The Historical Background
to Middle English

Part I:  The Beginnings

Language is, quite simply, the medium through which people communicate, and this definition presupposes a need to communicate and someone to whom it is necessary to communicate. In the most primitive societies, as still in the animal kingdom, language is a two-fold object. Firstly, it furnished private recognition sounds by which the component elements of the most fundamental society - the male, its mate and their offspring - could recognize each other and communicate their needs. Secondly, it protected that social grouping by language which asserted territorial possession, pugnacity and other features which ensured the formation and survival of the group. This second function was specially reinforced by many other linguistic and non-linguistic media of communication such as tone of voice, threatening gestures, the non-verbal additions to the spoken word.

As civilization developed the family structure became more complex, and the private and particular language of the group had to develop in such a way that its increased number of families and individuals could communicate a wider range of mutual needs and interests.

Where you have people whose development can be traced back directly to the primitive tribal society, possibly still occupying the same geographical area of the earth's surface, and with little or no infusion of alien influences, the story of that people's language is likely to be simple. Few modern peoples, however, have so closed and static a history that such an unbroken development can be traced, and English is certainly not one of them. Indeed, our concern must be less with any ancestral tribe or people and more with a geographical entity which we now call England, over which a series of tribes and peoples of widely different origins and languages has roamed, fought, settled and eventually inter-communicated. In our own age, of course, we have seen the English language taken outside these geographical boundaries of England by conquest, settlement, trade and other factors to create circumstances in which, as a language, English has to be re-classified in terms of the nations, races and cultures of widely divergent societies which use it, from American to Nigerian, Indian to Australian, Fijian to West Indian.

At the end of the mediaeval or Middle English period, however, no such expansion had taken place, and an understanding of the growth of English stems largely from a knowledge of the social, political, economic and cultural history of England during the various stages in the development of the language as it adapted and grew to cope with the communication requirements which these historical developments imposed.

The term "Middle English" implies both a beginning and a subsequent development, and no understanding of Middle English is possible without some understanding of the historical events which influenced language in the period before the Norman Conquest, which is generally recognized to be the dividing line between what we term Old and Middle English and Anglo-Saxon and Norman England. At the outset, however, it is essential to realise that linguistic changes, even those arbitrarily imposed in modern times for political reasons, are slow to take effect, and that one form of English shades slowly into another; even after a cataclysmic historical event like the Norman Conquest which appears subsequently to have exercised so decisive an influence on the language. Consequently we do not see the nature of English change until about 1150, though it immediately ceases to be the language of government.

The story starts with Neolithic settlers coming to Southern Britain about 3700 BC followed by a series of other settlers through the next three millennia. Then between about 500 BC and 100 BC, three main invasions by settlers of Celtic origin took place. Consequently, when Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 54 BC, he found the country inhabited by a variety of races, not by a homogeneous people who might be termed Celtic or "ancient Britons", but it is true to say that the dominant tribes were Celtic in ethnic and linguistic make-up.

The Roman occupation, which lasted for almost 400 years, gave Britain a period of relative peace and great social and cultural advancement. One effect of this may have been to break down to some degree the linguistic barriers between various Celtic dialects, but more certainly those Celtic dialects spoken in the peaceful South and East were greatly enriched by borrowings from Latin which reflected the superior attributes of the Roman way of life, especially in government, military affairs and, after the conversion of Rome to Christianity, ecclesiastical life.

It is interesting to realise that, if the course of history had been different and Roman power survived for another four centuries, I might be tracing the history of a language derived from the influence of a superior Latin culture on "Old Welsh", instead of another superior Latinate culture, Norman-French, on Old English. But Roman power did not survive the beginning of the fifth century, and the Romanised Celts were soon either driven away into the remote fastnesses of Wales, Western England and Cumbria or conquered and dominated by the new incursions of settlers of Teutonic or "Anglo-Saxon" origin. These settlers were not homogeneous in race, language or geographical origin, and this diversity is reflected in present county and regional names such as Sussex, land of the South Saxons; Suffolk, land of the South folk; or Wessex, the land of the West Saxons. These people generally did not take over Roman British towns but preferred to establish their own settlements, leaving the remnants of the conquered peoples in the vicinity. This situation can be seen by the proximity of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon place names in many parts of England. Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that the Anglo-Saxon dialects borrowed few words from the conquered Celts, whether of native or Latin derivation.

Civilization came to Anglo-Saxon England first through its conversion to Christianity, and this was followed by the consolidation of the country into larger units or kingdoms, the most important being Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria.

  

	The Viking Invasions
	The Norman Conquest
	Old English
	Middle English
	Latin in the Middle English Period
	French Influences
	The Enrichment of English
	Conclusions