A History of English Language

A history of the english language 134
is, þat Inglische 65 Inglische 66 vnderstond,
was born in Inglond;
Freynsche vse þis gentilman,
Ac euerich 67 Inglische can. 68
Mani noble ich haue
69
no Freynsche couþe 70 seye. 71
The special feature of this passage is not the author’s statement that everybody knows
English, which we have come to expect, but his additional assertion that at a time when
gentlemen still “used” French he had seen many a noble who could not speak that
language.
Although, as these quotations show, English was now understood by everyone, it does
not follow that French was unknown or had entirely gone out of use. It still had some
currency at the court although English had largely taken its place; we may be sure that the
court that Chaucer knew spoke English even if its members commonly wrote and often
read French. A dozen books owned by Richard II in 1385, most of them romances, seem
from their titles to have been all French, though he spoke English fluently and Gower
wrote the Confessio Amantis for him in English. Robert of Brunne, who wrote his
Chronicle in 1338, implies that French is chiefly the language of two groups, the
educated classes and the French. 72 That in England French was the accomplishment
mainly of the educated in the fourteenth century is implied by the words of Avarice in
Piers Plowman (B-text, V, 239): “I lerned nevere rede on boke, And I can no Frenche in
feith but of the ferthest ende of Norfolke.” Among the learned we must include the legal
profession and the church. French was the language of lawyers and of the law courts
down to 1362. We may likewise believe that ecclesiastics could still commonly speak
French. We are told that Hugh of Eversdone, the cellarer, who was elected abbot of St.
Albans in 1308, knew English and French very well, though he was not so competent in
Latin; 73 and an amusing story of the bishop of Durham who was consecrated in 1318
66
English language
67
everybody
68
knows
69
seen
70
could
71
Arthour and Merlin, ed. E.Kölbing (Leipzig, 1890).
72
Frankis spech is cald Romance, So sais clerkes & men of France (Prol. to part II).
73
Walsingham, Gesta Abbatum, II, 113–14 (Rolls Series).