Mugglestone - The Oxford History of English
.pdf118 marilyn corrie
The extract from The Prick of Conscience is quoted from Wogan-Browne et al. (1999: 242–3 (ll. 9–22)).
London English
On the language of twelfth-century London, see Reaney (1925); on its evolution through immigration, see especially Samuels (1963). The excerpts from Henry III’s proclamation of 1258 are quoted from Dickins and Wilson (1956: 8). The passages from Chaucer are cited from Benson (1988): see pp. 584, 528, 533, and 531 for the lines from Troilus and Criseyde (V. 1793–6, III. 1128–34, III. 1471–77 and III. 1291–2 respectively); see p. 76 for the couplet from The Miller’s Tale (Fragment I(A). 3797–8); and p. 333 for the extract from The Book of the Duchess (ll. 257–9). Burnley (1983) discusses various aspects of Chaucer’s (1983) language, including his exploitation of the diVerent dialectal forms familiar in London.
The quotations from the concordance to the WycliYte Bible, which are found in the preface to the work, are taken from Burnley (1992a: 166–7).
Standardization
Shepherd (1991) contains a useful discussion of AB language. The suggestion that AB language may have been inXuenced by the standardization of English before the Conquest is made by Blake (1996: 129).
Samuels (1963) is the classic account of the appearance of standardized varieties of English in the fourteenth and Wfteenth centuries. The standardized language exempliWed by the Auchinleck manuscript is called ‘Type II’ here, that of Chaucerian manuscripts ‘Type III’, and that of the Chancery ‘Type IV’; ‘Central Midlands Standard’ is ‘Type I’. For important qualiWcations of Samuels’ Wndings, however, see Benskin (1992, 2004), and also Horobin (2003), who emphasizes the perpetuation of Samuels’ Type III language after the emergence of Type IV. On the spread of forms typical of Gower’s language, see also Smith (1988a). On the commercial production of books in fourteenthand Wfteenthcentury London, see Christianson (1989).
The royal warrant of 1438 is quoted from Fisher et al. (1984: 178); the postscript from Margaret Paston’s 1448 letter to her husband is taken from Burnley (1992a), but with the modern punctuation inserted there removed. The often-cited Brewers’ memorandum is taken from Chambers and Daunt (1931: 139). Thomas Polton’s claims regarding the connection between the English language and English autonomy are discussed in Allmand (1992: 417). On Chaucer’s importance for Wfteenth-century English poets, see especially Lerer (1993); but compare Cannon (1998), who argues that the image of Chaucer created in the Wfteenth century misrepresents the truth about his contribution to the development of the English language.
middle english—dialects and diversity 119
The couplet from Of Arthour and Merlin is quoted from Turville-Petre (1996: 21). The passage from Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde which is echoed by Caxton is taken from Benson (1988: 489 (II.22–5)); Usk’s apology is quoted from Wogan-Browne et al. (1999: 30 (l. 9)). For the sources of Caxton’s comments which I quote in this section, see the bibliographical details in the following chapter.
5
FROM MIDDLE TO EARLY
MODERN ENGLISH
Jeremy J. Smith
MANY histories of languages diVerentiate between ‘external’ and ‘internal’ approaches to the subject. Internal history may be deWned as the study of evolving systems of lexicon, grammar, and transmission (speechand writingsystems); external history is to do with the ways in which a language is employed over time, for example the shift from script to print, or how particular languages are associated with particular social functions at particular moments in their
history.
Such a distinction is in many ways useful and is, for example, adopted in the chapter which follows this one. However, it is important to realize that this strict separation of internal and external history is a matter of operational scholarly convenience rather than actual fact. Just as living creatures evolve through natural selection, whereby form interacts over time in complex ways with environmental function, so do languages evolve: thus the changing forms of a particular language through time are the result of their interaction with that language’s functions. From this point of view, therefore, internal and external histories are intimately connected.
The relationship between form and function clearly underpins many of the comments on their native language which are made by English writers in the late medieval and early modern periods. Thus, for example, William Caxton (England’s Wrst printer), in the prologue to his translation of Eneydos (1490), makes the point very eVectively; his discussion has a local point of reference, but it has wider implications in that he explicitly draws connections between linguistic forms and their social/stylistic functions:
from middle to early modern english 121
And for as moche as this present booke is not for a rude vplondyssh man to laboure therin/ |
|
ne rede it/ but onely for a clerke & a noble gentylman that feleth and vnderstondeth in |
|
faytes of armes in loue & in noble chyualrye/ Therfor in a meane bytwene bothe I haue |
|
reduced & translated this sayd booke in to our englysshe not ouer rude ne curyous but in |
|
suche termes as shal be vnderstanden by goddys grace accordynge to my copye. |
5 |
(faytes: deeds)
Almost a century later, in his The First Part of the Elementarie (1582), the Elizabethan schoolteacher Richard Mulcaster also points directly to how language change derives from functional considerations:
. . . our tung doth serue to so manie vses, bycause it is conuersant with so manie peple, and so well acquainted with so manie matters, in so sundrie kindes of dealing. Now all this varietie of matter, and diuersitie of trade, make both matter for our speche, & mean to enlarge it. For he that is so practised, will vtter that, which he practiseth in his naturall tung, and if the strangenesse of the matter do so require, he that is to vtter, rather then he 5 will stik in his vtterance, will vse the foren term, by waie of premunition, that the cuntrie peple do call it so, and by that mean make a foren word, an English denison.
(premunition: premonition denison: denizen, naturalized inhabitant)
In the terminology of modern sociolinguistics, Mulcaster’s description of the manie vses of our tung could be described as ‘elaboration’. In many societies, particular languages—or varieties of the same language—are used with particular functions. As has been discussed earlier in this volume (see Chapter 3), Latin, English, and French all performed distinct functions in England during the Middle Ages. But if a particular language or language-variety has a number of functions, we may consider it to be elaborated.
Elaboration of usage is one of four stages in the process of standardization, the others being selection, codiWcation, and acceptance. It is by means of this process that a particular variety or language is selected for overtly prestigious use, either consciously or unconsciously; it is codiWed through the enforcement of norms (e.g. by an Academy, or through education); it is elaborated in function; and it is accepted by the community as an elite usage.
It is, however, important to realize that standard varieties of language tend to relate to other varieties clinally rather than discretely: in other words, there is no clear cut-oV point between a standard variety and other varieties of the same language. Moreover, as later chapters in this volume illustrate, standardization itself seems to be an ongoing process; the distinction between standard and non-standard forms tends to change over time, and no single stage in the process of standardization of any living language is ever complete (such Wxity is of course possible for dead languages, such as Latin). During the transition
122 jeremy j. smith
from Middle to modern English, a ‘standardized’ variety, based on usages current in London, can nevertheless be discerned. However, since London English itself was changing as a result of the dynamic processes of immigration into the capital which took place at this time, it is hard to pin down any precise set of forms which characterizes it.
The notion of elaboration has usefulness in any context where the multifunctionality of languages or language-varieties is being discussed. The theme of this chapter is that the transition from Middle to early modern English is above all the period of the elaboration of the English language. Between the late fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, the English language began increasingly to take on more functions. These changes in function had, it is argued here, a major eVect on the form of English: so major, indeed, that the old distinction between ‘Middle’ and ‘modern’ retains considerable validity, although the boundary between these two linguistic epochs was obviously a fuzzy one.
The remainder of this chapter falls into four major sections, dealing with the lexicon, grammar, spelling, and pronunciation respectively. The chapter concludes with some remarks on the linguistic implications of a key cultural event during the period: the arrival of printing in the British Isles in 1476.
lexicon
As discussed in the previous chapter, the Middle English period is above all the period when linguistic variation is reXected in the written mode. One of the most famous descriptions of such variation may be taken as a startingpoint for our discussion of the lexicon during the transition from Middle to early modern English. It is again taken from Caxton’s prologue to the Eneydos:
And certaynly our langage now vsed varyeth ferre from that. whiche was vsed and spoken whan I was borne/ For we englysshe men/ ben borne vnder the domynacyon of the mone. whiche is neuer stedfaste/ but euer wauerynge/ wexynge one season/ and waneth & dyscreaseth another season/ And that comyn englysshe that is spoken in one shyre
5varyeth from a nother. In so moche that in my dayes happened that certayn marchauntes were in a shippe in tamyse for to haue sayled ouer the see into Zelande/ and for lacke of wynde thei taryed atte forlond and wente to lande for to refreshe them And one of theym named sheVelde a mercer cam in to an hows and axed for mete. and specyally he axyd after eggys And the good wyf answerde. That she coude speke no frenshe. And the
from middle to early modern english 123
marchaunt was angry. for he also coude speke no frenshe. but wold haue hadde egges/ |
10 |
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 commynycacyon and maters in suche maners & termes/ that |
15 |
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/ & curyous I stande abasshed.
(tamyse: the River Thames; Zelande: Zealand, in the Low Countries; forlond: the North Foreland, the westernmost point on the coast of modern Kent; axed: asked; mete: food)
This passage, even if Caxton were (as seems likely) exaggerating to strengthen his argument, is interesting for several reasons. Most obviously, in the communicative problems caused by egges and eyren in lines 9–13, it illustrates what is known as diatopic (‘through-space’) variation in the lexicon, and thus may be taken as an early comment on Middle English word geography—a somewhat neglected sub-discipline still. DiVerent forms have a diVerent distribution in Middle English. Thus, kirk (‘church’) and stern (‘star’) appear in Northern Middle English but not in the south; and bigouth (‘began’) appears in Older Scots but not in Middle English, where the forms gan and can were preferred.
Moreover, it is clear that the vocabulary of English varied diatopically during the late Middle Ages not only in forms but also in the meaning of forms. At the end of the fourteenth century, GeoVrey Chaucer observed something of this variation in his representation of Northern dialect in the Canterbury Tales when, in The Reeve’s Tale (l. A.4029) he made his young Northern students Aleyn and John use the word hope with its Northern meaning ‘think’, rather than with its Southern meaning ‘hope, wish for’. Thus the line ‘Oure maunciple, I hope he wil be deed’ is a dialectal joke, depending on the conXict between the Northern meaning ‘I think our manciple will die’ and the Southern meaning ‘I hope our manciple will die’.
But other points made in the passage from Caxton’s prologue are also of interest for the arguments of this chapter. For instance, he clearly understands one of the principal axioms which underpin modern theories of language change: the relationship between linguistic variation and linguistic change. Furthermore, he draws attention to the connection between language and social standing; the lines (14–17) referring to the usage of ‘euery man that is in ony reputacyon’ make this point explicitly. Caxton indicates that for many contemporaries such ‘reputacyon’ or status correlates with a particular form of ‘commynycacyon’ which valued heightened expression above clarity. And Caxton distinguishes ‘playn’, ‘rude’, and ‘curyous [termes]’; to use present-day linguistic terminology, he
124 jeremy j. smith
distinguishes registers characterized by diVerent kinds of vocabulary. In doing so he follows the ancient distinction between ‘middle’, ‘low’, and ‘high’ styles respectively; the terminology derives from the classical world, but it was still understood in the Middle Ages.
We can be fairly certain what kinds of vocabulary Caxton had in mind when he referred to ‘curyous termes’. In part he is probably referring to so-called ‘aureate’ diction, a kind of usage found in much English writing of the Wfteenth century. The term aureate applied to stylistic choice (‘designating or characteristic of a highly ornamental literary style or diction’, as OED notes) seems to have been invented by the poet John Lydgate (c 1370–1449/1450), who is probably the bestknown practitioner of this mode of writing. Lydgate desired to enrich vernacular poetic vocabulary—to ‘refourme the rudenesse of my stile’—by transferring Latin nouns and adjectives from the liturgy, from major medieval Latin writers, and from the Vulgate Bible into English. The result was what one of Lydgate’s contemporaries, the East Anglian writer John Metham, called ‘half-chongyd Latyn’.
The following passage from Lydgate’s Marian lyric, A Balade in Commendation of Our Lady, exempliWes his mature aureate style:
O closid gardeyn, al void of weedes wicke, |
35 |
|
Cristallyn welle, of clennesse cler consigned, |
|
conWrmed with a seal |
Fructif olyve, of foilys faire and thicke, |
|
olive tree; leaves |
And redolent cedyr, most derworthly ydynged, |
|
fragrant; sumptuously; decorated(?) |
Remembyr of pecchouris [unto thee] assigned, |
|
Recaller; sinners |
Or the wyckid fend his wrath upon us wreche, |
40 |
vent (anger, etc.) |
Lantyrn of light, be thu oure lyWs leche. |
|
cure |
. . . |
|
|
Red[e] rose, Xouryng withowtyn spyne, |
50 |
thorn |
Fonteyn of fulnesse, as beryl corrent clere, |
|
clear running water |
Some drope of thi graceful dewe to us propyne; |
|
give drink |
Thu light without nebule, shynyng in thi spere, |
|
cloud; sphere |
Medicyne to myscheu[e]s, pucelle withoute pere, |
misfortunes; virgin |
|
Flawme down to doolful, light of thyn inXuence, |
55 |
|
Remembryng thi servant for thi magniWcence. |
|
|
John Norton-Smith has shown how phrases such as fructif olyue and redolent cedyr in lines 37–38 are closely modelled on the French poet and philosopher Alan of Lille’s Anticlaudianus which was written in Latin: in these instances, on oliua
from middle to early modern english 125
fructiferans and cedrus redolans respectively.1 But more properly ‘aureate’ is nebule in line 53. The form, from Latin nebula, is deWned by the Middle English Dictionary (MED) as ‘A cloud; mist or haze’. It occurs in Middle English only in Lydgate’s writing, and is not recorded by the OED again until 1869. It seems, indeed, that Lydgate himself introduced the word into English.
There is evidence, however, that aureate diction was not the only kind of ‘curyous’ writing available. David Burnley has shown how the anonymous printer of The Boke of St Albans (1486) met the desire of the socially ambitious to develop aristocratic modes of expression, to use ‘the gentill termys in communyng of theyr haukys’. As Burnley puts it:
It is apparent that the motive for compiling lists of such terms was one of social aspiration: a knowledge of the language proper to the concerns of a gentleman was equated with the possession of gentility itself. To be heard to speak like a gentleman was half-way to being taken for one . . . at a time when poetic art was preoccupied with lexical splendour, [it is not] surprising to Wnd the ancient association between eloquence and cultural reWnement taking the form of a fascination with out-of-the-way terminology.2
The Boke of St Albans, therefore, includes not only a Wne set of collective nouns, of which perhaps the most attractive are ‘a Cherme of Goldefynches’, ‘a SuperXuyte of Nunnys’, ‘a Malepertnes of pedleres’, ‘a Rage of Maydenys’, ‘a blush of boyes’, and ‘a Sculke’ both ‘of freris’ and ‘of foxis’, but also an extensive vocabulary for hawking and hunting. For instance, terms for the Xight of hawks range from beke (‘beckoning to game’) through nomme (‘taken game and lost again’) and retriue (‘rouse game a second time’) to souce (‘rising’) and toll (‘summons’).
Of course, our evidence for the range of registers which were available in the vernacular during the late medieval and early modern periods is limited; we have to make do with the written materials which have survived the vagaries of time, or with interpreting the sometimes cryptic discussions of contemporary commentators. Scholars of the period do not have the advantages available to present-day dialectologists and sociolinguists. There are no tape-recordings or transcriptions taken from the speech of carefully selected informants from the Wfteenth and sixteenth centuries; informants are (fairly obviously) not available for follow-up interrogation; many groups in society (e.g. most women and practically all labouring folk) were illiterate, and this means that we have no direct access to their language.
1 This is discussed further on p. 146 of Norton-Smith’s edition of John Lydgate: Poems (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966).
2 See D. Burnley, The Language of Chaucer (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1983), 178.
126 jeremy j. smith
However, Anthonij Dees, working on medieval French, has suggested that it is permissible to use direct speech—most obviously in dramatic texts—as evidence for the spoken usages of the past (an approach which is also explored in Chapter 8).3 Dees does qualify his suggestion by adding the proviso that any direct speech should not contain lengthy monologues which could represent a more formalized usage. It so happens that such dramatic material is available in Middle English from the Wfteenth century: the play Mankind includes some useful stage interaction between the ‘vice’ characters New Gyse, Nowadays, and Nought, and the ‘virtue’ character Mercy, in which the characters not only demonstrate a range of registers but also considerable linguistic self-awareness. We might note especially New Gyse’s reference to Mercy’s Englysch Laten.
mercy. Mercy ys my name by denomynacyon, |
|
I conseyue Ze haue but a lytell fauour in my communycacyon. |
|
new gyse. Ey, ey! Yowr body ys full of Englysch Laten. |
|
I am aferde yt wyll brest. 125 |
break apart |
‘Prauo te’, quod þe bocher onto me |
I cures thee |
When I stale a leg a motun. |
|
Ze are a stronge cunning clerke. |
|
nowadays. I prey yow hertyly, worschyppull clerke, |
|
To haue þis Englysch mad in Laten: 130 |
|
‘I haue etun a dyschfull of curdys, |
|
Ande I haue schetun yowr mowth full of turdys.’ |
|
Now opyn your sachell with Laten wordys |
|
Ande sey me þis in clerycall manere! |
|
And, making allowances for the necessary conventionality of literary expression in non-dramatic verse, some idea of contemporary registers of vocabu- lary—ranging from ‘curyous’ to ‘rude’—may be derived from the writings of Caxton’s younger contemporary, the poet and cleric John Skelton (c 1460–1529). Skelton and other poets of the period, such as Stephen Hawes (?1475–?1510/11), represent a cultural bridge between the late medieval and Tudor worlds. Caxton refers, later in his prologue to the Eneydos, to ‘mayster Iohn Skelton late created poete laureate in the vnyuersite of oxen-
3 This is discussed in A. Dees, Etude sur l’evolution des demonstratifs en ancien et en moyen franc¸ais
(Groningen: Walters-NoordhoV, 1971). I owe this reference to Eleanor Lawson. For a diVerent point of view, see further Chapter 9.
from middle to early modern english 127
forde’; and in poems such as (respectively) the high-style Dyuers Balettys and Dyties Solacyous, or the low-style The Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyng, we may see the range of lexical possibilities which were available to authors of the period:
Encleryd myrroure and perspectyve most bryght, |
illuminated |
Illumynyd wyth feturys far passyng my reporte; |
features; surpassing |
Radyent Esperus, star of the clowdy nyght, |
|
Lode-star to lyght these lovers to theyr porte, 25 |
|
Gayne dangerous stormys theyr anker of supporte, |
|
Theyr sayll of solace most comfortably clad, |
|
Whych to behold makyth hevy hartys glad. |
|
(from Dyuers Balettys) |
|
And than come haltyng Jone, |
|
|||
And brought a gambone |
|
gammon |
||
Of bakon that was resty; |
|
rancid |
||
But, Lord, that she was testy! |
furious |
|||
Angry as a waspy! 330 |
|
|
||
She gan to yane and gaspy |
yawn |
|||
And bad Elynour go bet, |
|
go on |
||
And fyll in good met: |
|
|
||
It was dere that was far fet! |
fetched from afar |
|||
Another brought a spycke 335 |
piece of fat meat |
|||
Of a bacon Xycke; |
|
side of bacon |
||
|
|
|
|
|
Her tonge was very quycke, |
|
|||
But she spake somwhat thycke. |
|
|||
Her felowe dyd stammer and stut, |
|
|||
But she was a foule slut |
340 |
|
||
For her mouth fomyd |
|
|
||
And her bely groned: |
|
|
||
Jone sayde she had eten a fyest. |
fart |
|||
‘By Chryst,’ sayde she, ‘thou lyest; |
|
|||
I have as swete a breth |
345 |
|
||
As thou, with shamefull deth!’
(from The Tunnyng of
Elynour Rummyng)