Middle English: From the Battle of Hastings to the Rise of London English

Middle English: A Linguistic Journey

The Battle of Hastings (1066)

The Battle of Hastings, on October 14th, 1066, marked a pivotal moment in English history. King Harold of England faced William, Duke of Normandy. In 1051, Edward the Confessor had named William heir to the English throne, but Harold seized it in January 1066. William landed at Pevensey with 7,000 troops. Harold, having defeated Vikings in the north, raced south to meet the Norman invasion. Harold's exhausted men faced the Normans, who had taken positions on Telham Hill. After initial resistance and a final evening attack, Harold fell, and the Saxons were defeated.

Consequences of the Norman Conquest

The consequences were profound: Harold II, crowned the day after Edward the Confessor's death, was replaced by William I, the first Norman King of England (1066-1087). In 1070, William built Battle Abbey on the battle site. The ruins and the town of Battle remain.

William the Conqueror's Reign

William spent six years consolidating his conquest, facing constant challenges in Wales, Devon, Cornwall, and from Danish attacks (1069-1070). A 1072 truce with Scotland followed several battles. William built numerous castles (like Windsor), establishing a Norman feudal order with 5,000 knights to quell rebellions. The expenses of his campaigns led to the Domesday Book of 1086, a comprehensive survey. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle described him as 'a very stern and violent man.' William died in Normandy in 1087, dividing his realm among his sons.

Significant Changes: Old English to Middle English

The Norman Conquest significantly impacted the English language. Key changes from Old English (OE) to Middle English (ME) include:

• OE diphthongs becoming ME monophthongs (e.g., heofonum to hevene)
• New diphthongs emerging (e.g., dæg to day)
• Loss of initial [h] before consonants (e.g., hræven to raven)
• [v, z] becoming phonemes
• Unstressed vowels becoming schwa
• Simplification of the inflectional system
• Loss of strong adjective inflection
• Loss of grammatical gender
• Emergence of the definite article 'the'
• Fixed word order and preposition use replacing case functions
• French loanwords entering the language
• Increased Scandinavian loanwords
• Disappearance of OE writing conventions (ash, thorn, eth)
• Increased use of Latin and Anglo-Norman

Transition from Middle English to Early Modern English

The transition to Early Modern English involved:

• Completion of the Great Vowel Shift's first phase
• Unstressed inflectional vowels becoming mute
• Verb inflectional endings reduced to [-s, -st, -th]
• London English gaining prominence as a standard
• Vocabulary expansion through borrowing and word formation
• William Caxton's introduction of the printing press in 1476
• Renaissance influence
• Discovery of America

Rise and Decline of French in England

For 200 years, French was the language of the upper classes, a marker of social distinction, while English remained the language of the masses. The English nobility was initially Anglo-French. The loss of Normandy in 1204 and the Hundred Years' War (1337) ended the dominance of French, although its influence on English remained substantial. England was effectively bilingual during the Middle Ages, even though William the Conqueror himself learned English.

Three Main Differences Between Old English and Middle English

The three main differences between Old English and Middle English are:

1. Reduced grammatical inflections
2. Increased lexical borrowing from French and Latin
3. Highly varied orthography

The lack of uniform spelling is exemplified by works like Boethius's De Consolatione Philosophiae.