A History of English Language

A history of the english language 126
clothing, food, household utensils and operations, meals, and the like, together with terms
of falconry and the chase and other polite accomplishments. The important words are
provided with an interlinear English gloss. The person for whom the little manual was
prepared was Dionysia, the daughter of William de Munchensy. The latter was among the
leaders of the barons in the battle of Lewes and was related, through his sister’s marriage,
to the half-brother of King Henry III. Dionysia herself was later married to one of the
sons of the earl of Oxford. She thus belonged to the upper circle of the nobility, and it is
therefore highly significant that the language she knew, and through which she acquired
French, was English. Since the treatise was certainly written in the thirteenth century (not
later than 1250) and the number of manuscripts that have come down to us shows that it
had much wider circulation than in just the family for which it was originally written, we
may feel quite sure that the mother tongue of the children of the nobility in the year 1300
was, in many cases, English. 34
Finally, it is interesting to note the appearance at this time of an attitude that becomes
more noticeable later, the attitude that the proper language for Englishmen to know and
use is English. In the Cursor Mundi, an encyclopedic poem on biblical subjects, written
shortly before or shortly after the year 1300, we may detect a mild but nonetheless clear
protest against the use of French and a patriotic espousal of English:
Pis ilk bok es translate
Into Inglis tong to rede
For the love of Inglis lede, 35
Inglis lede of Ingland,
For the commun at 36 understand.
Frankis rimes here I redd
Comunlik in ilka sted; 37
Mast 38 es it wroght for Frankis man,
Quat 39 is for him na Frankis can?
In Ingland the nacion,
Es Inglis man þar in commun;
Pe speche þat man wit mast may spede;
Mast þarwit to speke war nede.
34
The treatise has been edited by William Rothwell, Walter de Bibbesworth: Le Tretiz (London,
1990). On the date see Baugh, “The Date of Walter of Bibbesworth’s Traité,” Festschrift für
Walther Fischer (Heidelberg, 1959), pp. 21–33.
35
people
36
to
37
each place
38
most
39
what