But the recognition came at length. Already in 1258 was issued the celebrated English proclamation of Henry III., or rather of Simon de Montfort in his name, which, as the only public recognition of the native tongue between William the Conqueror and Edward III., has sometimes been spoken of as the first specimen of English. It runs:—
“Henri þurȝ godes fultume king on Engleneloande Lhoauerd on Yrloande. Duk on Normandie on Aquitaine and eorl on Aniow. Send igretinge to alle hise holde ilærde and ileawede on Huntendoneschire. þæt witen ȝe wel alle þæt we willen and vnnen þæt þæt vre rædesmen alle oþer þe moare dæl of heom þæt beoþ ichosen þurȝ us and þurȝ þæt loandes folk on vre kuneriche. habbeþ idon and schullen don in þe worþnesse of gode and on vre treowþe. for þe freme of þe loande. þurȝ þe besiȝte of þan to-foren-iseide redesmen. beo stedefæst and ilestinde in alle þinge a buten ænde. And we hoaten alle vre treowe in þe treowþe þæt heo vs oȝen. þæt heo stedefæstliche healden and swerien to healden and to werien þo isetnesses þæt ben imakede and beon to makien þurȝ þan to-foren iseide rædesmen. oþer þurȝ þe moare dæl of heom alswo alse hit is biforen iseid. And þæt æhc oþer helpe þæt for to done bi þan ilche oþe aȝenes alle men. Riȝt for to done and to foangen. And noan ne nime of loande ne of eȝte. wherþurȝ þis besiȝte muȝe beon ilet oþer iwersed on onie wise.’ And ȝif oni oþer onie cumen her onȝenes; we willen and hoaten þæt alle vre treowe heom healden deadliche ifoan. And for þæt we willen þæt þis beo stedefæst and lestinde; we senden ȝew þis writ open iseined wiþ vre seel. to halden amanges ȝew ine hord. Witnesse vs seluen æt Lundene. þane Eȝtetenþe day. on þe Monþe of Octobre In þe Two-and-fowertiȝþe ȝeare of vre cruninge. And þis wes idon ætforen vre isworene redesmen....
“And al on þo ilche worden is isend in to æurihce oþre shcire ouer al þære kuneriche on Engleneloande. and ek in tel Irelonde.”
The dialect of this document is more southern than anything else, with a slight midland admixture. It is much more archaic inflectionally than the Genesis and Exodus or Ormulum; but it closely resembles the old Kentish sermons and Proverbs of Alfred in the southern dialect of 1250. It represents no doubt the London speech of the day. London being in a Saxon county, and contiguous to Kent and Surrey, had certainly at first a southern dialect; but its position as the capital, as well as its proximity to the midland district, made its dialect more and more midland. Contemporary London documents show that Chaucer’s language, which is distinctly more southern than standard English eventually became, is behind the London dialect of the day in this respect, and is at once more archaic and consequently more southern.
During the next hundred years English gained ground steadily, and by the reign of Edward III. French was so little known in England, even in the families of the great, that about 1350 “John Cornwal, a maystere of gramere, chaungede þe lore (= teaching) in gramere scole and construccion of [i.e. from] Freynsch into Englysch”;[23] and in 1362-1363 English by statute took the place of French in the pleadings in courts of law. Every reason conspired that this “English” should be the midland dialect. It was the intermediate dialect, intelligible, as Trevisa has told us, to both extremes, even when these failed to be intelligible to each other; in its south-eastern form, it was the language of London, where the supreme law courts were, the centre of political and commercial life; it was the language in which the Wycliffite versions had given the Holy Scriptures to the people; the language in which Chaucer had raised English poetry to a height of excellence admired and imitated by contemporaries and followers. And accordingly after the end of the 14th century, all Englishmen who thought they had anything to say to their countrymen generally said it in the midland speech. Trevisa’s own work was almost the last literary effort of the southern dialect; henceforth it was but a rustic patois, which the dramatist might use to give local colouring to his creations, as Shakespeare uses it to complete Edgar’s peasant disguise in Lear, or which 19th century research might disinter to illustrate obscure chapters in the history of language. And though the northern English proved a little more stubborn, it disappeared also from literature in England; but in Scotland, which had now become politically and socially estranged from England, it continued its course as the national language of the country, attaining in the 15th and 16th centuries a distinct development and high literary culture, for the details of which readers are referred to the article on [Scottish Language].
The 15th century of English history, with its bloody French war abroad and Wars of the Roses at home, was a barren period in literature, and a transition one in language, witnessing the decay and disappearance of the final e, and most of the syllabic inflections of Middle English. Already by 1420, in Chaucer’s disciple Hoccleve, final e was quite uncertain; in Lydgate it was practically gone. In 1450 the writings of Pecock against the Wycliffites show the verbal inflections in -en in a state of obsolescence; he has still the southern pronouns her and hem for the northern their, them:—
“And here-aȝens holi scripture wole þat men schulden lacke þe coueryng which wommen schulden haue, & thei schulden so lacke bi þat þe heeris of her heedis schulden be schorne, & schulde not growe in lengþe doun as wommanys heer schulde growe....
“Also here-wiþal into þe open siȝt of ymagis in open chirchis, alle peple, men & wommen & children mowe come whanne euere þei wolen in ech tyme of þe day, but so mowe þei not come in-to þe vce of bokis to be delyuered to hem neiþer to be red bifore hem; & þerfore, as for to soone & ofte come into remembraunce of a long mater bi ech oon persoon, and also as forto make þat þe mo persoones come into remembraunce of a mater, ymagis & picturis serven in a specialer maner þan bokis doon, þouȝ in an oþer maner ful substanciali bokis seruen better into remembrauncing of þo same materis þan ymagis & picturis doon; & þerfore, þouȝ writing is seruen weel into remembrauncing upon þe bifore seid þingis, ȝit not at þe ful: Forwhi þe bokis han not þe avail of remembrauncing now seid whiche ymagis han.”[24]
The change of the language during the second period of Transition, as well as the extent of dialectal differences, is quaintly expressed a generation later by Caxton, who in the prologue to one of the last of his works, his translation of Virgil’s Eneydos (1490), speaks of the difficulty he had in pleasing all readers:—
“I doubted that it sholde not please some gentylmen, whiche late blamed me, sayeng, yt in my translacyons I had ouer curyous termes, whiche coud not be vnderstande of comyn peple, and desired me to vse olde and homely termes in my translacyons. And fayn wolde I satysfy euery man; and so to doo, toke an olde boke and redde therein; and certaynly the englysshe was so rude and brood that I coude not wele vnderstande it. And also my lorde abbot of Westmynster ded do shewe to me late certayn euydences wryton in olde englysshe for to reduce it in to our englysshe now vsid. And certaynly it was wreton in suche wyse that it was more lyke to dutche than englysshe; I coude not reduce ne brynge it to be vnderstonden. And certaynly, our langage now vsed varyeth ferre from that whiche was vsed and spoken whan I was borne. For we englysshemen ben borne vnder the domynacyon of the mone, whiche is neuer stedfaste, but euer wauerynge, wexynge one season, and waneth and dycreaseth another season. And that comyn englysshe that is spoken in one shyre varyeth from a nother. In so much that in my days happened that certayn marchauntes were in a shipe in tamyse, for to haue sayled ouer the sea into zelande, and for lacke of wynde thei taryed atte forlond, and wente to lande for to refreshe them. And one of theym named sheffelde, a mercer, cam in to an hows and axed for mete, and specyally he axyd after eggys, And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude speke no frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry, for he also coulde speke no frenshe, but wolde haue hadde egges; and she vnderstode hym not. And thenne at laste a nother sayd that he wolde haue eyren; then the good wyf sayd that she vnderstod hym wel. Loo! what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte, egges or eyren? certaynly, it is harde to playse euery man, by cause of dyuersite & chaunge of langage. For in these dayes, euery man that is in ony reputacyon in his countre wyll vtter his comynycacyon and maters in suche maners & termes that fewe men shall vnderstonde theym. And som honest and grete clerkes haue ben wyth me, and desired me to wryte the moste curyous termes that I coude fynde. And thus bytwene playn, rude and curyous, I stande abasshed; but in my Iudgemente, the comyn termes that be dayli vsed ben lyghter to be vnderstonde than the olde and auncyent englysshe.”