A History of the English Language - A Companion Site

Chapter 6: Middle English: 1150-1500

Middle English is usually considered to begin around 1150, when the synthetic character of Old English starts to change. This change occurs at different times in different parts of Britain: in the North and East, it proceeds faster than in the South and West, probably due to Scandinavian influence. The loss of endings and the many loans we discussed in the previous chapter make Middle English look 'modern'. Several different points can be considered the end of Middle English: 1400, when the Great Vowel Shift starts; 1476, when print is introduced; or 1485, when Henry VII comes to the throne. Here, we will consider the year 1500, when the most radical morphological and syntactic changes are complete, as the end of Middle English. This chapter discusses the sources, writing system, and sounds of Middle English, and examines its morphology and syntax (its grammar). The chapter also provides texts for analysis.

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Useful Links

General

EHistLing provides an illustrated overview of Middle English and its historical development.

Authors

Background information on many Middle English authors is available on the Web, including this site about Geoffrey Chaucer at the University of North Carolina and this one at Wisconsin on ME authors in general.

Medieval Life & Towns

Judith Patterson and Stephen Alsford have constructed a site on the history of medieval English towns.

NOVA has a site on medieval wars.

Texts

The University of Rochester provides an immense number of various short Middle English texts.

Georgetown University hosts a number of texts in its "Labyrinth Library", including works by the Pearl poet and Chaucer.

There are recipees, musical texts, alchemy and lots more.

The National Library of Scotland hosts facsimiles of the Auchinleck Manuscript, an important medieval work.

The story of Sir Orfeo can be found at either the National Library of Scotland or the University of Rochester.

Dialects

Dr. Johnnesson of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology has a page describing many Middle English dialects.

Audio

There is a Middle English resource page with audio.

The UNC/Chapel Hill Chaucer Meta-Page offers a recording of selected sections of the Canterbury Tales.

Brief recorded excerpts from Piers Plowman and Gawain and the Green Knight are provided on the Palgrave and Norton sites.