But English is not in the strict sense a composite language, nor is it the mere result of the fusion of Saxon or Norman ; for its grammar in its essential elements is Saxon, modified in many ways and simplified, all its auxiliary verbs and its particles, "the bolts, pins, and hinges," being of native origin. But what is first apparent after the Norman Conquest is not so much the introduction of new terms as the destruction of the numerous inflectional terminations of the older Saxon tongue, a change which might to some extent have passed over it in course of time though the Conquest had never taken place. A similar change was at that period passing over the other dialects of Germanic stock; for such disintegration is inherent in language and was becoming apparent before the year 1066. Price,1 Guest, Hallam and others make this innate tendency the sole cause of the linguistic revolution in England. The statement is as extreme as the other theory, which supposes that the Norman Conquest, merely by the inbringing of another dialect, effected the decomposition of the older tongue. But the Norman Conquest wrought in this way: it broke up that form of civilization to which the Anglo-Saxon speech belonged as its creation and representative. The social changes were extreme and irresistible, and they swept the upper ranks into universal ruin.3 Books could have no charms for the churls

2

gations. This influence had been felt during three reigns, and the Danelagh comprised the larger portion of Mercia, Northumberland, and East Anglia. The reader will find admirable lists of native and foreign terms in the "Historical Outlines of English Accidence," pp. 35 and 377, by Richard Morris, LL.D., London, 1873. Dr. Morris shows that foreign terms are more numerous than they are sometimes alleged to be, there being in the Ancren Riwle, 428, and in Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle, 570.

1 Preface to Warton's History of to respond to the summons. The English Poetry, pp. 85, 86, &c.

ecclesiastics were more rancorous in

INT.]

THE NORMAN CONQUEST.

27

and villeins who were thrust unceremoniously under a foreign yoke. Many of the best born ladies became the prey "par marriage," or "par amours," of the lowest of the Bastard's followers. "Ignoble grooms did as they pleased with the noblest women, and left them nothing but to weep and wish for death."1

This sweeping territorial revolution broke the spirit of the people, chilled free thought and culture, destroyed all impulse to write in the native tongue and all pride in preserving its purity. The result of this abrupt and violent cessation of Anglo-Saxon literature was, that the language, left to itself as simply a spoken language, began to alter and work itself free from its more exact grammatical intricacies. Probably the people never spoke the older tongue as it was written in books; and their freer speech, unchecked by any literary models or contrasts, and in the absence or displacement of the educated thanes or gentry, came to be at length the prevailing tongue. Normans and Saxons were of necessity obliged to make themselves understood to one another, and both were naturally content to use a few words of the other's vocabulary without any great regard to the grammar on either side. Prior to the Conquest care had been taken in literary composition of terminations indicating gender and case, number and tense, and of other minute and elaborate

their hostility than the soldiers. Stigand was deposed from the primacy to make way for Lanfranc, who is said also to have seized many copies of the Scripture and corrected them with his own hand, on the pretence that the Saxon scribes had corrupted them.

1 As a specimen of the displacement of native proprietors, it may be mentioned that 60,000 knights' fees were established by the Conqueror, that the crown lands were made up of more than 1,400 manors, one of the Conqueror's brothers

being put in possession of over 800 in nineteen counties, and another having nearly 500 in seventeen counties; and hundreds were possessed by other favourites-all lands of the nation, both of tenants in capite and their sub-tenants, being at the same time vested in William as supreme Over-Lord.

The Saxon Chronicle itself ceased about a century after the Conquest, 1154. Edited by Edmund Gibson, A.B., e Collegio Reginæ, Oxonii, 1692; and more recently by B. Thorpe, Rolls edition.

peculiarities; but such niceties were so embarrassing in conversation, that they soon came to be slipped over and finally put aside. So that what happened to the Greek language after the fall of Constantinople, and to the Latin after the overthrow of the Empire, happened in a similar way to the tongue of the Saxon races in these islands after Duke William's invasion.1

In the times after the Conquest the article se, seo, that, with its five cases, lost the first two forms, and finally passed into the simple indeclinable definite article. The conventional genders and the declensions of nouns faded away; the cases, with the exception of the 's of the genitive, sank out of view; relations were expressed by prepositions; and the "-e" that marked the dative became first silent, as in Wycliffe, and then was dropped. When the earlier terminations were all merged in -e, person, case, number, and tense soon ceased to be individually represented. Adjectives lost all distinction of number, gender, and case; the interrogative and relative, retaining only a genitive and accusative, became the same in singular and plural; whereas the demonstratives "this" and "that," while they preserved a plural form, lost all difference of case. The plural endings in -a, -e, -en, save in a few words, were superseded by the Norman termination "-s." Adjectives which, as in modern German, had declensions and grammatical genders, passed through the same changes as the nouns. The dual of the pronoun grew obsolete; and "heo," feminine of "he," was altered into "she." Many strong preterites became weak; conjugations were formed by means of auxiliaries; the infinitive, which had ended in -an or -en, first losing the -n, prefixed "to," and latterly "for to"; the third person singular, being still found in the "-eth" of the old

1 Some of the gradual changes may be seen by comparing the second column of Skeat's Anglo-Saxon Mark with the earlier text in the one by its side. See also his Preface, p. xxvii. Prof. Whitney justly remarks that such vocal changes proceed usually

from indolence, as man has an "instinctive disposition to seek relief from" the effort to articulate, or to do it with the least possible trouble. Language and the Study of Language, p. 195, New York, 1872.

INT.]

LINGUISTIC REVOLUTION.

29

and the Biblical English, while "-ath" of the plural, which Norman lips" could not frame to pronounce," disappeared, and -en for a while took its place. The participle was no longer declined. Participial and infinitival endings were confounded, and the gerundial infinitive crumbled away. Both modes of comparison have however been preserved-the Anglo-Saxon by "-er," "-est," and an imitation of Norman by "more" and "most." The Norman preposition "de" with the genitive was not adopted, the Anglo-Saxon "of" was accepted, and the -'s was also retained. One regrets that the plural "-en" of verbs has been lost, and indeed Spenser was unable to preserve it. One is sorry too that -s, with its hissing sound, should so often occur; for it has superseded not only the -eth of the third person singular, but also the old plural termination of nouns and verbs, while at the same time there are many words ending in -ess. In Anglo-Saxon the plural of masculine nouns only ended in -s; but, with few exceptions, all plurals in French were so formed, and the terminations passed into English.1 Special feminine forms, like -ster (spinster), have come to end in -ess, or are retained as exceptional.2

Such is a brief and imperfect sketch of the gradual alterations which passed over the old Anglo-Saxon during two centuries and a half, when our modern English was "in making." Though the process lopped off many branchlets and twigs, it left the living trunk which soon renewed its youth, and putting forth fresh vigour and beauty, formed a national

1 In Jeremy Taylor's famous image of the lark, there are eleven sibilants in the first thirty-one words.

*The Priest Layamon's Brut or Chronicle of Britain, written before A.D. 1200, is a translation of the Norman Wace's Brut, and was edited by Sir Frederick Madden, London, 1847. It is in the dialect of North Worcestershire, and marks a period of transition when the written language had been loosened by the spoken tongue. Infinitives

have "to" prefixed, weak tenses are introduced, "a" is used as an article, genders and inflections are not carefully observed, -en supersedes -on in the plural of verbs. Similar transitional style is found, with some variations, in Havelok, and in Piers Ploughman, the Ancren Riwle (Anchoresses' Rule), edited by Morton, 1853, and a later poem, the Harrowing (harrying) of Hell. See Dr. Angus's Handbook of the English Tongue, London, 1869.

tongue in which Wycliffe was able at length to give an English Bible to the English people. In fine, it was surely natural that the early English tongue, in spite of exotic additions and changes in spelling and structure, should cling to an Englishman throughout his national history, and that to it should belong the terms which tell what he sees above him and around him, in fruits, flowers, and seasons, which describe his own physical organs and his inner emotions, the weapons he wields, the tools he handles, the products of his handywork, and the animals about him in pasture and tillage, and which name the close and familiar relations of life, his heart and his home, and his surroundings from birth to death.

In this old tongue, which some in its first shape have called Anglo-Norman or early English, we have a Psalter in prose, with the Canticles of the Church, before the year 1200, and a prose translation of a large portion of the Bible before 1360. Among these early translations one is distinguished as the Ormulum, after its author Orm or Ormin, a canon of the Order of St. Augustine, and is probably of northern origin. He dedicates2 to his brother his poem, which is a versified paraphrase of the Gospels and Acts in the style of Latin tetrameter iambics, and consists of 20,000 lines. Though it is a specimen of the tongue of the time of Henry II, the older case endings have almost disappeared. About his orthography the author is very careful, and forewarns all transcribers to maintain literal accuracy, as if he had felt that the English of his day needed a special and intelligent guardianship, that amidst growing changes it might not degenerate. A similar

1 The author himself intimates, "This book is named Ormulum, for that Orm it wrought (made)." The Ormulum was edited from MSS. in the Bodleian, with a glossary and notes, by Robert Meadows White, D.D. Two vols., Oxford,

1852.

Icc hafe wennd inntill Ennglissh,

Goddspelless hallghe lore.

I have turned into English

Gospel's holy lore.

He spells with a single consonant after a vowel which has its name sound, but doubles the consonant after a vowel otherwise pronounced,

2 In the dedication to his brother, as we similarly do in such forms as

he says

tale, tall, mute, dull.