The English Language

Four principal dialects existed in late medieval England in addition to the western and northern Welsh and Scots. Latin was still the dominant institutional language and French was commonly spoken among the nobility and others. Gradually throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, however, written English would become the language of many kinds of records, replacing Latin and French. This complex linguistic situation, somewhat exacerbated by Lollardy, caused … Read the rest

The English and England

September 12, 2012 bookworm2 Comments

The English and England

Medieval writers from Bede, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and Layamon to the authors of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century romances, historical writings, and religious works described England in sociological terms. This kingdom, country, or nation, as Benedict Anderson observes of a later age, is here already imagined as a community of humans that is “limited” and “sovereign” even if its inhabitants are imprecise in answering where and when the … Read the rest