A History of English Language

The reestablishment of english, 1200-1500 141
valid today. The other two are a heritage of the past, which in time disappeared. Later
Caxton in his Dialogues in French and English has the merchant chiefly in mind: “Who
this booke shall wylle [wish to] lerne may well enterprise or take on honde marchandises
fro one land to anothir.” But French had been for so long the mark of the privileged class
that such cultivation of it as persisted in this century and in after times was prompted
largely by the feeling that it was the language of culture and fashion. This feeling was
strengthened in the eighteenth century and it is present in the minds of many people
today.
109. The Use of English in Writing.
The last step that the English language had to make in its gradual ascent was its
employment in writing. For here it had to meet the competition of Latin as well as
French. The use of Latin for written communication and record was due partly to a habit
formed at a time when most people who could write at all could write Latin, partly to its
international character, and partly to the feeling that it was a language that had become
fixed while the modern languages seemed to be variable, unregulated, and in a constant
state of change. Modern languages began to encroach upon this field of Latin at a time
when French was still the language of the educated and the socially prominent. French
accordingly is the first language in England to dispute the monopoly of Latin in written
matter, and only in the fifteenth century does English succeed in displacing both. 101 In
private and semi-official correspondence French is at its height at about 1350; the earliest
English letters appear in the latter part of the century, but there are few before 1400.
English letters first occur among the Paston letters and in the Stonor correspondence
between 1420 and 1430. After 1450 English letters are everywhere the rule. 102 It is rather
similar with wills. The earliest known English will subsequent to the Conquest dates from
1383, and English wills are rare before 1400. But in 1397 the earl of Kent made his will
in English, and in 1438 the countess of Stafford in doing likewise said, “I…ordeyne and
make my testament in English tonge, for my most profit, redyng, and understandyng in
yis wise.” The wills of Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI are all in English. 103
The fifteenth century also saw the adoption of English for the records of towns and
guilds and in a number of branches of the central government. About 1430 a number of
towns are seen translating their ordinances and their books of customs into English, and
English becomes general in their transac-
101
The widespread use of French in writing, especially in official documents and letters, is
chronicled by Helen Suggett, “The Use of French in England in the Later Middle Ages,” Trans.
Royal Hist. Soc., 4th ser., 28 (1946), 61–83.
102
See F.J.Tanquerey, Recueil de lettres anglo-françaises, 1265–1399 (Paris, 1916), and
C.L.Kingsford, Prejudice and Promise in XVth Century England (Oxford, 1925), pp. 22–47.
103
The wills mentioned are all in J.Nichols, A Collection of All the Wills…of the Kings… (London,
1780).