A History of English Language

A history of the english language 138
All this might have been said in one sentence: Hereafter all lawsuits shall be conducted in
English. But it is interesting to note that the reason frankly stated for the action is that
“French is much unknown in the said realm.” Custom dies hard, and there is some reason
to think that the statute was not fully observed at once. It constitutes, however, the
official recognition of English.
106. English in the Schools.
From a time shortly after the Conquest, French had replaced English as the language of
the schools. In the twelfth century there are patriotic complaints that Bede and others
formerly taught the people in English, but their lore is lost; other people now teach our
folk. 90 A statement of Ranulph Higden in the fourteenth century shows that in his day the
use of French in the schools was quite general. At the end of the first book of his
Polychronicon (c. 1327), a universal history widely circulated, he attributes the
corruption of the English language which he observes in part to this cause:
This apayrynge of þe burþe tunge is bycause of tweie þinges; oon is for
children in scole þe vsage and manere of alle oþere naciouns
beeþ compelled for to leue hire owne langage, and for to construe hir
lessouns and here þynges in Frensche, and so þey haueþ seþ þe Normans
come first in to Engelond. Also gentil men children beeþ to
speke Frensche from þe tyme þet þey beeþ i-rokked in here cradel, and
kunneþ speke and playe wiþ a childes broche; and vplondisshe men wil
likne hym self to gentil men, and fondeþ wiþ greet besynesse for to speke
Frensce, for to be [more] i-tolde of. 91
However, after the Black Death, two Oxford schoolmasters were responsible for a great
innovation in English education. When the translator of Higden’s book, John Trevisa,
came to the above passage he added a short but extremely interesting observation of his
own:
manere was moche i-vsed to fore þe firste moreyn and is siþþe
sumdel i-chaunged; for Iohn Cornwaile, a maister of grammer, chaunged
þe lore in gramer scole and construccioun of Frensche in to Englische; and
Richard Pencriche lerned þat manere techynge of hym and oþere men of
Pencrich; so þat now, þe of oure Lorde a þowsand þre hundred and
foure score and fyue, and of þe secounde kyng Richard after þe conquest
nyne, in alle þe gramere scoles of Engelond, children leueþ Frensche and
construeþ and lerneþ an Englische,
90
Anglia, 3 (1880), 424.
91
Polychronicon, II, 159 (Rolls Series), from the version of Trevisa made 1385–1387.