Hyperlink-History

This hyperlink provides a somewhat one-sided background to a variety of cultural, society, and historical

phenomena: very much must be completely ignored while the perspective of significance for the

development of the language remains primary. The historical links are grouped together under (a) pre-

invasion history (before 449); (b) early Britain; early Christian England, the Viking incursions

and their consequences (after 787); post-Conquest England (from 1066 on); early Scotland; early

Modern England; and the territorial spread of the English-speaking peoples, including the slave

trade and the establishment of a British and an American colonial empire. The cultural and social links

lead to a broader background in the areas of literature, of religious movements, and intellectual

life.

Pre-invasion history does not need to go back too very far. Groupings of human beings – clans, tribes,

incipient peoples – seem to have emerged in northwestern and southern Europe in the sense that

interests us in this History of English relatively late. These are the groupings that bear linguistic labels, the

Celtic-, the Hellenic-, the Italic-, and the Germanic-speaking peoples. Presumably, much of the

linguistic differentiation which led to these divisions within the Indo-European language family

evolved in the 2nd and 1st millennia Before Common Era (BCE).

The cultures which emerged with them were determined to a large extent from the conditions of

subsistence surrounding each: how much hunting, fishing, farming, and later mining, artisanship, and

trading did each engage in and how was this conducted? Among the northern European people new

cultures were coming into being, ones such as the Late Bronze-Early Iron Age Hallstatt Culture and its

successor, the Iron Age La Tène Culture, both associated with the Celts. The social world of these

peoples was not extremely divergent, but probably increasingly so. Their religious life showed signs of

shared origins (see Germanic and Classic pantheons). Much the same thing can also be said about

their languages. A large majority of the languages had common Indo-European roots, but by the

middle of the 1st millennium BCE a dramatically divergent language began to take shape: Proto-

Germanic, whose (great-great-grand)daughter languages include English, German, Dutch-Flemish,

Afrikaans, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and a number of further language with fewer

speakers.

The advance of the Germanic tribes was part of a long-term movement of these peoples southward from

Scandinavia not only into present-day Germany and the Low Countries, but into goals far from

northwestern Europe: the Black Sea-Crimean area, France, Spain, Northern Italy, and North Africa. In

all of these Germanic migrations autochthonous peoples, such as the Celts, were conquered or

displaced. At a rather late date two waves of migrating Germanic peoples brought Germanic

conquerors to Britain and Ireland: The first wave was Anglo-Saxon conquest of England (from 449);

the second was the Viking Incursions (from 787).

All the while the peoples in the Mediterranean basin were building advanced cultures, most prominently a

Hellenistic one in the eastern Mediterranean and a Roman one in the west. Eventually Roman

expansion led to the establishment of the Roman Empire, which stretched maximally from the

British Isles to the Middle East. The organization of civic life in the Roman Empire was very complex,

and Roman life drew on the physical and intellectual resources of the subjected provinces. It also

influenced the outlying northern European Germanic tribes. Eventually the attraction was so strong

that these tribes began to invade the Empire.

La Tène culture (450-1st century BCE) dominated over a wide area in northern Europe in the period

when the Germanic tribes were beginning their southward migrations. This culture, which is usually

associated with Celtic-speaking peoples, represents the height of material development in the non-

Mediterranean North. The basis of its subsistence was farming and animal husbandry, and it engaged

in trade with the Mediterranean area, exporting minerals (salt, tin, copper) and animal products (wool,

leather, fur) as well of amber and gold. The La Tène culture came under pressure from the south, as

Rome expanded, and the north, as the Germanic tribes, themselves influenced by La Tène culture,

intruded.

Germanic peoples moved southward from Scandinavia and northern Germany in the 1st millennium

BCE. They came under the influence of more or less autochthonous Hallstatt und La Tène cultures as

well as the Roman Empire, as it gained control over Gaul (France) and the Low Countries. Germanic

peoples farmed and kept domestic animals and had, in parts, strong relations with the Roman Empire.

Germania Inferior (essentially the Netherlands) and Germania Superior (Middle and Upper Rhine)

were two provinces of the Empire that included Germanic peoples. Germanic peoples living outside

the Empire also carried on trade with the Roman Empire and were influenced by Roman ways. This

influence may be seen in many of the words borrowed from Latin (see 1.4.2 and Table 1.6).

Germanic migrations were large-scale movements of whole tribes as they looked for “greener pastures”

or tried to escape a situation of overpopulation and/or resource scarcity. Movements continued for an

extended period of time starting as early as the middle of the 1st millennium BCE and continuing up to

around 1000 CE. The early movements were probably due to climate change and the final movements,

those of the Vikings, were due to population pressure and opportunities for settlement which the

British Isles and the Continent, but westward as far as North America offered. The goals of migration

were the sub-Scandinavian Continent, initially in the north, but later the Crimean region, the Roman

Empire including Asia Minor, the Balkans, Italy, the Iberian peninsula, and North Africa. At a much

later time the Vikings invaded and/or traded in Russia and the Middle East, in France, Italy, and the

British Isles, and of course to the west in Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland (Newfoundland).

Roman Empire covers an extended period from the Roman Republic (ca. 500 to the second half of the

1st century BCE) to the Empire itself (up to the fall of Rome to the Germanic invaders under Odoacer

in 476. (The Eastern Empire, or Byzantium, continued until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.) The

Roman Empire had a considerable amount of military, economic, and cultural influence on the

Germanic tribes both in and outside of the Empire. Germanic soldiers served in the Roman army and

many of them returned to Germania with new ideas about military organization (more hierarchical),

new concepts of life style (appreciation of luxury goods), and the subsequent need to engage in trade.

For our purposes the expansion of the Empire to include Gallia (Gaul, present-day France), Germania

Inferior and Superior, and Britannia is of central interest. Roman occupation of much of what is now

England led to the introduction of Roman ways of urban life, esp. in the southeast of England. After

the Roman legions left around 410 CE, the country was open to Celtic and Germanic attack from the

outside. Eventually the Germanic troops initially invited to protect Celtic Britain ended up taking over

and settling the country in a process that began about 449 CE.

Germanic and Classic pantheons have a number of “parallel” gods, though much can only be discerned

in a historical view. The Germanic gods have some underlying similarities to other gods within Indo-

European traditions. Most prominent are

Germanic Roman Greek for

Tiw / Tyr (Tuesday) Mars (Fr. Mardi) Ares war

Woden/Odin (Wednesday) Mercury (Mercredi) Hermes war, travel, etc.

Thor (Thursday) Jupiter (Jeudi) Zeus the chief god

Frige / Frigg (Friday) Venus (Vendridi) Aphrodite love, fertility

Furthermore, the sun and moon, which give us Sunday and Monday, were also honored. This leaves only

Saturday with a non-Germanic background, namely Saturn (Greek: Chronos), for whom there is no

clear Nordic counterpart. Renaming could go in both directions, from Latin to Germanic as with the

names of the week-days or from Germanic to Latin as with the syncretistic association (cf.

syncretism) of Germanic gods with Christian saints as when Thor is exchanged for (St.) Peter in place

names.

Syncretism is the growing together of elements of differing systems. This is especially visible in the area

of religion as illustrated in the case of the names of the days of the week, which were taken from the

Germanic gods on the basis of the Roman gods. This is also the case when non-Christian gods are

associated with Christian saints. Example: In both Haiti and Louisiana the Voodoo god Liba or Legba,

the guardian of gate and cross-road, is identified with St. Peter, the keeper of the keys. Such syncretism

also means that the systemic meaning of the individual supernatural figures may change. The Devil of

the slaves and former slaves of the 19th and early 20th centuries “is a different Satan,” one which must

be appeased because of his potential for harm and therefore earns more attention than God, who is

love (Herkovits 1958: 253f).

Herskovits, M.J. (1958) The Myth of the Negro Past, 2nd ed. N.Y.: Harper & Row.

Early Britain was inhabited by speakers of Celtic languages, the precursors of Welsh and Gaelic. They

participated trade with Rome and were incorporated in the Roman Empire as the province of Britannia

after the conquest on Britannia between 43 and 50 CE. The Celts within the Empire were constantly

threatened by others from outside, most especially the Picts and the Scots. This led to the recruitment

of Germanic defenders under Horsa and Hengist, two military leaders, who turned out to be a

beachhead for further Germanic movement to Britannia. The groups coming included the Angles, the

Saxons, the Frisians, and the Jutes, but not the Franks, whose presence in Gallia was especially

prominent. Early descriptions of Britannia include the work by Ptolemy. Offa’s Dyke is an impressive

120 mile long defensive wall which marks the border between Mercia and Wales. There is

disagreement about whether it (or all of it) was the work of Offa, the Mercian king (late 8th century).

Even if its origins lie elsewhere – possibly earlier – this massive defensive wall bears witness to conflict

between England and Wales. On the other side of the country, at Sutton Hoo, the single most

impressive archaeological remains from early Germanic Britain were found.

Celtic Britain was only one part of a once extensive Celtic civilization over wide stretches of Europe.

Population shifts due to migrations gradually impinged on this world subduing or driving away the

once-dominated Celtic peoples. This took place on the Continent, and it was repeated in Britain. In

Roman Britain the Celts and the Roman occupiers seem to have coexisted very well. Perhaps because

the Celts had relied too much on the Roman legions to protect them, they were exposed and

threatened after the Romans withdrew in about 410. The major threat came from the north, from the

Picts and the Scots, themselves both Celtic groupings. For protection the British Celts turned to

Germanic warriors, inviting help from the Saxon leaders Horsa and Hengist who arrived in 449 and

probably remained after dutifully warding off the Picts and the Scots.

The Saxons – and Angles, Jutes, and Frisians – subjugated the Celtic population, enslaving it or driving it

away. With few exceptions the Celtic-speaking British were soon to be found only in the far west:

Cornwall and Wales and Scotland. While Celtic culture and customs has often remained or been

syncretized with Germanic elements, the use of Celtic languages has long been in decline. Today there

has been a certain stabilization in Wales and Cornish and Manx – widely considered to have ceased to

have any native speakers – are making a small come-back.

Picts and Scots, just introduced, were Celtic peoples, the Picts natives of the north (Scotland) and the

Scots immigrants from Ireland. Little is known about the Picts; but the Scots were a Celtic-speaking

people who migrated from Ireland to the north of Britain; they spoke a variety of Gaelic which evne

today is much like that spoken in Ireland.

Horsa and Hengist, two brothers, were the leaders of the Saxons (and Angles and Jutes), mercenaries

who were invited to Britain in 449 by the Celtic leader Vortigern who needed military help to ward off

the marauding bands of Picts and Scots from the north and Germanic raiders from the sea. The

account of these two leaders relies largely on Gildas’s history (early 6th century in Latin) and reapprears

in Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica (completed in 731) and in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as well as other

sources. The dates given are certainly not exact and the names and battles vary considerably. Yet the

year 449, given in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the´leader Horsa and Hengist, and the place of invasion

(Kent) have often been conveniently passed on.

The Franks were a Germanic people who became very dominant in Gallia and eventually gave their

name to France. Although there is some evidence of Frankish presence in Britannia, tradition has it

that it was the Angles, Saxon, Jutes, and Frisians who invaded and conquered Britain and gave their

language, Englisc, to the country.

Ptolemy was an early (2nd century CE) geographer whose description of the world was very popular and

to which maps of Britain and Ireland were added in later versions. Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus), was

a Roman citizen and Egyptian mathematician, astronomer, geographer, and astrologist. The World

Map is based on his Geography (c. 150 CE), but is not original to it.

Offa’s Dyke is frequently presumed to be a defensive wall intended – since it runs between England and

Wales, to keep out the Welsh. Although the Dyke is very long, approximately 200 km (120 mi), it

seems to have been more a symbol of power than a true military wall. It is attributed to Offa, a late 8th

century king of Mercia and is a testimony to his dominance and resources.

Sutton Hoo is a place located in Suffolk where the most extensive archeological finds from the early

Germanic period in England (6th to 9th centuries) have been excavated starting in 1938. This use of this

area reflects its importance in the period of invasion and conquest. This location is considered to

contain the grave of a very powerful and wealthy king. Items of durable materials such as weapons

(axes, swords, helmets, and shields) and household items and jewelry (bowls, shears, cups, boxes,

clasps, buckles, drinking horns, and spoons) and some remnants of cloth, have been found there – all

of which are among the earliest extant findings from Anglo-Saxon England (5th or 6th century). Its

location near the sea is significant since it also contains, besides several burial mounds, a ship burial

and testifies to the strong connections of the invaders with the sea.

Early Christian England was significant from the point of view of language. With the introduction of

Christianity which followed within about fifty years of Pope Gregory’s sending of St. Augustine of

Canterbury (597) monasteries were established which were to be centers of learning. While pride of

place went to Latin learning, OE was also prominent. Early sets of laws, which reveal the importance

of the Church, are exemplified in Text 2.1. Among the cultural consequences of Christianization

belongs the production of manuscripts in the scriptoria of the monasteries, esp. at Jarrow, Lindisfarne,

and Canterbury. Bede (672 or 673-735) was one of the earliest figures in England. Many of these

contain examples of elaborate art work in the form of illuminations. Monastic and Christian life also

led to a spread of church music. The monasteries were centers not only of learning, but also of

wealth, which led to two consequences. (1) Over time the standards in the monasteries became

somewhat lax in maintaining the ideal of communal prayer and work (ora et labora) and in regard to the

vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. There was consequently the need for monastic reform such

as that which was initiated in Cluny in Burgundy at the beginning of the 10th century with the

reinforcement of the Rule of St. Benedict. In one of the earlier reform efforts, the Carolingian reform

under Charlemagne, scholars from England were instrumental in intellectual renewal in all of Europe.

(2) The wealth of the monasteries attracted raid from the sea by the marauding Vikings.

Eventually in the course of consolidation on the part of the Saxon south and southwest, learning was once

again renewed under King Alfred, who undertook a program of writing and translation in English. In

its further consequences figures such as Ælfric the Grammarian, who once again contributed to a

revival of Latin learning, were a part of the intellectual life of the Anglo-Saxon England.

Church music, medieval music has been passed on to us chiefly within the traditions of the Church,

and that was principally in the form of the Gregorian chants. As the name suggests, these chants have

been widely credited to Gregory I (papacy 590-604), the pope who sent St. Augustine as a missionary

to Canterbury. Eventually, polyphonal music began to develop and non-religious forms of music

became more common. The catalog of the abbey library at Reading, England lists a number of

antiphoners (sung or chanted responses within the order of the service) which the monastery

possessed, thus showing it to be wealthy. In addition to Church music there was sure to have been

secular music as we know from the troubadours who were active in the High Middle Ages (1000-

1300). See color plate no. 2.3.

Illuminations were used to enhance manuscripts of every kind, both music and writing. Such

manuscripts were very expensive because of the time and craftsmanship required. Parchment, i.e.

animal skin, was used for the individual leaves. Examples can be seen among the color plates nos. 1.1,

1.2, 2.3, 3.1, 3.2, 5.2, and 5.3. Even after the development of printing illuminations continued to be

added by hand. Eventually, such embellishments were reproduced in the print process.

Carolingian reforms are associated with Alcuin of York (c. 735-804). Alcuin became Charlemagne’s

principle court advisor, teaching both the later emperor and his sons Pepin and Louis at the palace

school in Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) between 782 and 790. He was esp. instrumental in raising the level

of Latin by returning to what was believed to be the classical form of the language.

Bede (672 or 673-735), widely known as the Vernerable Bede, was the author of Historia ecclesiastica gentis

Anglorum in Latin (An Ecclesiastical History of the English People), which was completed in about 731. In his

history he focused on the English church (organization, heresies) thus generally ignoring the dynastic

histories of the English kings and kingdoms unless of interest for church history. Bede’s Ecclesiastical

History served as the basis for the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as well as later works. It began with Caesar's

campaign in 55 BCE and continued up to his own times. He relied on various authors, for the

Germanic conquest, esp. Gildas’ De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae. His account of the arrival of the

Germanic invaders in Kent may be more myth than an account of the actual events. The survival of

some 160 manuscripts of it attest to its popularity. Bede also composed De Arte Metrica and De

Schematibus et Tropis as well as works on grammar and biblical studies. The non-historical works

contributed greatly to the Carolingian reforms. Bede was not an innovative religious thinker. He

made no original writings or thoughts on the beliefs of the church, instead working to synthesize and

transmit the learning from his predecessors.See 2.2; 2.2.2; and 2.5.3-4.

Viking incursions and their consequences. The Vikings, introduced above, were in many ways similar

to the Saxons: both were Germanic peoples with a warrior tradition. The telling difference lay in the

degree to which they had become settled. The Saxons had been in England for more than 300 years

(starting in 449) when the Vikings began their raids in 787. The Saxons had been officially

Christianized for well over a hundred years and the monasteries, as centers of learning and literacy, had

become a well established part of English life. The Vikings were pagans, and more significant than

that, had no respect for Latin learning. Initially they came to raid and loot; in the long term they also

settled on the land; eventually they, too, were Christianized (see King Alfred) and began to participate

in the world of churches, monasteries, and learning. In the meantime, however, valuable manuscripts

were destroyed and traditions of learning brought to a violent end. Lindesfarne was destroyed in 793;

other monasteries in Britain and Ireland were also attacked in the following years.

King Alfred, “the Great” (848/849-899) king of Wessex from 871 to 899, is important for two very

different reasons. For one, for defending the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex against the Viking, who

had control over Danelaw to the north and east. The decisive victory came in the Battle of Ethandun

in which the West Saxons prevailed and were able to dictate the terms of surrender including the

conversion of the Danish leader Guthrum and his men to Christianity. The Danes also promised to

leave Wessex, supposedly in the Treaty of Wedmore, which divided England right through the

kingdom of Mercia, but with Wessex control over Mercian London and its mints. The second

important accomplishment of Alfred was the consolidation of his kingdom. For one thing Alfred

produced a domboc (cf. the later Domesday Book) or code of laws much in the tradition of Æthelbert

of Kent (see Text 2.1), Offa, and others. Though unsystematic these laws offered at least a legal basis

for the kingdom. Alfred also undertook a revival of learning, perhaps following the example of

Charlemagne a century before. He established a court school and stimulated the production of

manuscripts, which had decreased due to the Viking invasions, but recovered by the end of his reign.

One key component in his program was his proposal that primary education be taught in English,

Latin coming only later as advanced studies. Perhaps this was because Alfred realized that Latin

learning was in too bad a state to depend on literacy in it alone. The other important undertaking was

the translation Gregory the Great's Cura Pastoralis, Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, St. Augustine's

Soliloquies, and many of the psalms. Cura Pastoralis was sent to all the dioceses in his kingdom, thus

supplying them with a finely crafted gift and an important unifying text. In aligning himself with

Charlemagne’s renaissance Alfred conceived of himself as a Christian monarch fulfilling his role and

responsibility in God’s world. He was a king whose authority came from God and to whom obedience

was due in the Christian world order in which a well-trained, literate priesthood carried out its ministry

in well established in monasteries and churches.

Ælfric the Grammarian (c. 955-1010) was a southerner, living chiefly in Winchester and in Dorset and

later in Eynsham in the Midlands. He was the most, or one of the most prolific writers of the OE

period, writing homilies, saints’ lives, Bible commentaries, and a grammar, a glossary, and a colloquy

for students of Latin.

The Wessex and Danish dynasties are of interest after the reign of Alfred the Great, who died in 899,

but who had unified Wessex, Sussex, Kent, western Mercia, and exercised control over Cornwall and

of parts of Wales. His dynasty was continued by his son Edward the Elder, together with Æthelred of

Mercia began further expanding West Saxon primacy as they pushed back the Danes finally reaching

north to the Humber River by 918 and fully integrating Mercia into Wessex. By 927 Edward’s son

Æthelstan conquered Northumbria thus becoming the king of all of England. Northumbria remained

hotly contested under him as well as his successors, Edmund and Eadred. By the reign of Edgar

unification was a fact.

Renewed Danish attacks such as the Battle of Maldon (991) occurred during the reign of Æthelred, who at

the end of his life for lost the kingdom to Sweyn of Denmark and then regained it after Sweyn died.

After the short reign of the Wessex king Edmund II Sweyn’s son Cnut (Canute) took the English

throne and held it until his death, soon after which Edward the Confessor, again a Saxon won the

crown. His death in 1066 left a power vacuum since he did not have a son to succeed him. Among the

three major claimants, Harold Godwinson, Harald Hardrada (of Norway), and William of Normandy.

Harald was quickly defeated by Harold, who himself was killed while fighting the Norman forces at

Hasting in 1066. When William took the English crown, the decades of rivalry between the Wessex

and the Danish dynasties came to an end (see Text 4.1).

The Battle of Brunanburh was an attempt to reverse the conquest of Northumbria by Æthelstan, the

grandson of Alfred the Great. In it a combined Scottish-Viking army was defeated in 937. “The Battle

of Brunanburh” is an OE poem which celebrates this victory.

The Battle of Maldon was fought on August 10, 991 near Maldon in Essex. The battle was took place

between Viking invaders, possibly under Olaf Tryggvason, and English ´forces under the English earl

Byrhtnoth. The battle ended in the defeat of the Saxons with the consequence that the English under

King Athelred the Unready (meaning “poorly advised”) had to pay tribute (Danegeld) to the victors.

Whatever the background to the actual battle and the motivation for Byrhtnoth’s allowing the Danish

to land, which led to the subsequent defeat of the Saxon forces, the battle bears witness to the superior

forces of the Vikings. Furthermore, the OE poem “The Battle of Maldon,” probably composed after

the Norman Invasion, may well have been written to celebrate Saxon heroism in the time of yet

another Saxon defeat.

Post-Conquest England had a population (based on the Domesday Book of 1086) of between a

million and a quarter and two million inhabitants. The Domesday listings did not cover the major cities

such as London or Winchester nor the religious of the monasteries nor those living in castles (rather

than on the land). The size of the population had decreased in comparison with Roman Britain, which

is estimated to have had four million. Yet in the next one and a half to two centuries it was to grow

again to between five and seven million by the time of the Great Famine, the Hundred Years’ War

and the outbreak of the bubonic plague or Black Death. In consequence of these catastrophes there

was once again a drop in population of at least 20%.

The Norman Conquest began with the victory of William Duke of Normandy over Harold II of

England at the Battle of Hastings in September 1066, where Harold was killed (cf. Wessex and

Danish dynasties). The initial Norman victory was rigorously consolidated over the next twenty years

as the Domesday Book makes sufficiently clear. William cemented his power and position by

installing Normans in virtually all the important offices of Church and State thus creating a small

(Norman-) French ruling class in a country of English-speaking subjects. This situation removed most

of the literate English speakers from positions of authority and insured that English would be the Low

language and French would be the High language together with Latin as the High language of written

record in what was a diglossic situation with, however, two functionally distinct High languages. This

had far-reaching consequences for the vocabulary of English, which was to borrow highly from Latin

and French (cf. 4.1.1-2 and 4.2.4), esp. after French-English bilingualism receded with the linguistic

assimilation of the upper orders to English.

The Domesday Book (from the OE dom “accounting”) was a list of all the landholders in England

compiled in 1085-1086. Some thirteen to fourteen thousand holding were listed and revealed that the

great majority were in the hands of the Normans who had replaced the original Anglo-Saxon

landholders. King William was interested in assessing the tax potential and in documenting land-

ownership. This provided an astonishing detailed picture of society: how many lords, villagers,

cottagers, and slaves and how much land was forest, meadow, pasture and where there were mills and

fisheries. The Domesday Book reveals that the royal family and the church abbots controlled just over

half the land directly. The remainder was held by just under 200 tenants, particularly a dozen plus

barons. It was this class that would eventually offer the most opposition of royal prerogative and

power (see Magna Carta; Barons’ Revolt).

The Domesday Book offers excellent testimony to the hierarchy of the feudal system, at the head of

which was the king. He granted land to tenants such as the barons to reward them for the service to

him in the Conquest. They then granted it to sub-tenants who did the same until we find peasants at

the bottom who worked the land of the lords in return for rents. Slaves worked the land but could not

hold any on their own.

French cultural ascendancy was a major reason why French was seen as a language of great prestige and

an object of cultivation, associated as it was with chivalrous society at its best. French was used by the

educated and in high society but was a matter of culture and fashion rather than an economic or

political necessity as it had been before. French continued to hold this position until well into modern

times. In the meantime English has displaced French as the language of cultural ascendancy.

Scott’s Ivanhoe, a 19th century highly romanticized historical novel, dramatically exploits the theme of

foreign domination of England and points out the cultural distinctions between the manor house with

its terms of French origin and the field with its Saxon vocabulary. Examples: Saxon deer and French

venison; swine and pork; cow and beef.

Magna Carta was written, as was established custom, in Latin (see text below). It consisted of a list of

freedoms recognized by the king. It defined rights under the law and recorded customary practices.

Above all, it limited the king’s power, effectively, though still only symbolically, establishing the rule of

law. The short excerpt which follows is only one of sixty-three paragraphs in Magna Carta.

13. Et civitas London. habeat omnes antiquas libertates et liberas consuetudines suas, tam per terras, quam

per aquas. Preterea volumus et concedimus quod omnes alie civitates, et burgi, et ville, et portus,

habeant omnes libertates et liberas consuetudines suas.

13. And the city of London shall have all it ancient liberties and free customs, as well by land as by water;

furthermore, we decree and grant that all other cities, boroughs, towns, and ports shall have all their

liberties and free customs.

Neither the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 nor the First Barons’ War (1258-1265), motivated by

John’s renunciation of Magna Carta, stopped the inflow of French officials that had begun under John

and was reinforced under his successor Henry III (1216-1272). See 4.1.2.

The Great Famine of 1315-1317 marked the end of the Medieval Warm Period and the beginning of

what is sometimes called the Little Ice Age. The consequence of this climate change was poorer

harvests and colder winters. This led, from 1315 to 1317 to famine. Following on the population

growth of the previous two centuries this caused starvation and/or weakened health, which may be

argued to have made the population more susceptible to the Black Death which spread throughout

Europe from 1348 on. The Great Famine itself reduced the European population by as much as 10%.

The Black Death or bubonic plague, spread by rat-borne fleas, reached England in 1348, where in the

course of the next several decades it led, according to conservative estimates, to a population loss of at

least 20%. The plague weakened and killed 80% of its victims within eight days of outbreak. It is

known to lead to losses in a magnitude of up to 75%. A common assumption is a drop in population

size of about one-third though some go higher (Goldberg 1996; Benedictow 2004). In some places so

many people were affected that the very fabric of society was threatened: the sick could not be cared

for and the dead could not be buried (cf. Russell 1948). The lack of sufficient labor might also lead to

food shortages. This strengthened the position of the peasantry (cf. Peasants’ Revolt of 1381). This

ultimately changed social structures as replacements for traditional leadership had to be recruited

outside the nobility. The first occurrence subsided in 1350. Further outbreaks in the late ME period

occurred in 1361–62, 1369, 1379–83, 1389–93, and throughout the first half of the 15th century. Full

population recovery took about 150 years. The plague continued to recur until the 19th century; see

also the mention of it in Pepys’ Diary for 1665 (Text 6.1).

Benedictow, O.J. (2004) The Black Death 1346-1353: The Complete History. Woodbridge: Boydell.

Goldberg, J. (1996) “Introduction,” In: M. Ormrod and P.G. Lindley. The Black Death in England.

Stamford: Paul Watkins, 4.

Russell, J.C. (1948). British Medieval Population. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

The Hundred Years’ War was actually a series of wars between France and England starting in 1337 and

ending in 1453 with England’s loss of virtually all of its holdings in France. The individual conflicts

were

the Edwardian War (1337–1360), esp. well known is the Battle of Crécy in which the English

prevailed thanks to their use of the longbow, a long-distance weapon which relegated the mounted

knight to military insignificance; English forces took possession of much of Normandy as well as

of Calais; England prevailed;

the Caroline War (1369–1389), in which French military leadership greatly surpassed that of

England; the French slowly began recapturing towns; France prevailed;

the Lancastrian War (1415–1429), which began with a momentous English success at Agincourt

(1415) and the retaking of Calais and Rouen soon after, but ended with almost total reversals in

England’s successes with the appearance of Joan of Arc (1412–1431) at the head of the French

army in 1429;

French victory (1429-1453), which was initiated by Joan of Arc, who was burned at the stake in

Calais in 1431); French forced began to drive back the English so that by the end of the war only

Calais remained in English hands.

The results of the war were

loss of English claims / possessions in France – except for Calais (and the Channel Islands); note

that France and Scotland both stood in opposition to England; furthermore, this was no longer a

knightly conflict, but one using standing armies (with peasant soldiers); foreign mercenaries also

terrorized the countryside; English soldiers slaughtered farmers’ cattle, getting the name “boeuf-

manges,” or “beef-eaters”;

a thinning of the higher feudal ranks; demographically the Hundred Years’ War – together with

the Black Death – decimated the English nobility thus making the rise of commoners easier, i.e.

increased social mobility; as a result a new class of people were able to enter public service,

essentially de-aristocratizing it.

the growing importance of English: By 1362 French had lost its primacy to English; Londoners

now came from all over England.

Peasants’ (a.k.a. Tyler’s) Revolt of 1381 (see color plate 5.2) was the largest peasant uprising of the

medieval period. As many as 100,000 peasants marched on London under the leadership of Wat Tyler

(?-1381) and others such as John Ball, a Lollard, and Jack Straw. The revolt was a reaction against the

rising taxes and more restrictive working conditions of the peasant farmers. Taxes (poll taxes) were

levied to help finance the Hundred Years’ War, and this led to great dissatisfaction and revolt. The

king (actually Chaucer’s patron John of Gaunt, who was the regent for young King Richard II, reign

1377-1400) had introduced a poll tax in 1377 and again in 1379 to finance the war against France. A

new poll tax in 1380 was perceived as unjust and much too high. This led to massive opposition to

royal authority as some 100,000 peasants marched on London protesting against corrupt officials and

demanding better terms and conditions for labor. The rebels stormed the Tower of London, executed

the Lord Chancellor, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Lord Treasurer. So well coordinated was

this up-rising that it can be assumed that it was not spontaneous and was backed by powerful

opponents of the king. Young King Richard made concessions, which in the end he did not honor. All

the same, this may be seen as the beginning of the end of serfdom in England, which would mean

better wages and more freedom. This social upheaval was part of the rise of capitalism; it would

contribute to the renewal of learning (the Renaissance; see chapter 6.1.2), and it was manifest in a

variety of movements of religious dissent (see 5.2.1).

The Wars of the Roses (1455-1485) were in part a reaction against the chaotic conditions resulting from

the Hundred Years’ War. Before and then during the period of conflict, the House of Lancaster,

represented by a red rose, provided three kings starting with Henry IV (Bollingbroke) in 1399 and

followed by his son Henry V and then his son Henry VI, whose right to the throne was contested by

Richard, Duke of York from the House of York, represented by a white rose. He was killed in battle,

but his son Edward IV took the throne in 1460 and reigned until 1483. He was succeeded by Edward

V, who has often been presumed to have been murdered along with his brother in the Tower of

London by Richard III (Gloucester). When he was killed in battle, Henry Tudor, a Lancastrian, took

the throne as Henry VII thus effectively ending the wars and establishing a dynasty which ruled until

the death of Elizabeth I.

Dynastic struggles were prominent in the Wars of the Roses, but they were also coupled with political

upheaval and a change in the balance of power as seen in

• support for York from the commercial classes in London

• Lancaster’s devastation of Southern England

• Parliamentary support for York (i.e. Edward IV)

• weakening of feudal power; strengthening of the merchant classes

• the end of England’s continental power and claims

• the emergence of the House of Tudor under Henry Tudor, a Lancastrian

• centralized power under the Tudors: Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, Elizabeth I

Religious movements have always had influence of the development of the English language. It was the

Christianization of England in the OE period which led to the founding of monasteries, where writing

in both Latin and OE became an established part of the language leading to the establishment of an

OE standard as initiated by King Alfred (3.4). In the ME period we find the religious practice of the

pilgrimage as the stimulus for Chaucer’s monumental, but not particularly religious portrait of

England, The Canterbury Tales (5.4.2). More specifically religious was the controversy about translations

of the Bible into English (5.1.3, 5.2.1.2, 6.4.1 and Texts 6.7 and 6.8a-f), a controversy rooted in

changes in the political and social structures of English society as seen in the Lollard movement (5.1.3,

5.2.1.1, 6.2.4, 6.4.1). Prominent among the translations were those of Wycliffe in the 14th century

(5.1.3) and of Tyndale in the 16th (5.2.1.1-2, 6.4.1). The Reformation in England was both a political

and a religious occurrence (6.1.2 and 6.4.1) whose effect on the language may be seen in such

influential writings as the Book of Common Prayer (1549, 1552, 1662; see 6.4.1 and Text 6.9) and the

King James Version of the Bible (Text 6.7 and 6.8d). While there were always dissenting. reform, and

mystical religious groups, their presence became especially prominent in the unrest surrounding the

English Civil War. (6.4.1, 6.2.5, 6.4.3, 7.3.1.). Among the dissenting groups the most prominent was

surely the Puritans, including the Separatists, who also exerted a great deal of religious and linguistic

influence on both England and New England (6.4.1, 6.2.4, 10.2, 10.2.1). This took the form of such

prominent literary efforts as John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (Text 6.10) or the Puritan sermon

(Text 6.4).

Pilgrimages were common practice in the pre-Modern period. In the Middle Ages people visited places

of religious significance, hoping for the blessings of God or relief from physical or spiritual suffering.

Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela were often the goal. The Canterbury Tales were

conceived around a group of pilgrims going from London (actually Southwark) to Canterbury to the

grave of the hooly blisful martir (l. 17), Thomas Becket, murdered at Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. Also

mentioned are the Palmeres (l. 13), i.e. those who had made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and wore

two crossed palms as a sign of this (ME text with accompanying ModE translation from Coghill):

hanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, 12

Then people long to go on pilgrimages

And Palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,

And palmers long to seek the stranger strands

To ferne halwes kowthe in sondry londes. 14

Of far-off saints, hallowed in sundry lands,

And specially fram euery shires ende

And specially, from every shire's end

Of Englelond to Caunterbury they wende, 16

In England, down to Canterbury they wend

The hooly blisful martir for to seke,

To seek the holy blissful martyr, quick

That dem hath holpen whan þat they were seeke. 18

In giving help to them when they were sick.

Other important goals of medieval pilgrimages mentioned in the Prologue were Santiago de Compostela

in Spain (The Way of St. James), Rome, Jerusalem, Bologna (really more the university than a religious

goal), and Cologne (because of the relics of the Three Wise Men given by Cologne Archbishop Rainald

of Dassel to the cathedral in 1164, cf.

A good Wyf was ther of bisyde Bathe, 445

A worthy woman from beside Bath city …

And thryes hadde she been at Jerusalem; 463

And she had thrice been to Jerusalem,

She hadde passed many a straunge streem;

Seen many strange rivers and passed over them;

At Rome she hadde been, and at Boloigne, 465

She'd been to Rome and also to Boulogne,

In Galice at seint Jame, and at Coloigne.

St James of Compostella and Cologne,

She coude muche of wandring by the weye: 467

And she was skilled in wandering by the way

The Wife of Bath is characterized by Chaucer tongue-in-cheek in l. 467, where he alludes to her wandering

of a different and more carnal nature. See 5.4.2.

Coghill, N. (translator) (1952) G. Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales. Baltimore: Penguin.

Skeat, W.W. (ed.) (1912) The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. London: OUP.

The Lollards were a religious movement trying to change what they saw as corrupt practices in the

medieval Church. Among other things the Lollards challenged the use of Latin, which was seen as a

means of control over the people. The movement does not seem to have had any unifying central

theological beliefs or doctrine. Rather, it seems to have found its strength in its anti-clerical stance,

consequently calling many of the priestly aspects of the Church into question. This also shows up very

clearly in the debate from 1401 on about the suitability of English for a translation of the Bible. The

Church felt it was not suitable, which was clearly a political decision. This led to the law de hæretico

comburendo, which linked popular literacy to sedition: “heretics were accused of making unlawful

conventicles and confederations, setting up schools, writing books and wickedly instructing and

informing the people” (Knowles 1997: 64). Open discussions of heresy were legal – in Latin; Latin

remained language of conservative scholarship. Lollard work put the Bible above the Church; scholarly

study of it (the written text) challenged the oral tradition of the Church (ibid.: 64-71) and its authority.

This was a struggle to extend English to the domain of religion and to replace Latin with it. The

success of the Lollard translation of the Bible (Wycliffe) indicated a growing reading public. Lollard

English as one of the strands of the incipient written standard. Lollardy was also an element in the

Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, and this associated contributed to measures against the Lollard in the years

after the Revolt. See 5.1.3, 5.2.1.1, 6.2.4, 6.4.1.

Knowles, G.O. (1997) A Cultural History of the English Language. London: Edward Arnold.

John Wycliffe (1320s-1384) was an early Church dissenter and Oxford University scholar, who was a

precursor of Reformation ideas in a number of areas such as predestination, the separation of temporal

and ecclesiastic matters, and rejection of the papacy. Wycliffe was also the first important translator of

the Bible into English after the OE period (see Text 5.3 and 6.8a). The success of the Lollard

translation of the Bible (Wycliffe) indicated a growing reading public. Lollard English as one of the

strands of the incipient written standard.

William Tyndale (c. 1494-1536) is best known as a translator of the Bible into English. Like Wycliffe

before him, he was intent on making the Scriptures available to a lay public not trained in Latin. Unlike

Wycliffe , who relied on the Latin Vulgate for his translation of the New Testament, Tyndale drew on

the Greek (New Testament) and Hebrew (Old Testament) texts. The Bible in the vernacular still met

with strong opposition from the Church, and early versions of it (from 1526 on) had to be smuggled

from the Antwerp to England and Scotland. As much for reasons of his opposition to Henry VIII’s

divorce from Catherine of Aragon (in favor of Anne Boleyn) as because of his translation, he was

imprisoned in Antwerp in 1535 at the instigation of Henry VIII, then tried for heresy, and executed in

1536. His translation had a much wider impact than Wycliffe’s because it was immediately available in

print. Much of the language introduced by Tyndale was retained in the KJV. See 5.2.1.1-2, 6.4.1 and

Text 6.7.

Translations of the Bible into the vernacular were prohibited by the Synod of Toulouse (1229). While

this was widely ignored elsewhere, this was not the case in England because of the association of

translation with the Lollards: “Someone reading the English translation was still given an

interpretation, but by the translator rather than the priest. A further problem is that the reader could be

misled by the meaning of everyday English words and fail to grasp the exact meaning of the original”

(Knowles 1997: 72; cf. also 1.4.2, 5.1.3, 5.2.1.l-2, 6.4.1).

Actually, translations had been and continued to be made again and again, as the following lists make

clear:

• Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne (639-709) thought to have translated the Psalms (disputed).

• Caedmon mentioned by Bede as one who sang poems in Old English based on the Bible stories

(not a translation as such).

• Bede: a translation of the Gospel of John (c. 735).

• The Vespasian Psalter, an interlinear gloss in a manuscript of the Psalms (c. 850; in the Mercian

dialect).

• Eleven other 9th century glosses of the Psalms, including Eadwine's Canterbury Psalter

• King Alfred had passages of the Bible circulated in the vernacular around AD 900, possibly

including the 50 Psalms in the Paris Psalter; see Text 1.1

• Between 950 and 970, a gloss in the Northumbrian dialect of Old English (the Northumbrian Gloss

on the Gospels) added to the Lindisfarne Gospels

• 1382-95: Wycliffe’s translation; see Text 5.3 and 6.8a

• Tyndale – burned as heretic in 1536 – made a translation (see Text 6.7) which appeared in:

• 1537: Matthew Bible: with royal assent

• 1535: Coverdale Bible; see Text 6.8b

• 1540: Great Bible: nobility could read it aloud; womenfolk and merchants for themselves;

common people not at all

• 1560: The Geneva Bible (Calvinist marginal notes)

• 1568: Bishop’s Bible (authorized by Elizabeth I)

• 1582: Rheims-Douay Bible (Roman Catholic); see 6.8c

• 1611: The King James (Authorized) Version (KJV); see Texts 1.1, 5.3, 6.7, and 6.8d

• 1640: The Bay Psalm Book; see 6.8e

• 1881, 1885: English Revised Version (RV)

• 1901: American Standard Version (of above) (ASV)

• 1946, 1952: The Revised Standard Version (RSV) (US); see Text 6.8f

• 1961, 1970: The New English Bible (UK)

• 1966: Good News for Modern Man (US); see Text 1.1

• 1989: Revised English Bible (UK) (“gender accurate”)

Change in the archaic English of the translations was slow in coming. The 2nd person singular T-form

pronouns, thou, thee, thy, and verb forms art, hast, hadst, didst, etc. were long retained. In the KJV, RV

and ASV the T-forms were used for both God and humans. In RSV they were used only for God, a

fairly common practice for Bible translations until the mid-1970s, when a general switch to singular

you was common practice.

Knowles, G.O. (1997) A Cultural History of the English Language. London: Edward Arnold.

English Translations of the Bible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_Bible_translations)

The Reformation in England stood somewhere between Rome (Anglicanism) and Geneva

(Calvinism). Anglicanism, which replaced the Pope as the head of the Church with the King, was a

move under Henry VIII to nationalize Roman Catholicism and to profit from the secularization of vast

amounts of Church property. In most points the priestly-sacramental form of religion remained largely

intact. Calvinism (Presbyterianism and Puritanism) was a much more fundamental shift in the polity

of the Church, away from the Catholic and Anglican hierarchical organization to a more representative

form in which elected local elders in the congregations and synods on a wider basis were responsible

for the Church and chose the minister-teacher of the congregation. It sought to reform and purify the

Church. In addition to this England was also home to various radical groups which formed the left-

wing of the Reformation. Chief among them was Quakerism, This movement was radically

democratic and emphasized the personal relationship of each believer to God independent of church

organization or priestly sacraments. See 6.1.2 and 6.4.1.

Puritanism was a broad religious movement and included nobles, merchants, the middle class, and the

poor. It was especially strong in London and at Cambridge University. It associated with high ethical

standards, and it exerted great influence on economic life by emphasizing hard work and the leading of

an ascetic life. It strove to remove misuse, as its followers saw this, from the Church. In the “vestiarian

controversy” is moved toward simplicity in the manner in which ministers dressed; in the strife over

church polity (1570-72) it opposed the Episcopalians (Bishop Whitgift), the Presbyterians (Thomas

Cartwright), and the Separatists (Robert Browne). “Political Puritanism” from 1610 on, was engaged

in combat with the increasingly authoritarian / autocratic moves of James I (1603-1625), who rejected

Puritan reform proposals and began systematic repression. This turned into persecution under Charles

I (1625-1649) and Archbishop (of Canterbury) William Laud (1633-1645), which led to the English

Civil War (1642-1648) between the royalist party and the Parliamentary party. The latter was

supported by a large selection of religious groups at the time of the Civil War including the

Puritans as well as Presbyterians and Independents such as Oliver Cromwell. In 1649 the king was

executed, and a republic was instituted with freedom of religion (though not for Roman Catholics). In

1660 the monarchy was restored and in 1662 under Charles II the Parliament passed the Act of

Uniformity, which put the Puritan ministers (some 2000) out of office.

Under Charles I and William Laud the situation became increasingly difficult and groups of non-

separating Puritans now also left for America, the first in 1628, then a larger group (a couple thousand)

in 1630. From then till the outbreak of the English Civil War people continued to come. But then the

numbers fell considerably though the attitude of the British government was benevolent. The

American Puritans established a carefully controlled network of settlements in New England.

However, they also went through crises of various sorts. These include

economic crisis in the 1640s when immigration fell off. It also includes

the problem in the second generation, entailed by the lack of voting rights on the part of a

substantial part of the population, a dispute leading to a partial solution in the 1660s.

increasingly, especially after restoration and with the accession of James II, there was conflict with

the Crown.

a further crisis is marked by the transfer of Massachusetts to the Crown in the 1690s and, not

wholly unrelated in its roots,

the witchcraft trails of the early 1690s.

by 1720, a further generation later, Puritanism was obviously changing in its characteristics so

much that it was becoming hard to call it Puritanism at all.

however, in the 1740s a final very significant movement affected, revivalism in the form of the so-

called First Great Awakening.

After this the name Puritanism can hardly be used, but the effects of a century of Puritan influence was,

thanks to its highly cohesive and well-structured essence, of a lasting nature. See 6.4.1, 6.2.4, 10.2,

10.2.1.

Religious groups at the time of the English Civil War grew to a large extent out of the disinherited

and the disgruntled. Their numbers arose out of the poverty caused by the enclosures, but also by

rising prices (inflation due to New World gold and silver in superabundance), by monopolies on the

necessities of life, by the miseries of the Civil War, by the increase in taxation, and by a series of bad

harvests (in the 1640s). Their unrest was reinforced by high expectations for Utopia that came with the

end of the monarchy and by the spread of Familist and Baptist ideas.

They included Anabaptists, Millenarians or Fifth Monarchy Men, Antinomians, Seekers, Ranters, Diggers,

Levellers, and Quakers. Common to all was the doctrine of inner experience as the ultimate authority

on earth and the hope for Christ’s kingdom on earth. Their organization was sectarian, thus rejecting

professional clergy, but espousing lay preaching, spiritualist interpretation of the scriptures, rejection of

the monarchy, and (sometimes) communism. Leadership came from the upper ranks (craftsmen,

cobblers, weavers, who were, for one, illiterate in the classical languages and, for another, open to

emotional religion. The following short characterization of some of these groups may help you to

distinguish between them.

Anabaptists: mostly quietistic, but some were revolutionary, cf. the takeover of Münster in Germany

Millenarians or Fifth Monarchy Men: establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth; emotional and

individual religious experience; ethical and social reconstruction (Leader: Harrison)

Seekers: no authority, not even the scriptures are certain (Naylor)

Ranters: the Light of Nature (under the name of Christ); opposed to church, scriptures, ministry,

worship, and ordinances

Diggers: mystics and communists (Winstanley)

Levellers: more political, but with a religious character (Lilburne)

Quakers: the Inner Light, the quietistic result of these movements (Fox), though earlier some were

radical: “It was learnt, that, though they were never seen with a weapon in their hands, several had

been found with pistols under their cloaks” (Gooch 1898: 278); social amelioration, emotional piety –

and a retreat into sectarianism (in but not of society): mutual aid, brotherhood, love of equality

(insistence on addressing everyone with thee and thou), pacifism, anti-slavery position. See 6.4.1.

Gooch, G.P. (1898) The History of English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century. London.

Niebuhr, R. (1929) The Social Sources of Denominationalism. Cleveland: Meridian.

Separatists and Plimoth Plantation: The Separatists were a radical subgroup of Puritans who advocated

a complete separation from the state church. The repression of the Puritans under James I had led

some of the more radical Puritans, viz. Separatists, to leave England for Holland; several years later

they left Holland for North America (see Text 6.4). These were the so-called Pilgrims, who landed at

Plymouth in 1621. Because they landed outside the area for which they had a charter, the established a

general framework for their governance on the basis of an agreement freely entered on and called, after

the name of the ship they arrived on, the Mayflower Compact (see 10.1.2 and Text 6.15).

The Puritan sermon shows the style aimed at by the Puritans. In its form it was like a lawyer's brief, and

it consisted of three parts:

doctrine (from the Bible)

reasons (arguments for the doctrine)

uses (application or instruction)

A sermon was to be in plain style, which meant that it contained little or no Latin or Greek and homely

and clear examples. This encouraged note-taking for further discussion and ease in remembering. See

Text 6.10, Winthrop’s famous sermon “A Model of Christian Charity.”

Furthermore, the sermon was very central in Puritan life. The Massachusetts Bay Puritans had two on

Sundays and one some other weekday, for example on Thursday. There were also sermons on special

occasions such as muster ("artillery sermons"), elections, executions, as well as days of fasting or of

thanksgiving. Eventually, there had to be restrictions placed on how often there were sermons (Ziff,

51); otherwise, people would go off to listen to sermons in neighboring towns instead of working. By

scheduling all the weekday sermons for the same time, people could be prevented from spending so

much time going to them. However, there must have been backsliders since an act of 1646 enforced

attendance by imposing a fine 5s for failing to go.

The general popularity of sermons may be explained by the fact that they provided an opportunity for

people to meet together and offered intellectual and spiritual entertainment. But most of all, the

motivation was inward and can be explained by the new orientation which was so central to

Puritanism: in place of a fixed order (the medieval fealty to a lord on a manor and the protection

afforded by him), and surety of grace (via the sacraments, administered by a priest at an altar), both

gone by the time of Queen Elizabeth I, there was only the certainty that could come from within:

piety, examination of self for signs of grace, and a moral and saintly life. The arbiter of this was the

conscience. The saintly life meant no obscenity, trust in a man's word as his bond, even if extracted

under duress, because it was given not only to man, but also to God. In addition, the godly life was not

only to be seen in modest clothing and avoidance of certain types of entertainment, but keeping the

Sabbath = church-going. And central to the Sabbath was the Word, the pulpit. For Puritans the word

was the Word of God (= Bible), there for all to read (hence the importance of education), but not free

for just any interpretations, hence the need for a minister to explicate in his sermon. Example: Thomas

Hooker's Election Sermon of 1638.

Text: God sanctions choosing leaders

Therefore it should be according to God's will and law

The people may set the bounds of authority of those elected

Reasons:

All authority is in the people's free consent

Free choice inclines people towards those chosen

This guarantees better obedience

Uses: We should be grateful

We should resist attempts to limit this

We should use this freedom

We should choose according to God's will

Intellectual life in the Middle Ages was shaped by ways of thinking often very unfamiliar to present-day

conceptions of the world. This ranged from a cosmogony framed in terms of astrology and a theory

of human nature governed by the humors. Medieval thought was scholastic in nature, which meant

that it drew on traditional ways of reasoning and less on empirical experience. Philosophy was

dominated by scholasticism, a highly developed, but essentially unempirical approach to learning. It

was dominated by deductive logic and served largely as a tool within the predominantly religious

framework of Medieval thought. With the Renaissance there came a rebirth of learning which

eventually was to lead to empirical exploration of the world and the use of the scientific method, which

relies primarily on inductive logic.

Astrology, although referred to in the Canterbury Tales as Astronomye, it is a what we today call astrology,

viz. reading the stars, calculating which celestial bodies are rising (ascendant) or falling (descendent) in

order to determine what has an influence on a person. In the Canterbury Tales (Prologue, ll. 416f) there

is mention of hours. This means the observation of the time of one's birth for astrological purposes to

determine what planet or star was Ascendent. English has borrowed from the ideas of astrology in such

phrases as to thank your lucky stars or to be mercurial, jovial, martial, or whatever depending on what planet

was ascendant at your time of birth.

The theory of the humors. The word humor referred in Latin to moisture, wetness, liquid, as we still see

in the related word humid. In Medieval thought the body was conceived of as containing four liquids or

humors whose balance (temperament, complexion) were essential for good health (good

humor/temper vs. bad humor/temper). Each of the four were also associated with one of the four

elements:

black choler or bile: associated with the element earth

phlegm: the element water

blood: the element air

choler or yellow bile: the element fire

Furthermore, they were also associated among other things with the properties hot, cold, dry, and wet. In

the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales mention is made in l. 420 of hoot, coold, moyste, drye. Each of these

could be combined with any other one except its opposite and was then associated with the seasons.

This gave the following groupings:

humor season feature element

black bile autumn cold-dry earth

phlegm winter cold-moist water

blood spring hot-moist air

choler summer hot-dry fire

Any imbalance (bad temper) could be remedied by removing some of the liquid which was present in

superfluity, hence bleeding, vomiting, and sweating. Much of the terminology used today to descript

people’s temperaments derives from this theory, even though the theory of the humors is completely

outdated. Too much black bile made you melancholic; too much blood, sanguine; too much phlegm,

phlegmatic; and too much yellow bile, choleric or bilious.

Scholasticism was the center-piece of Medieval intellectual life. It used reason and argumentation, but

stayed firmly within the bounds of religious orthodoxy. It adopted the traditions of mathematics and

astronomy developed in the Arabic world and relied initially on Arabic translations of the ancient

Greek thinks. But with the revival of the study of the Greek language in the West new translations and

a better understanding of classical Greek philosophy, esp. Plato and Aristotle, emerged. In this sense it

was already part of the re-birth of learning.

The Renaissance is the high point of the re-birth of learning in the West which began with

scholasticism. But in contrast to scholasticism the Renaissance was a much broader movement

effecting not only intellectual life, but also literature, art, and architecture. Furthermore, it stands for a

paradigmatic change in the way first intellectuals and later the well educated looked at the world. The

role of religion was to lose its primacy and the individual to become more central. In scientific thought

empirical work became increasingly central, which led to a weakening of much traditional thought and

authority.

The Renaissance spread north- and westward from Italy, where it had in beginnings in the 15th century or

even earlier. As it moves beyond Italy to Northern Europe it contributed to the Reformation. In

England the Renaissance is widely associated with the Tudor dynasty as is the Reformation in England.

In this History of English the Renaissance is largely parallel to the Early Modern Period. Printing and the

use of English for translations of the Bible as well as empirical scientific work as seen in Text 6.5 by

Isaac Newton were a part of this.

John Trevisa (1342-1402) is best known as the translator of Higden’s Polychronicon, to which he added

comments of his own such as those we can see in Text 5.1. Trevisa, a Cornishman, probably

collaborated with Wycliffe in translating the Bible into English.

Milton’s Areopagitica (1644) was a plea for freedom of speech, but with responsibility. The following a

three short excerpts from it:

For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that

soul whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that

living intellect that bred them.

As good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image;

but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye.

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

The Royal Society was founded in 1660 growing out of the Invisible College of scholars who had been

meeting at least since the 1640s in both London and Oxford, later splitting accordingly into two. In

1662 it was granted a royal charter. Its interests went in virtually all directions, including language (see

6.4.2). Prominent early members were John Wilkins, Jonathan Goddard, Robert Hooke, Christopher

Wren, William Petty, and Robert Boyle soon to be joined by Isaac Newton (see Text 6.20).

Copyright law is one of the consequences of the individualization of authorship. In the OE and into the

ME period authorship was frequently – but by no means always – anonymous. Writing, including

translating and copying, was carried out chiefly at the monasteries. In the ME period more and more

writing was centered around the nobility, who patronized individual poets and who, in return, had the

works dedicated to them. With the advent of printing mass circulation of literature became a reality,

and authors an interest – though still a distant vision – in being able to make a living from their

writing. At the same time governments and the Church developed an interest in gaining control over

what was published. By granting licenses to printers to publish particular books the authorities were

following their own interests, but also limiting the pirating of books and in this way establishing the

groundwork for future copyright.

“Illegal” publishing actually flourished despite moves to establish controls. This could be dramatically seen

in the smuggling of Tyndale’s Bible into England and Scotland in the early 16th century. Although

Richard Pynson, a younger contemporary of Caxton was granted very limited rights in 1518, nothing

systematic was established until 200 years later. It was then that the first general legal measure

resembling later copyright law was enacted: "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting

the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein

mentioned," known as the Statute of Anne (1709/10). This was, however, as likely to be a benefit to

printers as to authors. Pirated books continued to be produced outside England, viz. on the Continent,

in Scotland, Ireland, or the North American colonies. As Parliamentary jurisdiction extended first to

Scotland and then to Ireland, pirating there became illegal, but the United States continued to ignore

British copyright. While the US established its own copyright law in 1790 (the first of several laws), it

did not join in international conventions until the late 20th century (Universal Copyright Convention,

1954; Berne Convention, 1988). Continental publishers continued to profit from restrictive laws in

Britain and the U.S. as most dramatically seen in the publication of Joyce’s Ulysses, which was initially

banned in the US and Britain, but not in Ireland.

Present-day practice still has to observe differing copyright laws in the UK and the US, but the

globalization of writing and publishing in English is a fact, and the English language is, as a result, no

longer the preserve of England or the United States.

Education in Britain was not a matter of the state until late in the 19th century with the exception of

Scotland, which implemented a system of public education in the Education Act of 1496. There were

grammar schools and public schools in England which taught Latin and the classical curriculum, but

for most people training took place in the form of apprenticeships. The three R’s were typically taught

in the dame schools. The grammar schools were recognized by Edward VI (reigned 1547-1553) and

theoretically open to all (though practically only to the more affluent). Public schools (aka Independent

or Private Schools) have existed for almost a millennium and a half: King’s School, Canterbury was

founded in 597. Obviously, many of the early schools were monastery schools; and the Church

remained dominant in non-vocational education until the state system was established with the

Elementary School Act of 1870. This is the Church of England, and after the Restoration, numerous

dissenting academies were founded. Even after 1870, the private boarding schools (“public schools”)

retained their influence as it was there that the ruling class was educated. And it was there that the

accent referred to today as Received Pronunciation (RP) developed (cf. Abercrombie 1965).

Abercrombie, D. (1965) “R.P. and Local Accent,” In: Studies in Phonetics and Linguistics. London: OUP,

10-15.

Dame schools were the bread-and-butter of elementary education in Britain, America, and Australia until

supplanted by states schools in the second half of the 19th century. As suggested by their name, these

schools were taught by women, often widowed and living off the proceeds of the schools. Some of the

teachers were themselves poorly educated, but many did the necessary jobs of teaching the basics of

reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Elementary School Act of 1870 (aka Forster Act) introduced compulsory elementary education to

England and Wales even though it was not until a second act in 1880 that this became more or less a

reality. Since then the scope of state involvement in education has expanded steadily, if also often very

controversially. The role of private schools remained substantial with about one in fourteen children

attending a private school in the UK.

Formal education in America expanded more quickly than in Britain. This was due, on the one hand, to

the general consensus on the need for literacy among the Puritans and, on the other, to the greater

local autonomy which the prevailed in the American colonies. Massachusetts Bay Puritans instituted

common schools in 1642 and legally mandated them in 1647. See Text 10.2; see also New England

Primer. Even before that Harvard College was founded in 1636. The schools were to guarantee the

literacy needed to read the Bible, and Harvard was founded to educate the ministers required by the

increasing number of Puritan congregations. Harvard was the first but not the only colonial institution

of higher education. Others like it were almost all religious in their orientation, cf.

Institution Founding date Religious affiliation

William and Mary 1693 Anglican

Yale 1701 Congregational

College of N.J. = Princeton 1746 Presbyterian

Academy of Philadelphia 1740

= Univ.of Pa. 1751, 1755 non-denominational

King's College = Columbia 1754 Anglican (= Presbyterian)

College of R.I. = Brown 1764 Baptist

Queen's College = Rutgers 1766, 1771 Dutch Reformed

Dartmouth 1769 Congregational

Harvard granted its first degrees in 1642; was chartered in 1650. In the 1770s it had about 180 students -

at a time when all the colleges in the colonies had about 750 students all told. Tuition in the 17th

century cost approximately four hogs a year. Medicine was first established in 1765 at the University of

Pennsylvania.

Note that England had only two universities until the establishment of London in 1827 (but there were

academies and the public schools). It would, however, be a mistake to assume that the level and quality

of learning at the new American colleges was comparable to that of Oxford and Cambridge.

The Puritans were also heirs of medieval scholasticism and of the humanistic Renaissance, besides being

apostles of the Reformation. Harvard's curriculum of 1642 had four traditions:

(1) the liberal arts tradition of medieval learning (cf. the cathedral schools and universities),

(2) the 13th century philosophical renaissance of Aristotelianism;

(3) the classical-humanist "revival of letters" of the Renaissance,

(4) the Reformation conviction of the necessity to promote Christian faith and practice in all human

enterprise (Herberg: 14).

Today public schooling in the US is universal, but the level of educational training has been frequently

criticized and a variety of remedies suggested, such as proficiency testing, charter schools, and

vouchers systems. The latter potentially opens private schooling including religious schools to public

financing, thus contravening the long-standing principle of strict separation of church and state.

The New England Primer was the first elementary reading book written and published in the American

colonies (Boston, c. 1690). It testifies to the close relation between religion and literacy promoted by

the Puritans. See color plate 10.1 New England Primer. It inculcated Puritan-Protestant values by

using religious maxims and sayings such as the text used to introduce the letter “A”: “In Adam’s Fall

We Sinned all.” It was eventually replaced by Webster’s American Spelling Book (aka Blue Back

Speller, see color plate no. 10.4 Webster’s American Spelling Book) after 1790. See also spelling

reform.

Scholarly prose began to emerge in English from the 16th century on (cf. 6.2.4, 6.3.2, 6.4.2). A major part

of scientific and academic writing was the development a whole new vocabulary based on the classical

languages. Although this was already a major factor in English (see 4.1.1, 4.2.9, 5.3.2.2-3) it virtually

erupted in the EModE period and continues to be characteristic of many ESP’s (13.3.2.2), which share

much of their vocabulary with other Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP’s), be they, for example,

French, German, Spanish, or Italian.

The leading role of English as an international language of scholarship and publishing has led to questions

as to whether English traditions dictate international writing styles. Clyne has stated, “It is suggested

that the differences between the English and German texts may be promoted by the educational

systems and by varying intellectual styles and attitudes to knowledge and content” (Clyne 1987: 211).

Generally: Rules for writing term papers are very rigid in Britain and Australia, but less rigid in

Germany, where they allow

textual asymmetry,

a lack of linearity due to frequent digressions, and

the transfer of responsibility in communication from the writer to the reader (reader-

responsibility) (ibid.: 226-238)

as opposed to British and Australian emphasis on (a) linearity and (b) relevance (ibid.: 212). “In English-

speaking countries, most of the onus falls on writers to make their texts readable, whereas it is the

readers who have to make the extra effort in German-speaking countries so that they can understand

the texts, especially if the author is an academic” (ibid.: 238). One more recent study (Kalensky) sees

Clyne’s view as being culturally imprinted, one-sided and judgmental. This is due to

internationalization and globalization and

tendencies towards English as the new lingua franca

and is, consequently, a substantiation of the influence of English styles of writing in the scholarly world.

Clyne, Michael (1987) “Cultural Differences in the Organisation of Academic Texts” in: Journal of

Pragmatics 11, pp. 211-247.

Kalensky, Claudia (2009) Kompliziert - Komplizierter - Wissenschaftsdeutsch? Diplomarbeit, Universität

Wien. Philologisch-Kulturwissenschaftliche Fakultät.

Shamefaced Scholarship is a phenomena still widely found in the academic world, where quoting from

the Internet seems to be regarded as less respectable than quoting from print sources. As one example,

we may take a look at J. Jenkins’ book World Englishes. A Resource Book for Students (2nd ed., 2009). The

message in Jenkins’ book, which is addressed to students and not to cutting-edge academics, in other

words to people who presumably have grown up with the Internet, is, to phrase it somewhat

polemically,

Thou shalt not quote from the Internet.

The evidence can be found in the fifteen page bibliography (365 entries) where there are only three

references to the Net, two of them conference papers and the other a paper on the British Council

website. Could this be an atypical finding? A further look at 23 very scholarly articles which appeared

in 2009 produced 1121 references of which 10 – less than 1% – were from the Internet. Why these

ten? we might ask. It is instructive to see what they were in order to get a clearer picture of when

scholars quote from the Internet, viz.:

4 corpora

2 conference papers

2 articles

1 set of statistics

1 linguistic atlas

Perhaps, we might object, this is part of the tradition of print publishing. A look at one issue of an internet

journal from the area of cultural and literary studies (Forum for Inter-American Research) revealed one

video (no literature) and five articles: three in English; two in Spanish: number one (E) with 58 sources

and 0 from the Internet; number two (E) with 38 sources and 1 from the Internet; number three (S)

with 5 sources and 0 from the Internet; number four (S) with 62 sources and 15 from Internet; number

five (E) with 16 sources and 1 from the Internet (+ two in endnotes).

This suggests the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis I: The Internet suffers from its association with entertainment.

Hypothesis II: It makes little difference who the addressees are. The authors, whose reputation could be

damaged, shy away from the Net.

The reasons for this lie in the medium, which has not become firmly enough established to be seen as

weighty. Bound volumes which lie (physically) weighty in your hand lend their content the umbra of

permanence. URLs can be up-dated, a clear indication of lack of permanence. Electronic impulses are

fleeting in comparison, and speed is unwanted in disciplines which are built up on the basis of

pondered thought.

Despite these critical remarks, an examination of the language used in Internet publications shows that it

is no different than the language used in the print media. What is different and represents a clear

advantage of the Internet over print is its connectivity. The architecture which hypertexts make

possible and the much more generous capacity which the Internet allows open enormous possibilities

for linking information in a variety of ways. It is even relatively easy to combine conventional (print-

type) and less conventional (AV-type) media thus bringing together illustrations, maps, charts, sound

files, video clips, conventional prose, etc., was this History of English attempts to do.

The early history of Scotland can begin for our purposes in the 13th century, when the Kingdom of

Scotland came to occupy its present territory. The country was largely Gaelic speaking, but contained

Norse territories around Caithness as well as the Orkneys and Shetlands; English dominated in the

southeast. After the death of Alexander III in 1286 dynastic conflict, in which the Edward II of

England was involved, led to a long-standing alliance with France known as the Auld Alliance (1295-

1560) and to the Wars of Scottish Independence (1296-1338), initially successful in the Battle of

Stirling Bridge (1297) under William Wallace and later in the Battle of Bannockburn under Robert

Bruce (see Brus). The two countries remained at a kind of stand-off with occasional hostilities until the

16th and 17th centuries, when they grew dynastically nearer and James VI of Scotland eventually

became the successor to Elizabeth I of England.

The Brus; John Barbour (c. 1320-1395). The Brus, written in the 1370s, is the main work of the Scottish

poet John Barbour, one of the earliest poets writing in Scots. Although Barbour briefly held the

churchly office of an archdeacon, the poem itself is a secular verse romance glorifying the dynasty of

his patron Robert II of Scotland. The protagonists of the poem are James Douglas and Robert the

Brus (Robert I of Scotland). The principal episode of the first part of the poem is the Battle of

Bannockburn (1314) in which the Scottish forces defeated those of Edward II of England. The well-

known line “A! fredome is a noble thing” comes from The Brus (see Texts 5.9a and b).

The Wallace; Blin Hary (c. 1440-1493). The Wallace is a long historical narrative in poetic form, written

about 1477 by the Scottish minstrel Blin(d) Har(r)y. The poem is a tale about William Wallace, an

extremely popular Scottish military leader and its full title is The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and

Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace. Blin Hary’s poem grew out of the anti-English feelings of the

time of its composition in Scotland. The deeds recorded in the poem, which would have transpired at

the end of the 13th century such as leading an army to the outskirts of London, are probably largely or

wholly fictive (see Text 8.11).

William Dunbar (c. 1460-1520) was a priest and writer. He is best known for his poem Lament for the

Makars about the poets, or makars, who preceded him, most of whom were Scottish. The poem is in

the tradition of the danse macabre and the fourth line of every stanza is the identical Latin phrase timor

mortis conturbat “The fear of death disturbs me” (see Text 6.21).

James VI (1566-1625) was king of Scotland from 1567 on and king of England (as James I) from 1603-

1625 in the union of crowns. He supported Scottish music and literature and wrote Reulis and Cautelis

(see Text 6.22) in 1584 as instructions for writing poetry and a history of poetic writing in Scots.

Early Modern and Modern England stretch from Tudor England to the present day. The amount of

political, economic, and societal change in these five hundred years is enormous. Only a few of the

more prominent movements and historical events will be mentioned here. Frequently they are related

to linguistic change.

Enclosures and urbanization were two processes of central importance for the demographic

development of England. The first of these had to do with

• the privatization of commons

• the paradigmatic of change from subsistence to market agriculture (first wool, later modern

agriculture)

As such enclosures, which benefitted the well-off land owners most of all, were carried through over the

centuries, but it was especially the Tudor enclosures in which farmland became grazing land (for

sheep and wool production). Furthermore, the rate of enclosure increased in the 17th century

leading to social unrest (depopulation of villages, increase in vagrancy (note Newton Rebellion of

1607).

The people from the depopulated countryside had little choice about where they could go. As has

repeatedly been pointed out, many of them went to London or to the colonies (see 5.2.3-4, 6.1.1, 6.2.1-

3, 7.1.2, 7.3.1-2). London was the epitome of urbanization, but modern society everywhere is

characterized by the growth of cities and mega-cities. As pointed out in 5.2.2, 5.2.6, 6.2.2, 7.2.1, 7.4.1-2,

8.1, 8.5, 8.5.1-2, 10.2.2, 10.2.4, 11.1.1, and 11.1.4, koinéization is one of the most likely linguistic

consequences of urbanization.

The English Civil War (1642-1649) was the result of a social division which pitted the old establishment

(nobility and land-owners) against the rising bourgeoisie (producers of finished goods, merchants, and

traders). Religion and religious conflict were a (partial) reflex of this socio-economic split: the

established church (Anglicans) vs. the dissenters (Puritans and Separatists; but also Diggers,

Levellers, Independents, etc.; see religious groups at the time of the English Civil War). Initially,

the poor made common cause with the bourgeoisie hoping for economic and political readjustments.

These were the General Baptists (1620s) and the Independents (1640s), including Millenarians,

Antinomians, Anabaptists, Seekers, Ranters, and, finally, Quakers. Numerous linguistic innovations

may have been facilitated by the Civil War. See 6.1.4 and 6.2.5.

The conflict was between the Crown and Parliament, which had a large Puritan faction (approximately

one-third). The military might of the Parliamentary forces lay in the New Model Army, which had

financial backing in the City. This army was the basis of Cromwell’s power. The war itself lasted from

1641 to 1651. The monarchy ended in 1649, when Charles I was executed.

Independents (Congregationalists, Separatists) were one of two broad factions in the Long

Parliament. The other was the Presbyterians. Each differed from the other in matters of religion, but

also in the way the war was to be conducted. The Independents were hawks while the Presbyterians

were doves who favored a peacably settlement of the differences. Adherence to the one or the other

was not strictly fixed and varied depending on the issues involved. Furthermore, a number of the

Independents favored the establishment of a republic. Other Independents advocated freedom of

religion for non-Catholics and the complete separation of church and state, which the Presbyterians

were not willing to support. Independent congregations were found mostly in London and south-

eastern England.

Cromwell’s New Model Army favored more radical solutions and a great many changes in church, state

and society. The Levellers in the Army were a political force in its own right and sought to bring about

constitutional reforms. Eventually, it was them who forced their opponents out of Parliament in 1648

thus creating the Rump, which approved the trial and execution of Charles I in 1649 and the

subsequent establishment of the Commonwealth.

The Rump was the way people referred to the Long Parliament (1640-1660) from which those members

who did not back the New Model Army of Cromwell’s were excluded in 1648 (see Independents).

This truncated, “rump” Parliament met from 1649 to 1653, when Cromwell sent it home. In the

course of the Restoration, General Monck recalled it. See Text 6.6 (6.1 in the printed text), where

Pepys comments on the Rump, as follows: 7 February. Boys do now cry “Kiss my Parliament!” instead

of “Kiss my arse!” so great and general a contempt is the Rump come to among men, good and bad.

The Commonwealth (1649-1653) was established after the Civil War and was then followed by the

Protectorate (1653-1959). Head of both the Commonwealth and the Protectorate was Oliver

Cromwell.

• 1651: Charles II was crowned king of Scotland, which provoked an English invasion and defeat

of Scotland

• 1658: Death of Cromwell; succeeded by his son Richard

• 1659: Deposition of R. Cromwell; reinstatement of the Rump Parliament and reactivation by

Monck of the MPs excluded in 1648

• 1660: Restoration of the monarchy (Charles II) and end of the Long Parliament (1640-1660), part

of which was the Rump (Text 6.6 or: 6.1 in the printed version)

• the bourgeois Puritan Revolution

• concerned with the corresponding values

• life, liberty, and property

Brownists and Separatists represented the needs of the religiously disinherited.

Indepencency:

• a seeming shelter for the poor

• toleration

• attracted sectarians and had republicanism forced on it

Its genius was Milton, who said the new presbyter was “only the old priest writ large” (43), and who saw

common men as an “inconsistent, irrational, and hapless herd, begotten to servility” (Eikonoklastes,

Preface)

By the 1650s the Independents were the substantial people and the new groupings of the Anabaptists,

Millenarians, and Quakers arose and the once sectarian Puritans were hardly different from the

Presbyterians. See religious groups at the time of the English Civil War.

Consequences of the Commonwealth and Protectorate:

• promotion of godliness, including

• the closing of theaters

• laws against adultery, blasphemy, and enthusiasm

• invasion and conquest of Ireland and continued plantations of English and Scots in Ireland

• Protestant Ascendency in Ireland

• Parliamentary supremacy over England, Scotland, and Ireland

• weakening of the power of the House of Lords and of the Crown

The Restoration brought the Stewarts back to the throne in 1660 and marked the end of a period of

religious and revolutionary zeal with the execution of the regicides (see Text 6.6, or 6.1 in the printed

version, by Pepys: 13 Oct. 1660). This new era was characterized by

• dominance of the cavaliers

• the reopening of the theaters (Pepys: theater on 18 Aug. 1660 et sqq.)

• laxer life styles (Pepys: 4 September 1660 et passim)

• French ideas and social ideals (Pepys: 20 Nov. 1660 et passim)

• French loan words (despite an anti-French faction)

• Politeness, which stood in opposition to ordinary or colloquial usage and was marked by

• polite pronunciation – through education, not vulgar accents which came about naturally

through listening and speaking as a child

• education (not birth) -> anti-affectation, cf. plays (satire)

• the age of the coffee-house

• good language, which bred proper attitudes; correct language, which led to correct

behavior and social mores; rejection of provincialisms and of the cant of popular London

English

• a gap between speech and written language

• end of (Puritan) antipathy toward foreign ideas; Puritans as

• anti-Latin

• pro-plain style (see Puritan sermon)

The Glorious Revolution marked the end of the Restoration as a period. It consisted of the peaceful

deposition of James II (1633-1701) in 1688. He was replaced by the House of Orange (Text 6.6, or 6.1

in the printed version: Pepys: 22 Nov. 1660) and the reign of William and Mary (Mary was the

daughter of James II and a Protestant). The move included a Bill of Rights which guaranteed certain

basic rights, esp. the supremacy of Parliament plus immutable civil and political rights:

• no royal interference in the law (e.g. via special courts)

• taxation only by act of Parliament

• the right to petition the monarch

• no standing army in times of peace

• the right of Protestants to defend themselves with arms

• the free election of members of Parliament

• freedom of speech and debate in Parliament

• the effective establishment of a British-Dutch common market

The Industrial Revolution was initially a British phenomenon. It began in the second half of the 18th

century. The prerequisites for this change were certainly not restricted to Britain, at least in the sense of

the conditions often cited as contributing to the Industrial Revolution, such as the expanse of

knowledge, the overseas discoveries, the Protestant Reformation (and its supposed “Spirit of

Capitalism”), and the political will to industrialize. Yet there was a conjunction of factors: capital

formation through a long period – some 200 years – of economic growth and development powered

by “the pursuit of private profit” which led to technological innovation and social transformation

(Hobsbawm: chap. 2) precisely in England. Among the social changes we must count a mobile

population working in a money rather than barter economy with the potential for consumption. It

appeared first in the textile sector and then in the production of machine tools; on the circumstances

which led to this, see Hobsbawn’s classical work Industry and Empire (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1968).

One of the accompanying circumstances of the Industrial Revolution was the establishment of factories

whose labor force was taken from the rural population displaced by the enclosures. The language of

the people who came together in the new urban centers underwent koinéization.

The transportation revolution was both a consequence of the need for cheaper movement of goods in

the course of the Industrial Revolution. The rapidly growing national and international markets

required the shipping of raw materials to the new factories and the transportation of the finished

goods to their ultimate markets. Coastal and overseas shipping had long been practiced, but inland

transportation was still lacking. Initially, a system of canals, such as the Bridgewater Canal (1761) from

the mines at Wolsey to Manchester, was built, much of it with the help of labor from Ireland. In fact,

there was so great an influx of Irish that the English of parts of the western Midlands – esp. the

Liverpool area – may have undergone shifts due to the presence of often overwhelming numbers of

Irish. The next phrase in the transportation revolution was the building of railroads in 19th century.

Modern railways started off with the Manchester and Liverpool line in 1830 and rapidly developed in

the following years.

In the US canal building began later, but had a very successful beginning with the Erie Canal, which

connected Albany on the Hudson River with Lake Erie and its access to the west. Railroad building in

the US began at about the same time as in England and boomed after 1840.

Political developments in 19th century Britain and America. The period since 1700 has seen

numerous alterations in the groups in power. The role of the nobility has gradually been reduced as

that of the middle classes began to rise. Early on the merchant class and later industrial entrepreneurs

established their claims to participation in the political process. From the beginning to the end of the

18th century the relative position of the squirarchy decreased. It was not, however, until the 19th

century that the demands of the “lower orders” were able to determine the direction and momentum

of change. The great Reform Acts (1832, 1867) brought about electoral reform and were part of the

other liberal movements such as the abolition of the slave trade (1807) and slavery itself (1833),

addressing the problems of mental illness (1808, 1845, 1890, 1891), a new regulation of the poor

laws (1834), repeal of the corn laws (), child labor laws (1802, 1819, 1833, 1847), repeal of the

anti-labor union law (1825), prison reform (1835), the introduction of mass education (1870), and

the beginning of the national campaign for women’s suffrage (1872). See 8.1.3.

In the US reform movements had a more regional character. New England pressed forward in most

areas, e.g. the humane treatment of the mentally ill, the utopian movement, Unitarianism and

Universalism in religion, school reform, abolitionism, and women’s rights. National (i.e. Federal)

legislation was often difficult to achieve or even required constitutional amendments. In the case of the

abolition of slavery a devastating civil war was first necessary.

Reform Acts of 1832, 1867. The Reform Act of 1832 was the first imperfect but relatively significant

change in the regulation of Parliamentary elections. Most notably the rotten boroughs lost some or all

of their members and the new industrial cities gained more members. By lowering the property

requirements the electorate increased from less than half a million to about 650,000, but women were

excluded, and labor remained unrepresented.

Following on the failed Chartist movement for electoral reform, widespread agitation in the 1860s led to

the Reform Act of 1867. This bill did not establish universal (male) suffrage, but basically trebled the

electorate so as to include a large portion of the working class. Further legislation in 1872 introduced

the secret ballot. In 1884 more of the rural population gained the right to vote. It was only in 1918 that

universal suffrage was introduced – for males over 21 and females over 30.

In the US universal white manhood suffrage was virtually a fact everywhere from the 1830s on. The most

substantial Constitutional reforms were the granting of the vote to all males regardless of “race, color,

or previous condition of servitude” (15th Amendment, 1870) and the direct election of the Senate (17th

Amendment, 1913).

Women’s suffrage was fought over in a lengthy process that might be said to have its roots in the

Reform Bill of 1832, which prohibited women from voting. A national campaign in behalf of

women’s suffrage began in 1872, but it was not until the end of World War I that women over 30 years

of age and female householders over 21 gained the vote in Britain. In 1928 this was extended to the

over 18 year-olds.

In the US the movement for women’s rights was stimulated by the slavery abolition movement and the

women’s movement in Britain. Suffrage was one of its primary, though not singular, goals. There was a

greater openness in this question in the West, where the first states granted women the vote: Wyoming

(1869) followed much later by Colorado, Idaho, Utah, but all in the 19th century. Women suffrage

became national law after the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in 1920.

New Zealand gave women the vote in 1893; Australia, in 1902.

Mental illness was long treated by committing those suffering from it to madhouses (or poorhouses or

workhouses). Public awareness grew due to the recurring derangement of George III (1738-1820).

Public asylums were instituted by Parliamentary legislation in 1845.

In the US the work of Dorothea Dix led to reform and the establishment of insane asylums in state

(rather than Federal) law from 1843 on.

The poor laws, which stemmed from Tudor times, were reformed by legislation in 1834. The main

change was the nationalization of measures. Older law was administered at the parish level and was a

mixture of punishment and workhouse regimen. The new law made an attempt to institutionalize all

aid to the poor within the framework of the workhouses. Attitudes and legislation gradually introduced

aspects of welfare so that the workhouse was abolished in 1929 and national welfare legislation put in

place in 1948.

In the US reform and legislation in this area remained very sporadic and uneven.

Child labor laws were first passed in the United Kingdom in 1833 in the framework of the Factory Act.

It limited the working hours of children between the ages of nine and thirteen to nine hours a day and

of those between thirteen and eighteen to twelve hours a day. It also prohibited night work and

mandated two hours of schooling each day. Slowly the working conditions of child laborers was

improved until at the beginning of the 20th century the minimum age of child laborers was set at

twelve.

In the US lasting Federal legislation did not come until the 1930s, but almost all the states had put age

limits on child labor by 1914.

The abolition of slavery in Britain was legislated in 1772, but slavery had never been widespread there in

modern times. A more monumental move was the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 which was

enforced by the Royal Navy, which recovered some 150,000 slaves between then and 1860. Many of

these people were “repatriated,” however, not to their homelands but to Sierra Leone, which had been

taking in freed slaves since the founding of Freetown in 1787. In this way the conditions for the

development of pidgin and creole English in Sierra Leone were reinforced. Today Krio is spoken as a

native language by approximately 300,000 people and as a lingua franca by virtually everyone in the

country. Slavery in the non-British part of the Empire was, with some exceptions, abolished in 1833.

In the US the course followed was partially similar. Early abolition was instituted in the states with few

slaves, but the slave trade was constitutionally protected until 1808. The Abolitionist movement was

very strong, especially in New England and especially from the 1830’s on. In 1865, following the

American Civil War slavery was outlawed by the 15th Amendment to the Constitution. See European

expansion and the slave trade; the mechanics of the slave trade; plantation conditions slave

revolts; Coromanti leadership in the West Indies.

The concept of the frontier. Webb further developed F.J. Turner’s very American concept of the

frontier as an area rather than a line lying between civilization and the wilderness. This was a way of

explaining the massive movement of Europeans into the rest of the world and not just the future US in

the period from 1500 to 1900 or even 1950. In this view people were leaving the civilized world in the

sense of Western Civilization and advancing into a wilderness, an unsettled area, or one sparsely

populated by “a few primitive inhabitants, whose rights need and will not be respected” (Webb 1964:

12). This described the situation of Euro-Canadians and Americans in North America, the movement

of the Boers in South Africa, and the English in Australia (ibid.: 3). In that sense the frontier was

geographically scattered, but shared common characteristics and exerted a unity of force on Europe

(ibid.: 11). The opportunities this advance offered to European settlers set the framework for

democratic government, boisterous politics, exploitative agriculture, mobility of population, disregard

for conventions, rude manners, and unbridled optimism (ibid.: 5). The overall effect was a European

boom: The enormous influx of wealth caused a tremendous business boom (unique in size and nature)

which was the basis for Europe's present superstructure of economic, political, and social institutions.

And what caused it was a unique change in the fundamental relationship between the three economic

factors of land, labor, and capital. Europe supplied the people, and the frontier supplied the land and

the capital (ibid.: 14-16). This, coupled with the acquisitive instinct so highly developed in Europe at

this time and the necessary technology (ibid.: 21). The mistaken feeling among Europeans was that the

boom could only be attributed to the idea of Europeans as “an endowed people” (ibid.:15).

Billington's comparison of frontiers remarks that the frontier produced “men with an unusual degree of ambition and physical conditions uniquely suitable to that ambition's fulfillment” (Billington 1964: 83), concedes that this was eased by:

cheap land

a fluid social order

disdain for authority

individualism

the desire for individual self-betterment (selfishness) (ibid.: 86-91). See also racial and linguistic attitudes. Billington, R.A. (1968) “Frontiers,” In: C.V. Woodward (ed.) A Comparative Approach to American

History. n.p.: Voice of America Forum Lectures, 81-96. Webb, W.P. (1964) “The Frontier Factor in Modern History” (chap. 1), In: The Great Frontier. Austin:

University of Texas, 1-28. Territorial expansion is traced out in chapter seven. Britain enlarged its colonial empire from the 17th

century on. This accounts for the presence of English in the Caribbean (chap. 9), North America

(chap. 10), the Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand (chap. 11), West and East Africa, South and

Southeast Asia, and the Pacific (chap. 12). For more detail see colonial expansion into West Africa.

In the US expansion (see chap. 10) was chiefly “internal” as the doctrine of Manifest Destiny was used to

justify the take-over of the trans-Mississippi territories, the war with Mexico and acquisition of the

Southwest and California, the war with Spain and American domination in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the

Philippines. See the following list:

1. The original extent of the US according to the Treaty of Paris at the end of the War of Independence in 1783 extended to the Mississippi River

2. In 1803 the Louisiana Purchase, the territory ceded to the U.S. by Napoleon for $15 million doubled the territory of the US, which now reached the Rocky Mountains.

3. First West Florida (1810 and 1813) and then East Florida (1819) were taken from Spain by invasion and the payment of $5 million.

4. Texas, once a Mexican state, then an independent republic run by American settlers since 1836, was annexed by the US in 1845.

5. The Northwest Territory (Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia), claimed by Britain and the U.S. as well as Spain and Russia, was peaceably divided between the former two in 1846.

6. In the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) vast conquered areas in the west (California) and southwest (New Mexico, Arizona) were annexed. The US indemnified Mexico with $15 million. Many speakers of Native American languages and Spanish became US citizens.

7. Further Mexican territory Gadsden Purchase, 1853) was acquired for $10 million to ease the building of a rail line to California.

8. The US bought Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867 (Seward’s Folly). The original Inuit peoples are today a distinct minority.

9. The kingdom of Hawaii (formerly known as the Sandwich Islands) became a republic after a coup by Americans living there in 1893. It was annexed in 1898. Today the Hawaiian language is making something of a comeback within a context of a society dominated by StE and Hawaiian Creole English.

10. The Spanish-American War ended with the US taking over numerous territories, some such as Cuba only temporarily, others longer. Today Puerto Rico is a commonwealth, Spanish-language American territory and Guam in the Pacific, a bilingual territory. The Philippines, for which the U.S. paid Spain $20 million, remained an American colony until 1946. Pilipino is the national language in this very multilingual country, and English is a widely used L2.

The dates of population movements from Britain, the US, and the Caribbean:

Britain experienced internal expansion as English-speaking people took control over former and

continuing Celtic-speaking areas. Eventually, people from England and Scotland settled in Ireland and

starting at about the same time emigrating to the Caribbean and to North America. At the time of

American independence new currents were directed to Australia, then to South Africa, and later to

New Zealand. Few settlers, but a whole corps of colonial administrators brought English as a language

of administration to various parts of Africa, Asia, and Oceania. The following list is geared to the

eleven arrows in Figure 7.1:

from to

Southwest England Southeastern Ireland (from 1556 to well into the 17th century)

Scotland + England Ulster (from 1606 to the 1690’s)

England + Scotland North America (from 1607)

Britain + Ireland the Caribbean (esp. Barbados) (from 1627)

Britain + Ireland Australia (from 1788)

England South Africa (from 1820)

Britain + Australia New Zealand (from 1820)

Britain (exploration, West Africa: Gambia (1661, 1816); Sierra Leone (1787); Ghana (1824; 1850);

trade, colonial Nigeria (1851, 1861); Cameroon (1914)

administration) East Africa: Uganda (1860’s); Malawi (1878); Kenya (1886); Tanzania (1880’s)

Southern Africa: South Africa (1795); Botswana (19th century);

Namibia (1878); Zambia (1888); Zimbabwe (1890); Swaziland (1894)

South Asia: India (1600); Bangla Desh (1690); Sri Lanka (1796); Pakistan (1857)

Southeast Asia: Malaysia (1786); Singapore (1819); Hong Kong (1841)

The US was the goal of massive movements of people who were mostly but not exclusively completely

English-speaking from the beginning a settlement history in 1607 until the end of the frontier, which

is conventionally set at 1890. Movement also extends to territorial expansion beyond the North

America: Hawaii and other Pacific Islands, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and the American Virgin

Islands, and Liberia. The following list gives only the major movements and the times at which they

took place and reflects both Figure 7.2 and Map 10.1.

from to

Southern England Eastern New England, the coastal South (from early 17th century)

The Caribbean Virginia and the plantation South (from early 17th century)

Northern England, Southeast Pennsylvania,

Scotland, Ulster the Piedmont, and the Appalachian South (all from late 17th century)

Germany Pennsylvania (from late 17th century)

The 13 colonies Upper Canada, the Maritimes (late 18th century)

Haiti Louisiana (late 18th century)

New England Northwest Territory (from early 19th century)

Pennsylvania, Mary-

land, Virginia and

the Carolinas Ohio Valley and Southern Appalachians (from late 18th century)

Virginia, the

Carolinas, and

Georgia Lower South and southern Mississippi Valley (from early 19th century)

US (freed slaves) Liberia (from 1822)

Upper Canada Prairie and Mountain provinces; British Columbia (19th century)

Midwest Oregon Territory, California, and Mountain West (19th century)

New England Hawaii (late 19th century)

Far West Alaska (late 19th century)

US (colonial

administration) Philippines (from 1898-1946)

Jamaica stands here for population movements of English or English creole speakers throughout the

Caribbean and including Bermuda. The following list expands on the simplified movements shown in

Figure 7.3 and has been adapted from Holm 1986: 18f. See Map 9.2 as well as the whole article by

Holm for more detail and a bibliography.

17th century movements

from to

Britain Bermuda (1609); Providence Island (1631); Cayman Islands (1670)

Ireland St. Kitts (1624); Barbados (1627); Nevis, Barbuda (1628)

Africa Bermuda (1609)

Bermuda Providence (1631); Bahamas (1648); Jamaica (1655); Turks + Caicos (1678)

New England Providence (1631)

St. Kitts Nevis, Barbuda (1628); Antigua (1632); Montserrat (1633)

The Leeward Islands Anguilla (1650); Jamaica (1655); St. Thomas (1672)

Barbados Suriname (1651); Jamaica (1655)

Suriname Jamaica (1655)

Jamaica Cayman Islands (1670)

St. Thomas St. John (1684)

18th century movements

from to

Belize Moskito Coast (1730)

Jamaica Moskito Coast (1730)

Leewards St. Croix (1733); Guyana (1740s); St. Vincent, Grenada (1763)

St. Thomas St. Croix (1733)

Barbados Guyana (1740s); St. Vincent, Grenada (1763), Trinidad (1797)

American South Bahamas (1780ff)

Moskito Coast Belize, Andros, Bahamas (1786)

Windwards Trinidad (1797)

19th century

from to

US (freed slaves) Samaná (Dominican Republic) (1824)

San Andrés Cocas del Toro (Panama) (1827)

Cayman Islands Bay Islands (Honduras) (1830s)

Jamaica Puerto Limón (Costa Rica) (1871)

US Puerto Rico (1898)

20th century

from to

Jamaica Panama (1904-1914)

US American Virgin Islands (1917)

Holm, J. (1986) “The Spread of English in the Caribbean Area,” In: M. Görlach and J.A. Holm (eds.) Focus on the

Caribbean. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1-22.

United Empire Loyalists were North American colonists who left what was to be the US during the war

with Great Britain (1775-1781) and resettled in Upper Canada (Ontario) or the Maritimes.

Colonial expansion into West Africa began in its second phase in the 19th century. The most northerly

of the Anglophone West African countries, Gambia, was the location of a British fortress, Fort James,

starting during the first phase of European expansion, in 1661. Britain competed bitterly with France

of the River Gambia, and this ended with French control of Senegal, which completely surrounds

British-held Gambia. Their hold was cemented with the establishment of Bathurst (now Banjul) in

1816. The colony of Gambia was established in 1894 and ended with independence in 1965. Sierra

Leone was at the focus of British anti-slavery interests with the establishment of a settlement for freed

slaves in 1787. In 1808, after the legal end of the British slave trade in 1807, the British government

took over responsibility for the colony, where as many as 50,000 freed slaves were settled at Freetown

over the next several decades. However, it was not until late in the century, in the European race to

divide Africa up, that the consolidated colony was established which lasted until independence in 1961.

Settlement of freed American slaves initiated by the American Colonization Society began in Liberia

in 1822. By 1847 there were enough settlers for a republic to be established and widely recognized.

Ghana, once called the Gold Coast because trade in gold was once very important there, resisted

British inroads by defeating the British forces in 1824 and again in 1874. However, in between times

the British bought Fort Christiansborg at Accra from the Danish in 1850. In 1874 the colony of Gold

Coast was formally established in the south even though the Ashanti kingdom to the north remained

independent another 30 years. Ghana was the first of the West African British colonies and also the

first to win independence – in 1957. In Nigeria colonization began with exploratory ventures into the

interior in the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s and then military assaults beginning with the capture of Lagos

in 1851. This culminated in the annexation of Lagos as a British colony in 1861. By the end of the 19th

century the Niger Coast Protectorate had been created and trade was conducted by the Royal Niger

Company. Then from 1900 till 1960 both the coast and the inland areas were reorganized as a single

colony – formally the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria (1914). Cameroon came under British rule

after being removed from German possession in 1916 during the First World War, when it was divided

between Britain and France. Independence from France came in 1958 and from Britain in 1960.

European expansion and the slave trade were two closely related phenomena. Wherever European

sailors and traders went they established beachheads in which they set the rules and used their

economic power and their technological advantages to control raw materials and labor, production,

and markets. One of the most effective ways of guaranteeing a work force was to enslave indigenous

populations and transport them as necessary to production sites such as the New World plantations

where sugar, tobacco, cotton, and other staples were cultivated. Later this was changed to a system of

contract labor and was also expanded to include the exploitation of mineral goods.

The slave trade itself began before the voyages of Columbus to the New World. From the mid-15th

century on the Portuguese began sailing down the Atlantic coast of Africa, eventually rounding the

Cape and continuing into the Indian Ocean. In the course of this venture the first slaves were

transported to Portugal as early as 1441. Slavery had been practiced in Europe right into the Middle

Ages, but African slavery was to introduce a new dimension: While slavery had once been justified if

the enslaved were not Christian, the new slavery would be largely based on race and European ideas of

the inferiority of non-Europeans – be they Africans, American Indians, or other aboriginal groups.

Perpetual slavery was reinforced by skin color as a marker and guarded European slavers from any

moral qualms which might have damaged their profits.

The major European slave-trading powers all left their linguistic mark on the people involved. The

first to engage in this were, as indicated, the Portuguese. And it is the Portuguese language which first

showed up as a pidgin along the coast of Africa and which has sometimes been seen as the precursor

of Spanish, French, Dutch, and English pidgins and creoles (see 9.5.1). All five European powers

ended up with New World empires and all five of them left a linguistic legacy in the territories they

controlled. Spanish (South America except for Brasil and the three Guianas, Central America, Mexico,

Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico), Portuguese (Brazil), French (Guyana, Guadeloupe,

Martinique, Haiti, Quebec), Dutch (Suriname, Aruba, and the Netherlands Antilles), and English are,

of course, national languages in their standard forms. Creole forms of Spanish (Papiamentu;

sometimes seen as having Portuguese roots) and French (Haitian CF, Louisiana CF, Antillean CF,

French Guiana CF) and Dutch (e.g. Berbice Creole, but no longer spoken) developed as was the case

for English (see chap. 9).

The African Gardener Culture: The slave trade had incalculably detrimental effects on the traditional

West African society, which was largely geared to subsistence agriculture. The highly differentiated

social and vocational societies of West Africa were not egalitarian, for they, too, practiced slavery; but

their slaves were integrated into village life and not exploited as they were to be on New World

plantations.

The mechanics of the slave trade and the Middle Passage were based on economic profit on all sides

in the triangular trade, Europeans, Africans, and Americans. The carriers of the trade were, in our case,

British shipping entrepreneurs. Most were based in England, esp. Liverpool, but American colonial

shippers were also involved, thus changing the shape of the triangle somewhat (see following

diagrams).

England sugar, molasses, cotton textiles, brass, pewter utensils, beads, tobacco guns and gunpowder, whiskey, brandy, and rum “staple crops” “rum and trinkets”

“the middle passage”

West Indies slaves West Africa

New England sugar, molasses iron, tar, sugar, “staples” and rum, flour species, bills of exchange “rum and trinkets”

“the middle passage”

West Indies slaves West Africa

The Triangular Trade

The merchant shippers were capitalized in England, where they stocked up on the goods needed for the

trip to Africa: cotton textiles; brass, pewter utensils; ivory boxes of beads of all sizes and shapes; guns,

gunpowder; whiskey, brandy, rum; and a variety of foodstuffs. In the ports of call in West Africa the

Europeans operated in well-guarded posts, where they negotiated with slave traders or factors (hence

slave “factories”). Once the ships had a sufficient supply of slaves and the foodstuffs needed, e.g. corn,

pepper, kidney beans, yams, fruits, coconuts, and plantains, they set out on the second or Middle

Passage. Accounts of the tortuous trip over reveal the inhumanity and unfeeling treatment of the

“goods” on board. This whole process is very graphically described in chapters 34-39 of Alex Haley’s

novel Roots (Garden City: Doubleday, 1976). See 9.1 (all sections).

Slave revolts and Coromanti leadership in the West Indies. Throughout the slave period there was

resistance on the part of the slaves. In the larger territories such as Suriname or Guyana, and on the

larger islands, such as Jamaica, many managed to escape and the establish their own settlements far

from plantation areas. As a result, groups speaking Boni or Saramaccan developed in Suriname and

Maroon (“runaways” < Spanish maron “wild”) communities were able to develop and survive in hard-

to-reach mountainous area in Jamaica.

The Coromanti (or Coromantee) were slaves who stemmed from the Ghana area and spoke varieties of

Akan such as Twi. They seem to have had greater opportunities of communication in their own

language and to have been more often at the center of slave revolts (see the list at: http://caribbean-

guide.info/past.and.present/history/slave.rebellion/).

Frontier and emigration. Already in the EModE period America took in large numbers of indented

servants. All in all 69% of the natural population increase of England between the beginning of the

English Civil War and the close of the century emigrated and went to America. The movement of

people leaving Britain, mostly for North America and later including transported prisoners, continued

on into the 18th century. Estimates put the figure of emigrants at 20% of natural increase (Bailyn: 40).

The movement of so many people first to London and then on to other parts of the world offers a

partial explanation for the relative uniformity of GenE throughout the world. It can reasonably be

conjectured that these people, who were the more mobile and perhaps more ambitious part of the

population, were ready to give up the more parochial features of their traditional dialect in favor of the

one or the other form of London English as they began to identify more strongly with London groups.

This helps to explain some of the similarities in the pronunciation of Australian and New Zealand English

with that of London. After all, the major goal of prisoners transported was soon to be not to be the

now independent United States, but Australia, where penal colonies were established from the

beginning of settlement in and after 1788. Later migration from Australia gave NZE a distinctly

Australian character. The South African settlers of 1820 were largely rural people from the southeast of

England, though with a notable number from the southwest. While population movement of this sort

served to alleviate social and economic pressure on the homeland, the effects on the indigenous

peoples of the territories invaded were overall devastating as native populations were driven off the

best lands and decimated by disease, hunger, war, and enslavement. See 8.1, 8.4, 11.1.1-2.

The US religious and civilizing mission began – effectively no different than in Britain – to form as

contact with non-European peoples increased, and they were frequently condescending and downright

negative. The idea of a mission can easily be distilled from the sermon given by John Winthrop while

still aboard the Arbella just before landing at Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630 (Text 6.10). In the

excerpt repeated here we see the idea of God’s commission to His own people, whom He will bless.

These people are to be an example for all the world.

Now the onely way to avoyde this shipwracke and to provide for our posterity is to followe the Counsell

of Micah, to doe Justly, to love mercy, to walke humbly with our God, for this end, wee must be knitt

together in this worke as one man, … allwayes haueing before our eyes our Commission and

Community in the worke, our Community as members of the same body, soe shall wee keepe the

vnitie of the spirit in the bond of peace, the Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among vs, as his

owne people and will commaund a blessing vpon vs in all our wayes, soe that wee shall see much more

of his wisdome power goodnes and truthe then formerly wee haue beene acquainted with, wee shall

finde that the God of Israell is among vs, when tenn of vs shall be able to resist a thousand of our

enemies, when hee shall make vs a prayse and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantacions: the

lord make it like that of New England: for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty vpon a Hill,

the eies of all people are vppon vs; soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee

haue vndertaken and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from vs, wee shall be made a story

and a by-word through the world, wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake euill of the wayes

of god and all professours for Gods sake; wee shall shame the faces of many of gods worthy seruants,

and cause theire prayers to be turned into Cursses vpou vs till wee be consumed out of the good land

whether wee are goeing … .

However it was conceived, the commission of God was often repeated, and the enormous improvements

in social and economic conditions that were associated with European expansion led many to see this

“progress” as due to some supposed superiority of European civilization (cf. World War I as making

the world safe for democracy), the Christian religion (as opposed to atheistic Communism), and the

Anglo-Saxon “race” (as illustrated by Senator Beveridge’s address to the US Senate in 1900; see Text

10.15)

Literature and the media can hardly be separated from one another. While oral tradition is long-

standing and astonishing durable, there is a lot it cannot do which writing, printing, and the more

recent digital media can. Oral culture leaves indirect traces; writing, printing, and the digital media leave

a record, and even where the original record is no longer available, subsequent copies, often very old,

bear witness to the language and literature of earlier periods. In this section of the hyperlink-history a

short review will be offered of Old English literature and ME literature, but not beyond this. This

early literature is of central importance because it includes virtually the whole of known OE and most

ME texts.

OE literature has survived in the form of relatively few texts from a restricted number of fields and

genres. There are a number of law codes (see Text 2.1), quite a few religious texts (Texts 2.2, 2.4, 2.6,

and 3.8), some very important historical writing, above all the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (2.5.3 and

Texts 2.5, 3.1, 3.9, and 4.1), and a few miscellaneous texts such as the riddles of the Exeter Book

(Text 3.7) or “Battle of Brunanburh” and “Battle of Maldon.” Further significant writing includes The

Wanderer (2.5.2), works by the author Cynewulf, and the epic poem Beowulf (2.5.1), which stands

within the pagan tradition. Some of the relevant background is touched on in the section on Early

Christian England: the monasteries, Carolingian Reform, King Alfred, and Ælfric.

The Wanderer is an anonymous religious poem in typical OE poetic style (see Beowulf for details). It

may have been originally composed as early as 600 (in the time of Augustine’s mission to the Anglo-

Saxon), but could also have a later origin. It recounts the thoughts of an old man at the end of a long

life. He thinks back on his own past glory as a warrior and ponders all the loss he feels, but takes

comfort in salvation through faith in God.

Æelbriht’s Laws are the oldest surviving laws from the OE period (602 or 603). Æelbirht an early

convert to Christianity and an important overlord, or bretwalda, over Kent and Essex, who may perhaps

have had significant influence on East Anglia. His legitimacy was claimed by tracing his descent back

to Hengist. His laws stipulated indemnification for damages done to another, which is the principle of

wergild (< wer “man” and gild “money”), whereby the higher standing the injured party was, the steeper

the fine. Text 2.1 list some of his ninety laws.

“Dream of the Rood” is a well-known alliterative religious poem probably from the 7th or 8th century. Its

authorship is unknown though both Cædmon and Cynewulf have been suggested. Rood (OE rod) was

the word used for “cross” and dream refers to the vision of the cross by the narrator as well as the

thoughts of the rood on becoming the cross of Christ. The poem contains pagan elements such as the

image of a warrior-hero and the animistic quality of the speaking cross. A runic inscription containing

several lines from the poem can be found on the Ruthwell Cross. See 2.4 and Text 2.2.

Beowulf is the title given to the longest (3,182 lines) surviving poetic work written in OE. It is not known

who wrote it nor when it was written. The stories in it are set in Scandinavia, before 600 CE and as

early as the late 5th century though the writing itself stems from 700 at the earliest (the only surviving

manuscript is from about 1000). The pagan background of the poem speaks for an early date of

composition. The story revolves around the conflict between the hero Beowulf and Grendel, Grendel’s

mother, and a dragon. Beowulf successfully defends his kingdom, Geatland, but suffers a fatal wound

in his final combat. The poem is composed of long lines, i.e. lines divided in two by a break or caesura.

Each half has two stressed syllables and the two halves are linked together by alliteration. Example:

Béowulf wæs bréme / blæd wide spráng “Beowulf was famous / (his) glory widely spread” (Text 2.3, line

19). Furthermore, the kenning was widely used in Beowulf. A kenning is a poetic, metaphorical figure

and can be seen in the name beo-wulf “bee hunter,” meaning “bear.”

Cædmon’s Hymn was a late 7th century composition credited to Cædmon (died c. 680), a lay brother and older contemporary of Bede. He was said to have been a herdsman and was associated with the monastery at Streonæshalch (present-day Whitby Abbey). Only the nine lines of this hymn have survived. All the many version which have survived are contained in manuscripts of Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica, but were probably added later. Two versions, a West Saxon and an Anglian, are compared in 2.4.5. and Text 2.6.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a major historiographic undertaking initiated by Alfred the Great about

890. It served to legitimize his reign by tracing his descent back to biblical origins, and it drew on

Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (finished in 731) and may also rely on material from lost West

Saxon annals which ended in 754. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle invoked a common secular historical

tradition in a move that went beyond mere military unification toward a consciousness of ethnic

identity in the time of threat to the Wessex by the Danes. the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was continued in

English after the Norman Conquest at Peterborough until 1154. A wide variety of texts and differing

versions have survived into the present. See Texts 2.5, 3.1, 3.6, 3.9, and 4.1).

Cynewulf (beginning of the 9th century) wrote religious poetry of which four fragments (The Ascension,

Juliana, Elene, and The Fates of the Apostles) have survived (in the Exeter Book (see Codex Exoniensis

and 3.5.2) or the Vercelli Book) if we are to credit to him these poems which are signed with his name in

runic letters. He apparently lived in Northumbria or Mercia. However, both where and when he lived

remains controversial. It can be deduced from his poetry, which reveals Latin sources, that he was a

man of learning.

The Codex Exoniensis, one of most important manuscripts of OE literature (Exeter Cathedral Library

MS 3501) and the largest still in existence, is a collection of 10th century writing in the West Saxon

standard. The book was probably put together in the latter half of the 10th century and was presented

to the Exeter Cathedral library by the bishop of Exeter, Leofric, in the middle of the 11th century. As

such it is a product of the Benedictine Revival. This Exeter Book contains both religious and everyday

writing including such key texts as The Wanderer (see Text 2.4), The Seafarer, and Widsith, but also some

95 riddles (see 3.5.2 and Text 3.5). Many of the latter are familiar from traditions outside of England

and the English language, but many are unique to this collection.

ME literature (in English) was dominated initially by religious and didactic writing. Examples are

Ancrene Riwle (aka Ancrene Wisse) (Herefordshire, c. 1230), which explains religious rule and

devotional conduct in eight sections dealing with various aspects of the life of religious sisters. It is a

sophisticated work and a great example of early ME prose writing. The Ormulum is a further example

of 12th century religious writing. It paraphrases the gospels and adds homilies on them. It is particularly

interesting because of the system of spelling adopted in it (see 4.2.3 and Text 4.5). Historical writing

includes Robert Gloucester’s Chronicle and Cursor Mundi.

ME literature was highly influenced by French traditions of writing as seen in The Owl and the

Nightingale (c. 1200; see 4.4 and Text 4.8), and, indeed, quite a bit of English literature was written

in French. However, the move to writing in English was distinct as time went by. The French

traditions led to the virtual abandonment of the alliterative poetry (see 5.2, 5.2.1+4, Beowulf and

Text 2.3, Sir Gawain, and Piers Plowman). A second important change in the later ME period was

the appearance of individual authors such as Chaucer (Texts 5.2, 5.7a-b), Langland (see Piers

Plowman), Wycliffe (Texts 5.3, 6.8a), Barbour (Texts 5.9a-b), Trevisa (Texts 5.1, 5.12), and Blin Hary

(Text 5.13) even though some literature, like for example Sir Gawain does not have an identifiable

author. In addition, Sir Gawain represents the important medieval genre of the romance.

Holtei, Rainer (gen. ed.) (2002) Online Companion to Middle English Literature, at: http://user.phil-fak.uni-

duesseldorf.de/~holteir/companion/index.html.

The Owl and the Nightingale is a debate poem from the 12th or 13th century. It is written in rhyming

couplets of iambic tetrameter, putting it in the French rather than the native English poetic tradition. It

consists of 1794 lines. This work is an exchange of recriminations between the two birds, a serious owl

and a gay nightingale. Rather than resort to physical violence the two agree to enter into a debate,

which itself proceeds along the lines of a medieval scholastic disputation. Consequently, the poem

draws on all the current rhetorical devices and goes into topics such as music, ethics, marriage and

adultery, and much more. The lines quoted in Text 4.7 are the introduction. See 4.4.

Ancrene Riwle (aka Ancrene Wisse) (Herefordshire, c. 1230), which explains religious rule and devotional conduct in eight sections dealing with various aspects of the life of religious sisters. It is a sophisticated work and a great example of early ME prose writing.

The Lay of Havelock the Dane is a medieval romance about the legend of founding of Grimsby in

Lincolnshire; it was written in the North Midlands before 1300 and combines the Celtic, English,

Danish, and Norman influences in an extremely intricate plot. See the short sample in Text 4.6.

Robert Gloucester’s Chronicle was written in the mid to late 13th century. His described the Barons’

War (1264-1267) in more vivid detail, suggesting that he had witnessed it. It is of interest in the

framework of this History of English because of the comments Gloucester makes about the use of

English. See 4.1.1 and Text 4.2.

Cursor mundi (c. 1300) is a religious poetic history of the world in octosyllabic couplets running to

30,000 lines and written by an anonymous Northern English writer . See 4.1.2 and Texts 4.3 and 4.8).

The Ormulum (East Midlands) is an example of religious writing from the late 12th century. It

paraphrases the gospels and adds homilies on them. It is particularly interesting because of the system

of spelling adopted in it (see 4.2.3 and Text 4.5).

Of Arthour and of Merlin (before 1325) is a ME poem of over 9000 lines, interesting in this context

because of its comments of the relationship between French and English. See Text 4.4.

Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400). The Canterbury Tales are the best known and the

best of ME writing. Their author, Chaucer, lived under circumstances (traveling for the king at home

and abroad) which allowed him to become acquainted with people from all walks of life, which in turn

allowed him to produce a witty and penetrating portrait of English society. In composing the Tales he

draws on both literary traditions and his own observations. But he avoids the sermonizing. By

choosing a group of pilgrims he creates a cast of characters which covers all sorts of personalities and

vocations. By having them tell stories, he makes fun of human lust, vanity, and foolishness. Only a few

of his pilgrims come away unblemished and escape the irony and ridicule he dishes out. See 5.4.2 and

Texts 5.2, 5.7a-b.

Piers Plowman, William Langland. Piers Plowman is a specifically allegorical religious text written shortly

before the Canterbury Tales. This long religious allegory, at least a part of which is by William Langland

(c. 1330- ?), was written and rewritten between about 1360 and 1387. It does not follow the French

custom of rhyme, but continues to rely on alliteration. It has often been brought into connection with

Lollardy though Langland seems to have dissociated himself clearly from this movement. In a number

of steps (Latin passus) the protagonist, Piers Plowman, a humble man, undertakes a quest for truth in a

series of dream-visions involving the search for three allegorical characters, Dowel (“Do-Well”), Dobet

(“Do-Better”), and Dobest (“Do-Best”). Biblical background can be seen in one of the dreams in which

Piers shows Will, the narrator, a tree whose fruit he wants to try; this refers to the Garden of Eden. In

another dream Will dreams he is in Jerusalem and sees the crucifixion. The excerpt in Text 5.10

provides ample opportunity to see the regular use of alliteration (cf. A Pilgrim’s Progress; another dream-

allegory frequently quoted from in chap. 6 and Text 6.11).

Passus I (“Step One”), 146-164

FOR trewthe telleth that loue

Is triacle of hevene

May no synne be on him sene · that useth that spise,

And alle his werkes he wroughte · with loue as him liste;

And lered it Moises for the levest thing · and moste like to heuene,

And also the plante of pees · moste precious of vertues.

For Truth tells us that love ∙

Is the trustiest medicine in Heaven;

No sin may be seen on him ∙ by whom that spice is used.

And all the deeds he pleased to do were done with love.

And [he] taught it to Moses as a matchless thing, and most like Heaven,

And also the plant of peace, most precious of virtues.

For hevene myghte noughte holden it · it was so hevy of hym-self,

Tyle it hadde of the erthe · yeten his fylle,

And what it haved of this folde · flesshe and blode taken,

Was neuere leef upon lynde · lighter ther-after,

And portatyf and persant · as the poynt of a nedle,

That myghte non armure it lette · ne none heigh walles.

For heaven might not [be able to] hold it, so heavy it seemed,

Till it had with earth alloyed itself.

And when it had of this earth taken flesh and blood,

Never was leaf upon linden lighter thereafter,

And portable and piercing as the point of a needle,

No armor might obstruct it, nor any high walls.

Translated by: Donaldson, E. T. in Robertson, E. and S. H. A. Shepherd

Text 5.10: Piers Plowman (excerpt)

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an Arthurian romance of unknown authorship. It was composed in

the late 14th century and stands like Piers Plowman in the alliterative tradition. The language is that of the

northwest Midlands. It consists of 2,530 lines in 101 stanzas. As the excerpt below illustrates, the text

draws on historical antecedents in classical tradition, which was a common practice. The spellings wat

and hat for was and has are peculiarities of Gawain.

Syr Gawayn and the Grene Knyt

Fytte the First First Section

I I

Hit wat Ennias þe athel, & his highe kynde, It was Aeneas the noble and his high kindred,

þat siþen depreced prouinces, & patrounes bicome Who afterwards conquered and became patrons

Welnee of al þe wele in þe west iles, Of well nigh all the wealth of the West Isles,

Fro riche Romulus to Rome ricchis hym swyþe, As soon as rich Romulus turns him to Rome,

With gret bobbaunce þat bure he biges vpon first, With great pride he at once builds that city,

& neuenes hit his aune nome, as hit now hat; And names it with his own name, which it now has;

Ticius (turns) to Tuskan, & teldes begynnes; Ticius turns to Tuscany, and founds dwellings;

Langaberde in Lumbardie lyftes vp homes; Longobard raises homes in Lombardy;

& fer ouer þe French flod Felix Brutus And far over the French flood Felix Brutus

On many bonkkes ful broke Bretayn he sette, Establishes Britain joyfully on many broad banks,

with wynne; with joy;

Where were, & wrake, & wonder, Where war and waste and wonder

Bi syþe hat wont þer-inne, By turns have since dwelt therein,

& oft boþe blysse & blunder And often bliss and blunder

Ful skete hat skyfted synne Full swiftly have shifted since

Text 5.11: Sir Gawain and the Grene Knight

William Caxton (1414/20 (?)-1492) is responsible for the introduction of printing to England. Caxton

was a revolutionary development which had wide-reaching and long-lasting effects. Indeed, many

people among those who had a stake in the power of their own literacy were suspicious of the social

unrest that could result from increased access to knowledge and enlightenment on the part of the

lower orders. This was similar to the fears Church and State had had a hundred years before in

connection with the vernacular translation of the Bible in the framework of the Wycliffe movement

and the Peasants’ Revolt. The consequences of printing were, as we meanwhile know, unbelievably

enormous though generally peaceable.

Caxton’s enterprise depended on securing a reading public that would buy his books. The most promising

buyers were the rising Middle Class, which did not necessarily have Latin. This insured that Caxton

would publish chiefly English-language works and that these books would draw on the emerging

Chancery Standard of the London. His concern about variation in English is expressed in Text 5.8.

See 5.4.4.

The Paston letters are letters written by and to members of Norfolk Paston family between 1422 and

1509. They reveal very much about the turbulent times in which they were written, which included the

Wars of the Roses. More important for the history of English. they are important documentation of

more informal language in this period and are an significant part of the Corpus of Early English

Correspondence.

Elizabethan theater is a designation for the extremely active and vibrant professional world of

Renaissance drama which grew out of the medieval tradition of mystery plays and religious pageants.

Renaissance drama extended beyond the Elizabethan period proper to include Jacobean (during the

reign of James I) and Caroline (Charles I) theater. Theater building and theater companies were very

prominent in London from the late 1580 until the Civil War, when theaters were banned. Multiple

performances were on offer daily at prices which allowed even people of modest income to attend.

Some playwrights did very well. Shakespeare, for example, earned from his writing, his (occasional)

acting, and the returns on his stock in the Globe Theater. After the ban which lasted from 1642 until

1660 theater returned again. See Restoration comedy.

Sim, A. (1998) Pleasures and Pastimes in Tudor England. Gloucestershire: Sutton.

Shakespearean texts have been included to show a variety of linguistic features of EModE. See Texts

6.25, 6.28, 6.29, and 6.30. Shakespeare’s Henry V is given in excerpt in Text 6.29, where a

Welshman, an Irishman, and a Scot appear speaking stereotyped dialect of their places of origin.

Restoration comedy, literature. Restoration comedy refers to English comedies written and performed

in the Restoration period from 1660 to 1710. After public stage performances had been banned for 18

years by the Puritan regime, the re-opening of the theatres in 1660 signalled a renaissance of English

drama. Restoration comedy is notorious for its sexual explicitness, a quality encouraged by Charles II

(1660–1685) personally and by the rakish aristocratic ethos of his court. The socially diverse audiences

included both aristocrats, their servants and hangers-on, and a substantial middle-class segment. These

playgoers were attracted to the comedies by up-to-the-minute topical writing, by crowded and bustling

plots, by the introduction of the first professional actresses, and by the rise of the first celebrity actors.

This period saw the first professional woman playwright, Aphra Behn.

Pepys diary entries for 1660 (see Text 6.1) include various comments of the theater in Restoration

London, e.g.

18 August 1660. To the Cockepitt play, the first that I have had time to see since my coming from sea, The

Loyall Subject, where one Kinaston, a boy, acted the Dukes sister but made the loveliest lady that ever I

saw in my life – only, her voice not very good.

Local Color and Regionalism. The general characteristics of the Local Color Movement included an

emphasis not on sectionalism, but on regionalism. The former term is a negative one as it stresses

separateness and antagonism. In contrast, an important function of regionalism in literature was its

attempt to “recapture the glamour of a past era, or to portray the sections of the reunited country one

to the other” (Hart. OCAL: 487). This movement was, therefore, especially prominent in the decades

following the Civil War, but in principle frontier tall tales and the Dutch stories of Washington Irving

belong to it as well. Local Color is influenced by both Romanticism and Realism - the exotic in careful

detail. Although the Local Color Movement includes novels and poems, the short story is especially

typical of it. This literature:

presented the genius of the regions

used homely, likable figures

was realistic in its observation of detail

presented vignettes of American life

made use of local dialect, costumes, landscape

Usually this literature was second- to third-rate because it is very sentimental and both platitudinous and

stereotyped. This includes Harriet Beecher Stowe, a New England regional writer best known for her

anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1851; see Text 10.14 ). The major exception to this sentimentality

is Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), which is one of the high points of Southern

literature. It follows in the tradition of Simon Suggs and Sut Lovingood (see the literature of the Old

Southwest) at least inasmuch as it is very much of a picaresque novel. Its numerous stations along the

banks of the Mississippi River as Huck and Jim drift slowly southward provide the reader with insights

into a variety of social and cultural values, exposing the venality, gullibility, vanity, and hypocrisy of the

people presented and touching on the themes of slavery, religious fervor, frontier and small town

violence, feuding, drunkenness, or the self-deceit of would-be belles. The narrative is recounted by a

young boy, Huck Finn, thus allowing Twain to see the South through his innocence and inexperience.

It also allowed him to use the native dialect of Huck’s (and Twain’s) Missouri home as well as that of

the educationally untouched runaway slave Jim (see Text 13.1).

The literature of the Old Southwest was especially prominent even before the American Civil War

(1861-1865), flourishing between roughly 1835 and 1885 and depicting life, people, and language in the

southwestern part of the United States before the trans-Mississippi addition of the Louisiana Purchase

(1803). The region includes parts of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, and

Tennessee as well as trans-Mississippi Texas and Arkansas. Some of the most extreme examples of

dialect literature from this section can be found in the work of J.J. Hooper (Adventures of Captain Simon

Suggs, 1845) and George Washington Harris (Sut Lovingood. Yarns Spun by a “Nat’ral Born Durn’d Fool,

1867; see Text 10.13). Harris as well as much of the anonymous literature in the Davy Crockett

tradition (see Text 10.4) makes wide use of dialect, but especially of eye dialect. This literature can be

characterized as:

provincial,

generally considered humorous,

widely popular at the time,

reflective of frontier life (language, lore, life)

evidence of crudity, vulgarity, and violence of frontier life.

This was the time of the rapidly expanding frontier, more or less up to its end (at approximately 1890).

The Old Southwest was divided into two settler groups: the planters and their slaves in the area of

expanding cotton cultivation and the poor white upland farmers. The literature, or rather, subliterature

of the Old Southwest concerns the latter group only.

Harris's Uncle Remus is one of the products of the literary reconciliation after the American Civil War,

but one, as far as the South was concerned, which came at the cost of the Blacks, who were reduced to

a stereotype such as Joel Chandler Harris' Uncle Remus: loyal, affectionate, gentle, quaint (stories and

dialect). In the sense of the local color movement which it was a part of dialect continued to be used

as in the literature of the Old Southwest more or less dialect. But in contrast to Old Southwestern

writing, local color writing tended to be sentimental, overly sweet, to feature picturesque and quaint

characters, and seldom to rise above stereotypes.

Working class literature in the 19th century must be seen from two perspectives, that of socially critical

authors who wrote about the working class with great sympathy, but from their own perspective and

writers who were themselves members of the working class. Among the former we find the pro-

Chartist novels of Kingsley (Alton Locke, 1850), Disraeli (Sybil, Or the Two Nations, 1845), and Gaskell

(Mary Barton, A Tale of Manchester Life, 1848).

The latter group can best be seen in the emergence of the popular press and WC literature in the 19th

century. Among writers with direct experience of poverty and the exploitation of child labor the most

prominent was Dickens.

In the US pointedly labor-oriented literature has never been widespread and did not generally appear until

later than in Great Britain. Writers like Upton Sinclair and other muck-rakers in the first decade of the

20th century touched on the problems of labor. And writers like Clifford Odets did more directly with

his play Waiting for Lefty (1935) in the 1930s.

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) came from a family which struggled to survive under straitened

circumstances in the 1820. The impressions this left on young Charles shaped his attitudes and

provided many of his themes and characters. Example: Hard Times (1854), which pillories both the

hard-working self-made man and the self-seeking leader of the highly exploited striking workers.

Novels by Dickens are well known for their sympathetic but somewhat paternalistic sketches of

working class life.

Literature in Creole English is generally relatively limited. Most of what is available lies in the genres of

poetry or folk tales. The latter is well represented by Text 9.4 “Masalai Wokim Tripela Ailan.” An

example of poetry is the following, written in Jamaican Creole, but translated from W. Busch’ Max und

Moritz by Jean D’Costa (ll. 1-5):

Max an Marris – Two rude bway

Seven diffrant badness weh dem do

Lissen now, som, pickney bad:

Two bway rude so tell dem mad!

All me tlak a suo-so truut:

qtd. in: Hellinger, M. (1986) “On Writing English-related Creoles in the Caribbean,” In: M. Görlach

and J.A. Hom (eds.) Focus on the Caribbean. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 53-70, here: 61.

Caribbean writing is well represented by V.S. Naipaul, the very controversial, but stimulating author from

Trinidad with Indian roots who won the Nobel Prize in 2001. He does not use patois in his writing.

English-language literature in Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand is well developed and its

writers have an international reading public. A few authors and works will be mentioned for first

orientation.

Australia is well represented by native writers in the 19th century, most particularly the “bush” writers

Henry Lawson (short stories) and Banjo Paterson (poems; see Text 7.2 “Waltzing Matilda, 1887). In

more modern times Patrick White became well known as the first (and only Australian to be awarded

the Nobel Prize for literature in 1973. Colleen McCullough’s novel The Thorn Birds, set largely in the

outback, became an international best seller. Currently Peter Carey is enjoying a great deal of

popularity, and his historical novel Oscar and Lucinda (1988), set in both England and Australia won the

Man Booker Prize in 1988, as did his True History of the Kelly Gang in 2001 (also the Commonwealth

Writers Prize). The latter novel is about (and ostensibly written by) the bushranger Ned Kelly. Text

11.1, where an extract from it has been used to demonstrate non-standard GenE in Australia.

South Africa won a great deal of international acclaim with Alan Paton anti-apartheid novel Cry, the

Beloved Country (1948). The problem of apartheid and racial relations has dominated South African

writing ever since though change may be coming in the post-apartheid era. Nadine Gordimer (Nobel

Prize in 1991) is very well known, esp. for her novel July’s People (1981), also concerned with the

apartheid problem. Zakes Mda won the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2001 for his novel The Heart

of Redness. J.M Coetzee, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2001 and has a wide

international readership, is well known for his novel Disgrace (1999), which won both the Booker (his

second) and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. Andre Brink, is a author who writes in both Afrikaans

and English. Text 11.2 from his novel Praying Mantis (2005) was used to show the loan words in SafE

New Zealand is familiar to many readers from the short stories of Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) and

the detective fiction of Ngaio Marsh (1895-1982). Keri Hulme is known internationally for her Booker

Prize-winning novel The Bone People (1984; Booker 1985), which offers a brilliant insight into a difficult

Māori-Pekeha relationship. Texts 11.4 and 13.2 have been taken from The Bone People to illustrate NZE

and English-Māori code-switching respectively.

English-language literature in ESL countries is best represented by work from Nigeria and India.

Both countries have produced widely recognized authors.

Nigerian writing includes the work of Amos Tutuola (The Palm-Wine Drinkard, 1952) and the novels of

Chinua Achebe, starting with Things Fall Apart (1958). Both writers deal with the difficulties of people

living in modern Africa but with roots in the thought and practices of traditional Africa. A very

different type of writing is that of Cyprian Ekwensi who was most successful with his realistic Onitsha

Market novel Jagua Nana (1961). Ben Okri was awarded the Booker Prize in 1991 for his novel The

Famished Road, which draws on oral traditions and uses modernist narrative techniques. Wole Soyinka,

who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986 and has produced an enormous oeuvre of poems,

novels, and plays. A final name is C.N. Adichie from whose Purple Hibiscus (2005) Texts 7.3 showing

Igbo borrowing in English and 7.4 on code-switching into Nigerian PE have been taken.

East Africa is represented by N. Thiong’o’ of Kenya, whose novel, Weep Not, Child (1964) was used for

Text 12.2 and which transmits the atmosphere of learning in British East Africa.

India has produced a large number of English-language writers, a few of whom will merely be listed and

many of whom have dealt with the experience of being Indian and living abroad: Kiran Desai (The

Inheritance of Loss, Man Booker Prize, National Book Critics Circle prize, 2006); Jhumpa Loahiri (The

Namesake, 2003); Salman Rushdie (Midnight's Children, Booker Prize, 1981, and the highly controversial

novel, The Satanic Verses, 1988); Rohinton Mistry (Such a Long Journey, Governor General's Award

[Canada], Commonwealth Writers Prize, 1991; A Fine Balance Commonwealth Writers Prize, 1996);

Vikram Seth (A Suitable Boy, 1994); Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things, Booker Prize, 1997); Vikas

Swarup (Q & A, 2005, and Six Suspects, 2008); and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (Arranged Marriage,

American Book Award, 1995).

The communication revolution is the latest advance in media and promises to be at least as

revolutionary as the introduction of printing was in its time. Its centerpiece in the Internet with its e-

mail, chat rooms, blogs, and the like, but it includes digital communication independent of the net, e.g.

twitter and texting. Face book and cell phones have unloosed the power of the masses and contributed

to revolutionary change in societies where the more conventional media have been under the control

of the state and state institutions.

The soap opera is serial fiction broadcast on radio or on television often emphasizing the drama of

everyday life and personal relations. It has been extremely popular way of binding listeners / viewers to

fictional worlds of romance and tragedy motivated by both voyeurism and escapism. Its seeming

realism, its everyday language, and suspenseful action insures that it will have a faithful audience. Yet

one of its strengths, its local rootedness, means that even very successful soap operas from America

may find no echo whatsoever in Britain and vice versa. Example: Desparate Housewives, while

retaining the same story-line and characters, could not merely be dubbed, but had to be re-filmed once

for the Mexican and once again for the Argentine televisions markets.

The sit-com is a variant of the soap opera which features a relatively set cast of characters but does not

rely on an on-going story (or set of plot line), but on the humor of awkward situations and light-

hearted invective. Dramatic situations are never to be taken too seriously. Culture-specific behavior is

intrinsic to much of the comedy involved. British sit-coms may not be easily adaptable to the US

market because they are not tailored to the length requirements of American commercial TV, where

they have to be shorter in order to leave enough time within the standard thirty minute slots for eight

minutes of commercials. They will rely more on slap-stick while British sit-coms may develop character

more or have more elaborate plot-lines.