What language did the 13th c. Eng. peasant speak?
Jeff Gerke
I know, I know, read a book. If you wouldn't mind though, could
someone please give me a simple answer to this question (if there is a
simple answer).
What language would a peasant in a 13th century English village have
likely spoken?
Thanks.
BTW, I am reading two books on the subject at the moment, just haven't
come across the answer to this question yet.
Jeff
wmcle...@aol.com
In article <32fa112...@news.airmail.net>, jge...@airmail.net (Jeff
Gerke) writes:
>What language would a peasant in a 13th century English village have
>likely spoken?
>
>
Middle English, the language in which Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales.
Chaucer wrote a century closer to modern English in the evolution of the
language, but Chaucer in the original will give you a rough idea.
There was a lot of regional variation and many dialects were much less
like standard modern English than the London one Chaucer used.
Needless to say, a 13rg c. English peasant would have called his tongue
English rather than Middle English.
Will
SRHigham
It's an odd question, because the answer is so obvious. They spoke
English. To be more precise, scholars have traditionally called the
language spoken between 1150 and 1500 "Middle English", although these are
somewhat arbitrary dates and the language has always slowly evolved. Some
of the vocabulary and especially the accents would be baffling to most of
us today, but the grammar and most of the words were the same ones we use
today. I'm curious about what you thought the likely alternatives were. An
old variety of French was or could be spoken by much of the nobility,
Latin was known to high nobility and churchmen, but not to the peasants.
There were no Celtic languages spoken then in England.
Mike Dana
Jeff Gerke wrote:
>
> I know, I know, read a book. If you wouldn't mind though, could
> someone please give me a simple answer to this question (if there is a
> simple answer).
>
> likely spoken?
>
>
> BTW, I am reading two books on the subject at the moment, just haven't
> come across the answer to this question yet.
>
> Jeff
"English".
Today, linguists generally refer to it as "Middle English". The
Nobility of that time spoke (mostly) "Norman French". "Church Latin"
was used ecclesiastically. "Welsh", "Cornish" (virtually the same as
Welsh at that time), "Cumbrian" (also similar to Welsh) and "(Scots)
Gaelic" were spoken in the Borderlands. Local dialects no doubt
abounded as well, and literacy (in any language) among the English
*peasants* was uncommon, though not unheard of -- enough peasants,
gentry and clergy wrote in "English" to keep it alive (and well) in
spite of official Court and Church policies.
--
Mike Dana
Everett, Washington, U.S.A.
Views expressed by me are mine, not my employer's.
"One road leads home and a thousand roads lead into the wilderness." --
C.S.Lewis
DanaS64562
I cant answer that directlly but I cant help noticing pairings such as
this: pig/porc, cow/beef, calf/veal etc. In other words the live animal on
the hoof has an Anglo-Saxon name and the cooked animal on the plate has a
French-Norman one. Isnt this suggestive?
Jeff Gerke
>I'm curious about what you thought the likely alternatives were.
You answer this question with your next sentence:
>An old variety of French was or could be spoken by much of the nobility,
>Latin was known to high nobility and churchmen, but not to the peasants.
>There were no Celtic languages spoken then in England.
I knew of Norman French but didn't know if the peasant would
understand it and/or speak it.
Gareth
I don't know how suggestive it is, but I'm sure that fact is mentioned, I
think in relation to pigs, in the first few pages of Ivanhoe. Which fits
in nicely with the Robin Hood thread....
____ ____
{ }------------------------------------------------{ }
{ }Gareth Marklew, { }
{ } G.J.M...@durham.ac.uk { }
{ }University of Durham. { }
{____}------------------------------------------------{____}
Mike Dana
SRHigham wrote:
>
<snip>
> There were no Celtic languages spoken then in England.
Not true. Cornwall and Cumbria were conquered before the 13th c., and
their languages survived long after. Also, as borders tended to be a
bit more fluid than today and farmers & merchants/tradesmen generally
ignore politics (when the soldiers aren't around) when selling/trading
their goods, a certain amount of Gaelic and/or Welsh certainly WAS
spoken "in England", at least "near" the borders.
Duane Brocious
>>An old variety of French was or could be spoken by much of the nobility,
>>Latin was known to high nobility and churchmen, but not to the peasants.
>>There were no Celtic languages spoken then in England.
>I knew of Norman French but didn't know if the peasant would
>understand it and/or speak it.
They were speaking Middle English. While French was the courtly language and
Latin was the scholarly and clerical lingua, by the 13th century Norman
French and Old English had been in the process of evolving into a strange
combination of Norman French and Old English called Middle English which
eventually became Modern English. At this point _some_ Old English and French
_might_ be understood by ME speakers, at least more so than with Modern
English.
Ferret
Martyn Winn
SRHigham wrote:
> somewhat arbitrary dates and the language has always slowly evolved. Some
> of the vocabulary and especially the accents would be baffling to most of
> us today, but the grammar and most of the words were the same ones we use
This was before the great Vowel Shift (16th century?? something like
that, I think),
so even if you can spot similarities between Middle and Modern English
when
written down, it would sound a lot different.
Martyn
BSkadman
Jeff Gerke wrote:
> someone please give me a simple answer to this question (if there is a
> simple answer).
German. But not the high Latin German we know...more of a barbarian
German closer to today's British English but more intelligible.
English was spoken by post-Chaucerean persons who deliberately altered the
content of the German remnant with French and Latin additions - kind of
like today's Esperanto holdouts. Only it worked.
I believe writing caused English to make the final break with German - the
peasant absurdly superstitious of "runes" would have shunned it and of
course not learned to speak it to save his soul (Ach, tu lieber,
Geoffrey!)
(Source: Medieval Malarky (not yet published))
BS
Markus Nybom BKF
Martyn Winn (m.d....@dl.ac.uk) wrote:
Interestingly (to me), I heard some Middle English supposedly
prounounced the way it was pronounced before the great vowel shift, and
I could understand plenty. Not becasue of the English, but because many
words suddenly were pronounced like in Scandinavian. The Vikings had
their fare share of influence on the English language.
Cheers,
Markus (Swedish speaking)
Paul J. Gans
BSkadman (bska...@aol.com) wrote:
Your source's name is correct. Let's put smileys on stuff like
this, shall we?
------ Paul J. Gans [ga...@scholar.chem.nyu.edu]
Susan Carroll-Clark
Greetings!
The answer is probably an early version of Middle English. While I'm not
a literature specialist, it's my understanding that the majority of English
people likely spoke English, with the merchant classes also knowing/
understanding Norman French, and the upper classes speaking mostly Norman
French, but probably by this time knowing a fair bit of English as well.
By the 14th century, Middle English literature begins to be fairly substantial,
probably denoting that this century marks the transition period
between common use of Norman French and English by the upper classes.
Of course, by the late 15th/early 16th century, English is the language
of everyday use, although it was considered civilized to know French
as well.
Cheers--
Susan Carroll-Clark
scl...@chass.utoronto.ca
Ian Mac Lure
Jeff Gerke (jge...@airmail.net) wrote:
: I know, I know, read a book. If you wouldn't mind though, could
: simple answer).
: What language would a peasant in a 13th century English village have
: likely spoken?
The English of Chaucer mayhap? Some of his Canterbury pilgrims were
of peasant background were they not?
--
*******************************************************************
***** Ian B MacLure ***** Sunnyvale, CA ***** Engineer/Archer *****
* No Times Like The Maritimes *************************************
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* Opinions Expressed Here Are Mine. That's Mine , Mine, MINE ******
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John Gilks
> Today, linguists generally refer to it as "Middle English". The
> Nobility of that time spoke (mostly) "Norman French". "Church Latin"
> was used ecclesiastically. "Welsh", "Cornish" (virtually the same as
> Welsh at that time), "Cumbrian" (also similar to Welsh) and "(Scots)
> Gaelic" were spoken in the Borderlands.
Welsh I can buy but Scots Gaelic in England? It wasn't, isn't and probably
never has been spoken along the Anglo-Scottish border. The language on
both sides of the border was similar and was a predecessor of what we would
today recognize as the Northumbrian dialect. Some idea of this dialect can
be found in the Reeve's Tale.
John Gilks
hand...@ica.net
-------------------------------------------
Football is rugby reinvented by Frederick Taylor
--Gareth Morgan
Paul J. Gans
Ian Mac Lure (i...@svpal.svpal.org) wrote:
: Jeff Gerke (jge...@airmail.net) wrote:
: : I know, I know, read a book. If you wouldn't mind though, could
: : someone please give me a simple answer to this question (if there is a
: : simple answer).
:
: : What language would a peasant in a 13th century English village have
: : likely spoken?
:
: The English of Chaucer mayhap? Some of his Canterbury pilgrims were
: of peasant background were they not?
You've got it backwards. By Chaucer's time even the nobles
could read English. Chaucer didn't write in Latin or French.
At least, not the _Canturbury Tales_, though there is no
doubt that he knew French (he served as an ambassador at one
point) and probably some Latin as well. Just your ordinary
non-noble medieval man.
----- Paul J. Gans [ga...@scholar.chem.nyu.edu]
wvanh...@aol.com
In article <5dm09k$4cr$5...@news.nyu.edu>, ga...@scholar.nyu.edu (Paul J.
Gans) writes:
>:
>: : What language would a peasant in a 13th century English village have
>: : likely spoken?
>:
>: The English of Chaucer mayhap? Some of his Canterbury pilgrims were
>: of peasant background were they not?
>
>You've got it backwards. By Chaucer's time even the nobles
>could read English. Chaucer didn't write in Latin or French.
>At least, not the _Canturbury Tales_, though there is no
>doubt that he knew French (he served as an ambassador at one
>point) and probably some Latin as well. Just your ordinary
>non-noble medieval man.
>
>
Since the original question was "what language did the 13th c. Eng .
peasant speak?" my bet would be about 95% Saxon and 5% something
else. The else would be what Latin or Norman French that had managed
to creep in with new things or new laws.
W F VAN HOUTEN
NO CLAIM TO FAME
Ian Mac Lure
Markus Nybom BKF (man...@news.abo.fi) wrote:[SNIP]
: Interestingly (to me), I heard some Middle English supposedly
: prounounced the way it was pronounced before the great vowel shift, and
: I could understand plenty. Not becasue of the English, but because many
: words suddenly were pronounced like in Scandinavian. The Vikings had
: their fare share of influence on the English language.
There's apparently a very sharp division in the North of England between
those areas where Scandinavian linguistic elements were prevalent and
the area where the Saxon/etc held sway.
Of course the centuries of mixing since then have tended to blur these
elements but I understand linquists do recognize the division.
Jeff Gerke
>Nobility of that time spoke (mostly) "Norman French". "Church Latin"
>was used ecclesiastically.
Question then. How did the nobility communicate with their peasants if
the two groups spoke different languages? Did they use intermediaries
-- sub-nobles who made themselves useful by learning both tongues?
Jeff
Mike Dana
Yes. In a military context, the equivalent of today's non-coms could
generally speak enough of each to relay/translate orders, etc. For the
transmission of public writs, decrees, etc., Heralds (town criers) were
used; and for "daily business" household staff, lesser Gentry,
merchants, craftsmen and clergy could generally be found who were
capable of the task. The Nobility generally (you can always find
exceptions) had little or no *direct* contact with the Peasantry and
even (in many cases) considered themselves to be of a different (ie
superior) race: Normans vs. English. This probably amused the Welsh
greatly, who considered them ALL "Sasnæg" (Saxons).
Paul J. Gans
Jeff Gerke (jge...@airmail.net) wrote:
: >Nobility of that time spoke (mostly) "Norman French". "Church Latin"
: >was used ecclesiastically.
:
: Question then. How did the nobility communicate with their peasants if
: the two groups spoke different languages? Did they use intermediaries
: -- sub-nobles who made themselves useful by learning both tongues?
Those nobles who chose not to know any English did just that.
The larger estates had a hierarchy of positions.
Large manors often used a "seneschal", a member of the noble
class, often a second or third son. This was a respected
position, so respected that the holder of the title usually
had a "bailiff" to do the actual overseeing. The bailiff
would be a peasant, but a high-ranking one. In addition there
often was a sub-officer known as a "reeve", a peasant, sometimes
selected by the bailiff but more often selected by the peasants
themselves as their representative.
The seneschal would, of course, be member of the household.
The bailiff might be housed near the manor house with
some of the household servants, or he might live in the
village with the other peasants.
This is, of course, an approximatation. Things varied from
place to place and things were different in France, at least
to some degree.
As far as language was concerned, either the seneschal spoke
english or the bailiff spoke passible Norman french.
It is my opinion that knowledge of at least some english worked
its way into the minor nobility rather quickly, as they had to
act as their own overseers. Similarly, the household servants
would have quickly picked up sufficient french to function.
This is not a revolutionary idea. I well remember my grandparents
struggling with english, and yet knowing enough to cope with
everyday life in the U.S. Indeed my paternal grandparents
spoke three or four languages, all learned out of European
necessity. Of these english was the last learned, and learned
in adulthood, not childhood when it is easier.
Graeme
On 9 Feb 1997, Ian Mac Lure wrote:
> : What language would a peasant in a 13th century English village have
> : likely spoken?
>
> The English of Chaucer mayhap? Some of his Canterbury pilgrims were
> of peasant background were they not?
Perhaps, but Chaucer himself wasn't, and wrote in the English dialect
with which he was most familiar - a dialect that was in use in the courts
(legal and royal) of England at this time. The dialogue he provides for his
common characters is written in much the same way as a modern storyteller
applies conventionally-identifiable accents to character who in reality
spoke nothing like that.
In the broad sense, the peasants of 13th Century England did speak
the same language as Chaucer (i.e. Middle English), but compare the
language of the roughly-contemporary Gawain-poet with that of Chaucer to
see how markedly different English dialects were.
Graeme
==========================================================================
"You know what's funny? I'll tell you. You're working hard. I'm doing
nothing. In a hundred years we'll both be dead."
"You might not need to wait that long."
"I think I'll spread some joy over this way."
==========================================================================
Morgoth
Some have said that many of the French words in modern english
come from the 16th Century, when french as the language of the
law/court was slowly dying out. Such as when the Legal Courts
were no longer held in French or Latin, but in English.
eril...@win.bright.net
In article <330297d6...@news.airmail.net>, jge...@airmail.net (Jeff
Gerke) wrote:
> >Nobility of that time spoke (mostly) "Norman French". "Church Latin"
> >was used ecclesiastically.
>
> Question then. How did the nobility communicate with their peasants if
> the two groups spoke different languages? Did they use intermediaries
> -- sub-nobles who made themselves useful by learning both tongues?
>
> Jeff
I can resist no longer.
A: It was Anglo-Saxon shifting toward "Middle" English but not there
yet. It already had a lot of loan-words from Danish and was beginning to
collect them from Norman French, but not too many were used by peasants
yet.
B Nobles seldom if ever spoke to peasants.
C Servants and various other intermediaries used a mixture of languages.
D Back somewhere where I began reading this thread, the pairings of
originally Anglo-Saxon words for food on the hoof with French derivatives
for food on the table was mentioned but not comented on further. Who
raised the cow? Who ate the beef?
Besides all that, there was no ONE language spoken by all peasants, but
rather a range of related dialects that would have been mutually
incomprehensible if peasants from far northern and southern England of the
time were to meet and try to hold conversations--but they didn't travel
that far from home, so THAT wasn't one of their problems.
I will probably now find as I wander through this thread that all this
has been said by someone else, but as I sai, I had to succumb.
erilar
--
|\ /|\ | |\ |\ |\
| \/ |/ | | |\ |/
| |\ | | | |\
deyr fe', deyra fraendr,
deyr sjalfr et sama;
ek veit einn at aldri deyr:
domr of daud-an hvern.
---Havamal
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Translation of the verse in Old Norse as well as other words of wisdom are among the treasures hidden in Erilar's Cave Annex:
http://www.win.bright.net/~erilarlo
Duane Brocious
> Besides all that, there was no ONE language spoken by all peasants, but
>rather a range of related dialects that would have been mutually
>incomprehensible if peasants from far northern and southern England of the
>time were to meet and try to hold conversations--but they didn't travel
>that far from home, so THAT wasn't one of their problems.
Upon what do you base the assumption that people didn't travel far from home ?
We do know that large numbers of people would make pilgrimages to Canterbury
supporting a trade in "Becket memorabilia". Across the channel, People
traveled from miles (very quickly I might add) to obtain the corpse of a Saint
according to Gregory of Tours. Back in England, Margery Kempe travelled about
Europe (along with many other pilgrims).
The transportation available was little different until the invention of the
steam engine.
Ferret
eril...@win.bright.net
> We do know that large numbers of people would make pilgrimages to Canterbury
> supporting a trade in "Becket memorabilia". Across the channel, People
> traveled from miles (very quickly I might add) to obtain the corpse of a
Saint
> according to Gregory of Tours. Back in England, Margery Kempe travelled about
> Europe (along with many other pilgrims).
> The transportation available was little different until the invention of the
> steam engine.
>
> Ferret
I thought we were discussing peasants. They were usually pretty well tied
to the land they farmed. Margery Kempe was no peasant. Neither were people
traveling to obtain the corpse of a saint.
Curt Emanuel
Duane Brocious wrote:
>
> In article <erilarlo-140...@dal2-cs-9.win.bright.net> eril...@win.bright.net writes:
>
>
> > Besides all that, there was no ONE language spoken by all peasants, but
> >rather a range of related dialects that would have been mutually
> >incomprehensible if peasants from far northern and southern England of the
> >time were to meet and try to hold conversations--but they didn't travel
> >that far from home, so THAT wasn't one of their problems.
>
> Upon what do you base the assumption that people didn't travel far from home ?
Quite possibly all of the pertinent research. Most peasants were tied to
their land. They had livestock to feed, land to farm, and were required
to give a certain amount of their time as labor to their manor. Most
peasants never traveled more than ten miles from their homes.
Note that I say "peasants." This was certainly not true of nobles,
merchants, and wealthy tradesmen. It was not even true of the wealthier
peasants who could pay a fine in lieu of their service if they wanted
to. And it also became less prevalent in the High Middle Ages as the
Manorial system faded away. But to say that the average peasant made one
of these pilgrimages, or traveled around with any frequency, is not
true.
Curt Emanuel
Bill Bedford
John Gilks <hand...@ica.net> wrote:
> In article <32FA2F...@boeing.com>, mike...@boeing.com wrote:
>
>
> > Today, linguists generally refer to it as "Middle English". The
> > Nobility of that time spoke (mostly) "Norman French". "Church Latin"
> > was used ecclesiastically. "Welsh", "Cornish" (virtually the same as
> > Welsh at that time), "Cumbrian" (also similar to Welsh) and "(Scots)
> > Gaelic" were spoken in the Borderlands.
>
> Welsh I can buy but Scots Gaelic in England? It wasn't, isn't and probably
> never has been spoken along the Anglo-Scottish border.
Yes - in the lake district - the population was mixed norse/gaelic and
they never were part of any Saxon kingdom. The language on the north
side of the Solway was similar with Scot/English not becoming prdominant
until 15/16th centuries.
--
Bill Bedford bi...@mousa.demon.co.uk Shetland
Brit_Rail-L list auto...@mousa.demon.co.uk
Looking forward to 2001 -
When the world is due to start thinking about the future again.
Steven Sohn
In article <33065B...@accs.net>, cema...@accs.net says...
> Quite possibly all of the pertinent research. Most peasants were tied to
> their land. They had livestock to feed, land to farm, and were required
> to give a certain amount of their time as labor to their manor. Most
> peasants never traveled more than ten miles from their homes.
>
> Note that I say "peasants." This was certainly not true of nobles,
> merchants, and wealthy tradesmen. It was not even true of the wealthier
> peasants who could pay a fine in lieu of their service if they wanted
> to. And it also became less prevalent in the High Middle Ages as the
> Manorial system faded away. But to say that the average peasant made one
> of these pilgrimages, or traveled around with any frequency, is not
> true.
>
> Curt Emanuel
Recall that even today the French language is referred to as the
international language (although English has generally -- de facto --
replaced it). Quite likely the upper classes established the
lingua franca international (in an age before the birth of the
"nation") nature of French.
There is an interesting parallel to African languages in which there
are over 1000 individual languages on that continent due to the
relative lack of social and commercial concourse of the native
population. Again, the common languages are those of the conquerors:
English and French ...
Lovely stuff to ponder, non? er ... No?
--
Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.
Izaak Walton, "The Compleat Angler" (1653)
voice: 718.421.4598 + http://www.webcom.com/sasohn + fax: 718.421.4098
sign
Duane Brocious
In article <33065B...@accs.net> Curt Emanuel <cema...@accs.net> writes:
>Duane Brocious wrote:
>> Upon what do you base the assumption that people didn't travel far from
>>home ?
>Quite possibly all of the pertinent research. Most peasants were tied to
>their land. They had livestock to feed, land to farm, and were required
>to give a certain amount of their time as labor to their manor. Most
>peasants never traveled more than ten miles from their homes.
All pertinent research ? The idea of the entire economic system of the
medieval period is under attack in accademia, thus any postulation built upon
it is hardly solid.
Ferret
Duane Brocious
In article <0001228a...@msn.com> earlof...@msn.com (S.J. Lean) writes:
>The obstacles to travel were formidable. Until very recently the bulk
>of the English population never traveled much, except when sent to
>war or exiled by a court of law. My own grandmother (born in 1904
>into the peasantry of the north of England) has never traveled more
>than 10 miles from her birthplace; her husband, on the other hand,
>used to fish cod as far away as Iceland and the White Sea.
Demonstrating both sides of the arguement.
There are homebodies and travellers... now and then.
Ferret
S.J. Lean
>Duane Brocious wrote:
>> Upon what do you base the assumption that people didn't travel far
>> from home ?
The obstacles to travel were formidable. Until very recently the bulk
of the English population never traveled much, except when sent to
war or exiled by a court of law. My own grandmother (born in 1904
into the peasantry of the north of England) has never traveled more
than 10 miles from her birthplace; her husband, on the other hand,
used to fish cod as far away as Iceland and the White Sea.
My grandmother's mind-set probably resembles that of her forebears
pretty closely. She never saw any point in travel, always veiwed her
home town as the acme of civilization, and the denizens of such
far-flung places as Yorkshire (she's from Lancashire) as barely human
and possibly demonic.
Tasmanian Devil
>Duane Brocious wrote:
>>
>> In article <erilarlo-140...@dal2-cs-9.win.bright.net> eril...@win.bright.net writes:
>>
>>
>> > Besides all that, there was no ONE language spoken by all peasants, but
>> >rather a range of related dialects that would have been mutually
>> >incomprehensible if peasants from far northern and southern England of the
>> >time were to meet and try to hold conversations--but they didn't travel
>> >that far from home, so THAT wasn't one of their problems.
>>
>> Upon what do you base the assumption that people didn't travel far from home ?
>Quite possibly all of the pertinent research. Most peasants were tied to
>their land. They had livestock to feed, land to farm, and were required
>to give a certain amount of their time as labor to their manor. Most
>peasants never traveled more than ten miles from their homes.
This assertion is often made, ans has an element of truth,
but recent socio-linguistic research indicates that the
population of medieval England was much more mobile than has
often been thought. Much of Elizabeth Salter's study in
this area shows that (i) people, even peasants, *did* move
around for a variety of reasons, often travelling
considerable distances and (ii) while north east middle
english and the London dialect look and sound like totally
different languages to us, they were mutually comprehensible
to a useful extent.
>Note that I say "peasants." This was certainly not true of nobles,
>merchants, and wealthy tradesmen. It was not even true of the wealthier
>peasants who could pay a fine in lieu of their service if they wanted
>to. And it also became less prevalent in the High Middle Ages as the
>Manorial system faded away. But to say that the average peasant made one
>of these pilgrimages, or traveled around with any frequency, is not
>true.
All of the exceptions you mention above allow for a rather
large number of peasants to be mobile. After all, Chaucer's
ploughman and miller weren't exactly magnates. I don't
think anyone said the average peasant was going on tours of
the whole country, but the idea that they all stayed in a
ten mile radius of their cow byres is also not correct.
Tim O'Neill
-------------------------------------------------------------
Tim O'Neill 'Quid est Veritas?'
Tasmanian Devil Pontius Pilatus
yes...@cia.com.au circa 33 AD
ma...@iafrica.com
On 19/02/97 00:57, in message <0001228a...@msn.com>, S.J. Lean
<earlof...@msn.com> wrote:
>
> My grandmother's mind-set probably resembles that of her forebears
> pretty closely. She never saw any point in travel, always veiwed her
> home town as the acme of civilization, and the denizens of such
> far-flung places as Yorkshire (she's from Lancashire) as barely human
> and possibly demonic.
Are you suggesting that they are not? Please do not undermine my long held
beliefs - even by implication. Your Granny was obviously a very wise woman.
From the description of your Grandfather's profession I would guess that they
came from Fleetwood?
Regards, Mark
garston
Morgoth wrote:
>
> Some have said that many of the French words in modern english
> come from the 16th Century, when french as the language of the
> law/court was slowly dying out.
And some others have, or ought to have, said that this is nonsense.
French in 16th century England was not a dying language : it was
already dead.
Regards,
PeterG in Toulouse
Paul J. Gans
Duane Brocious (dnb...@psu.edu) wrote:
: In article <erilarlo-140...@dal2-cs-9.win.bright.net> eril...@win.bright.net writes:
:
:
: > Besides all that, there was no ONE language spoken by all peasants, but
: >rather a range of related dialects that would have been mutually
: >incomprehensible if peasants from far northern and southern England of the
: >time were to meet and try to hold conversations--but they didn't travel
: >that far from home, so THAT wasn't one of their problems.
:
: Upon what do you base the assumption that people didn't travel far from home ?
: We do know that large numbers of people would make pilgrimages to Canterbury
: traveled from miles (very quickly I might add) to obtain the corpse of a Saint
: according to Gregory of Tours. Back in England, Margery Kempe travelled about
: Europe (along with many other pilgrims).
: The transportation available was little different until the invention of the
: steam engine.
Folks travelled a bit more than we assume, but a good bit less than
one might hope.
For starters, you've covered a *great* deal of ground. We are
closer to Margery Kempe today than she was to Gregory of Tours.
By Margery's time travel was *relatively* easy, most roads were
*relatively* safe and ships could be taken with little danger.
The nobility travelled, some of the clergy travelled, merchants
travelled, artisans travelled, etc. There were enough of these
"upper" class and "middle class" folks to fill the roads. The
other 90% stayed home.
After all, why would they travel for more than a day? Where would
they go? What would they use for coin? Walking is a bore and
sleeping in the fields bad for one's rheumatism. And besides, who
was back home tending to the chores and the jobs that had to be
done?
Not travelling much is very hard for folks nowadays to understand.
But *we* are the unusual ones, not the medievals.
------- Paul J. Gans [ga...@scholar.chem.nyu.edu]
Paul J. Gans
Tasmanian Devil (yes...@cia.com.au) wrote:
: All of the exceptions you mention above allow for a rather
: large number of peasants to be mobile. After all, Chaucer's
: ploughman and miller weren't exactly magnates. I don't
: think anyone said the average peasant was going on tours of
: the whole country, but the idea that they all stayed in a
: ten mile radius of their cow byres is also not correct.
Times change. What was true in Chaucer's day was much less
true in the England of Henry I.
Dan Speegle
earlof...@msn.com (S.J. Lean) wrote:
>>Duane Brocious wrote:
>>> Upon what do you base the assumption that people didn't travel far
> >> from home ?
>The obstacles to travel were formidable. Until very recently the bulk
>of the English population never traveled much, except when sent to
>war or exiled by a court of law.
I think to argue from grandma that 13th c. folk didn't travel is
pretty dangerous. In 13th c. England was just one property of a crown
that didn't really see it as other than a property. Not like one
needed a passport.
>My grandmother's mind-set probably resembles that of her forebears
>pretty closely.
Might have, if the forebears were surfs/peasants. But much has been
written of 'pilgrimage', which involved lots of moving about. Chaucer
wrote some stuff about this, though later than 13th c.
Say it again, 13th was lots more caste-like than 19th or 20th. For
the top to middle, these people shared more culture then than now.
For the lower, didn't matter anyhow, short and brutish stuff for them,
grunts and whuffs and whines.
Chaucer used to be a fairly well respected model for a lense into the
high MA, admittedly filtered by the unfortunate 14th c. Seems
probable that his little travel book wasn't a total fiction.
The more you study this stuff, the more language looks like process.
Almost a french vs english thing, the FIXITANDWRITEITDOWN vs stir it
around the flats. The vocabulary of most college educated young
people in the USA is infinitely smaller than it could be. But it is
ten times larger than the result in Paris.
Dan Speegle
Bill Bedford
S.J. Lean <earlof...@msn.com> wrote:
> >Duane Brocious wrote:
> >> Upon what do you base the assumption that people didn't travel far
> >> from home ?
>
>
> The obstacles to travel were formidable. Until very recently the bulk
> of the English population never traveled much, except when sent to
> war or exiled by a court of law. My own grandmother (born in 1904
> into the peasantry of the north of England) has never traveled more
> than 10 miles from her birthplace; her husband, on the other hand,
> used to fish cod as far away as Iceland and the White Sea.
I suspect that if you reseach back into your family history you will
find this is not always true. There were periods when many people moved
and others when the population was much more stable.
I have heard of some research that suggest that about 10% of the
population of English villages came from outside the area. Though this
was specific to the early years of the 19th century I think that it
could be used a bench mark for earlier centuries.
As for my own family looking back to the earliest generation we know of
in the mid 18th century there has only been one generation that lived
all his live in one place, and then his wife had moved about 100 mile
before she was married. My Grandmothers family move about once ever 3
years and had probably been doing that since at least the mid 17th
century though tracing them is next to impossible.
Goodqueen
Around the year 1338 or so, when King Edward III sent his diplomats,
accompanied by the famous company of 40 'one-eyed' knights and squires, to
the Low Countries, he found it needful to exhort them to brush up on their
French before their departure. The English tongue was so prevalent in
England by the year 1362, that as part of the celebrations for his 50th
birthday that year, Edward III enacted a statute whereby the records of
parliament would henceforth be kept in English, rather than the customary
French.
NEELIEMCQ
By 13th c., are we referring to the years 1201 to 1300 or are we referring
to the years 1301 to 1400? If I remember correctly from a linguistics
class, the 13th century was a perild of significant regional diversity.
Not to digress but the piracy that was tolerated in the "cink
ports"(spelling???) was very often the result of regional rivalry. The
office of the admiralty was not established until 1295. By contrast, the
14th century was characterized by a conceptual develpement of England as a
nation. Unity of language was considered to be crucial and clerks were
hired to standardize English as the national language.
I hope this is not redundant, I think I have started at the end of this
thread.
Emcq
Jeanne Cruden
Bill Bedford (bi...@mousa.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: S.J. Lean <earlof...@msn.com> wrote:
:
: > >Duane Brocious wrote:
: > >> Upon what do you base the assumption that people didn't travel far
: > >> from home ?
: > The obstacles to travel were formidable. Until very recently the bulk
: > of the English population never traveled much, except when sent to
: > war or exiled by a court of law. My own grandmother (born in 1904
I'm sorry, but I don't really think that's completely correct. For
example, consider the fact that the poor laws in the later Tudor period
concentrated on getting people who were on the streets back to their
original parish. They were travelling about looking for work because the
economy was so bad. Consider England before the Black death and you have a
rather similar circumstance which would have pushed a lot of people out on
to the roads looking for work. Another thing is to examine the distance
that people travelled during the peasants revolt in 1318. The peasantry
was most certainly mobile. Other people travelled far and wide to go on
pilgrimmages. There's evidence in Ireland of shells taken from a
pilgrimmage to Saint John de Compostella ( sorry, I only remember the name
in French ) which I believe is in Spain, that's a mighty long way.
: > into the peasantry of the north of England) has never traveled more
: > than 10 miles from her birthplace; her husband, on the other hand,
: > used to fish cod as far away as Iceland and the White Sea.
Jeanne
--
"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~"~""~
1525: " As many as the Earl of Kildare caught of those who had a hand in
it were taken by him to the spot where this disasterous and evil plot was
consummated and he he caused them to be flayed alive first, and afterwards
their bowels taken out and burned together in his presence" Annals of
Connacht ... an example of perhaps what should be done to the Klein
government.
Jeanne Cruden, University of Alberta ( hopefully for not much longer),
Canada