If it be true, as some tell us, that the mingling of the Teutonic and the Romance in our tongue make a happy marriage,' we see in the author of the Ancren Riwle the man who first gave out the banns.2 He was, it would seem, a Bishop, well-grounded in all the lore that Paris or Rome could teach; and he strikes us as rather too fond of airing his French and Latin before the good ladies, on whose behalf he was writing. For sixty years or so no Englishman was bold enough to imitate the Prelate's style, at least, in a book. Those who weigh English authors of this age will find that, if we divide the Thirteenth Century into three equal parts, the first division will take in writers who have eight or ten obsolete English words out of fifty; the writers of the middle division have from five to seven obsolete English words out of fifty; and the writers of the last division have only three or four obsolete English words out of fifty.3 The verb strive most likely comes from some overlooked strithan, as Theodore becomes Feodor in Russian. The Perfect in the Ancren Riwle is strof, and a French word in English always takes a Weak Perfect. 2 Cloth of gold, do not despise, Though thou be matched with cloth of friese. Though thou be matched with cloth of gold. It is not, I need hardly say, the words used by us in common with the Frisians, that I should call 'cloth of friese.' 3 The fifty words to be reckoned should be only substantives, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. Our store of homespun terms was being more and more narrowed. Compare Layamon's Brut with Robert of Gloucester's poem; we are at once astounded at the loss in 1300 of crowds of English words, though both writers were translating the same French lines. It is much the same in the language of religion, as we see by comparing the Ancren Riwle with the Kentish sermons of 1290, published by Dr. Morris. Now comes the question, what was the cause of the havock wrought in our store of good old English at this particular time? One-seventh of the Teutonic words used here in 1200 seems to have altogether dropped out of written composition by the year 1290: about this fact there can be no dispute. In the lifetime of Henry III., far more harm was done to our speech than in the six hundred years that have followed his death. I shall now try to answer the question just asked; I write with some diffidence, since I believe that I am the first to bring forward the forthcoming explanation. I draw my bow; it is for others to say if I hit the mark. Few of us have an idea of the wonderful change brought about in Latin Christendom by the teaching of St. Francis. Two Minorite friars of his Century, the one living in Italy, the other in England, give us a fair notion of the work done by the new Brotherhood, when it first began to run its race. Thomas of Eccleston and Salimbene 2 throw a stronger light upon its 1 An Old English Miscellany (Early English Text Society), p. 26. 2 The work of the Englishman is in Monumenta Franciscana, published by the Master of the Rolls; that of the Italian is in Monumenta ad Provincias Parmensem et Placentinam pertinentia, to be found in the British Museum. budding life than do all the documents published by the learned Wadding in his Annals of the Minorites. Italy may claim the Founder; but England may boast that she carried out his work, at least for fourscore years after his death, better than any other land in Christendom. She gave him his worthiest disciples; the great English Franciscans, Alexander de Hales, Adam de Marisco, Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, and Occam, were unequalled by any of their brethren abroad, with the two exceptions of Buonaventura and Lulli. Some of these men sought the mainland, while others taught in their school at Oxford: under the new guidance the rising University shot up with giant's growth, and speedily outdid her old rival on the Seine. The great Robert himself (he was not as yet known as Lincolniensis) lectured before the brethren at Oxford. English friars, being patterns of holiness, were held in the highest esteem abroad; when reading Salimbene's work, we meet them in all kinds of unlikely places throughout Italy and France: they crowded over the sea to hear their great countryman Hales at Paris, or to take a leading part in the Chapters held at Rome and Assisi. The gift of wisdom, we are told, overflowed in the English province. It was a many-sided Brotherhood, being always in contact with the learned, with the wealthy, and with the needy alike. The English Friar was equally at home in the school, in the bower, in the hovel. He could speak more than one tongue, thanks to the training bestowed upon him. We may imagine his every-day life: he spends his morning in drawing up a Latin letter to be sent to the General Minister at Oxford or Paris, and he writes much as Adam de Marisco did. The friar of this age has no need to fear the tongue of scandal; so in the afternoon he visits the Lady of the Castle, whose dearest wish is that she may atone for the little weaknesses of life by laying her bones in the nearest Franciscan Church, mean and lowly though it be in these early days. He tells her the last news of Queen Eleanor's Court, points a moral with one of the new Lays of Marie, and lifts up his voice against the sad freaks played by fashion in ladies' dress. Their talk is of course in French; but the friar, having studied at Paris, remarks to himself that his fair friend's speech sounds somewhat provincial; and more than a hundred years later we are to hear of the school of Stratford atte Bowe. In the evening, he goes to the neighbouring hamlet, and holds forth on the green to a throng of horny-handed churls, stalwart swinkers and toilers, men who earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brows. They greedily listen when addressed in the uncouth English of their shire, English barely understood fifty miles off. Such burning words they never hear from their parish-priest, one of the old school. The friar's sermon is full of proverbs, tales, and historical examples, all tending to the improvement of morals.1 A new link, as we see, was thus forged to bind all classes together in godly fellowship; nothing like this This last sentence I take from Salimbene, who describes the new style of preaching practised by the friars his brethren. Italy and England must have been much alike in the Thirteenth Century in this respect. Franciscan movement had been known in our island for six hundred years. The Old was being replaced by the New; a preacher would suit his tales to his listeners: they cared not to hear about hinds or husbandmen, but about their betters.1 He would therefore talk about ladies, knights, or statesmen; and when discoursing about these, he must have been almost driven to interlard his English with a few French words, such as were constantly employed by his friends of the higher class. As a man of learning, he would begin to look down upon the phrases of his childhood as somewhat coarse, and his lowly hearers rather liked a term now and then that was a little above their understanding: what is called 'fine language' has unhappily always had charms for most Englishmen. It would be relished by burghers even more than by peasants. The preacher may sometimes have translated for his flock's behoof, talking of 'grith or pais, rood or croiz, steven or voiz, lof or praise, swikeldom or tricherie, stead or place.' 2 As 1 Our humbler classes now prefer the fictitious adventures of some wicked Marquis to all the sayings and doings of Mrs. Gamp or Mrs. Poyser. I take the following sketch from Middlemarch, III. 156 (published in 1872): Mr. Trumbull, the auctioneer was an amateur of superior phrases, and never used poor language without immediately correcting himself. Anybody may ask," says he, "anybody may interrogate. Any one may give their remarks an interrogative turn." He calls Ivanhoe “a very superior publication, it commences well." Things never began with Mr. Trumbull; they always commenced, both in private life and on his handbills, "I hope some one will tell me I hope some individual will apprise me of the fact."' Many of our early Franciscans must have been akin to Mr. Trumbull. Our modern penny-a-liners would say that the worthy |