a Norman monarch and his officials.
The 13th century witnessed the appearance of the first Parliament, or a council of barons, which later was changed to a national Parliament.

Language

Thus came, lo! England into Normandy's hand.
And the Normans

didn't know how to speak then but their own speech
And spoke French as they did at home, and their children did also teach;
So that high men of this land that of their blood come
Hold all that same speech that they took from them.
For but a man know French men count of him little.
But low men hold to English and to their own speech yet.
I think there are in all the world no countries
That don't hold to their own speech but England alone.
But men well know it is well for to know both,
For the more that a man knows, the more worth he is.

The Linguistic Situation in England 1066 – 1200

king and the upper classes toward the English language may

be characterized as one of simple indifference.
They did not cultivate English—which is not the same as saying that they had no acquaintance with it—because their activities in England did not necessitate it and their constant concern with continental affairs made French for them much more useful.

its former prestige is the improvement in the condition of

the mass of the people and the rise of a substantial middle class.

The rise of another important group—the craftsmen and the merchant class. By 1250 there had grown up in England about two hundred towns with populations of from 1,000 to 5,000; some, like London or York, were larger. These towns became free, self-governing communities, electing their own officers, assessing taxes in their own way, collecting them and paying them to the king in a lump sum, trying their own cases, and regulating their commercial affairs as they saw fit.

The Re-establishment of English

French also in English
1362 – the English language became the

language of Parliament, courts of law; later, at the end of the century – the language of teaching
The rule of King Henry IV (1399-1413) – the first king after the conquest whose native tongue was English.
The end of 14th century also saw the first English translation of Bible
Chaucer was writing his English masterpieces in English

group of Midland (‘Central’) dialect – corresponding to the OE

Mercian dialect – is divided into West Midland and East Midland as two main areas
The Northern dialects had developed from OE Northumbrian

Religious and Secular Literature in English (from 1250 to 1350)
Period

of Great Individual Writers
(from 1350 to 1400)
Imitative Period or Transition Period
(15th century)

patterns of word order to express the relationship between clause

elements. There was already tendency towards Subject-Verb-Object order

Grammatical Changes in Middle English

However, some nouns end in –n or –en (like Modern

English ox, oxen), especially in earlier texts.

Possessive forms end in –s or –es. There is no apostrophe; possessives are distinguished from plurals by context.

ME Noun

with the general tendency
- serious losses suffered by the strong

conjugation

other languages were regularly conjugated as weak.

Thus the minority

position of the strong conjugation was becoming constantly more evident. After the Norman Conquest the loss of native words further depleted the ranks of the strong verbs. Those that survived were exposed to the influence of the majority, and many have changed over in the course of time to the weak inflection

ends in –n or –en: e.g. goon, slepen, singen. In

later texts, the –n may disappear.
The –n or –en ending can also indicate a plural form of the verb: e.g. they goon, they slepen, they singen. In the past tense, the ending may be –n, -en, or –ed.
The –n or –en can also be a past participle (like Modern English eaten). In this case the word will generally be preceded by a form of have or be, or else it will function as an adjective describing a noun.

government, liberty, manor, messenger, minister, noble, prince, treason, tyrant, sir,

vassal, parliament, crown, reign, statute
Law arrest, arson, bail, bar, blame, crime, depose, evidence, felon, heir, jury, judge, legacy, pardon, plea, prison, punishment, sue, verdict
Religion abbey, baptism, cardinal, chant, charity, clergy, communion, confess, faith, friar, heresy, homily, mercy, miracle, novice, parson, prayer, religion, saint, sermon, solemn, temptation, virtue, prelate, ordain, divine.
Military army, barbican, battle, captain, combat, defend, enemy, lance, moat, navy, peace, retreat, spy, sergeant, guard.
Food and drink bacon, beef, clove, confection, cream, date, dinner, fruit, fry, gravy, jelly, lemon, mutton, olive, orange, plate, pork, roast, salad, salmon, sardine, saucer, sole, spice, sugar, supper, taste, toast, venison.
Fashion boots, brooch, button, cape, cloak, dress, fashion, flock, fur, garment, lace, ornament, rode, satin, tassel, train, vell, wardrobe.