Middle English: The Canterbury Tales

Like Old English, Middle English is surprisingly difficult for modern English-speakers to read and understand, although its similarities are much more apparent than those of the former (see post on Old English). Take a look at this excerpt from the “General Prologue” of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licóur

Of which vertú engendred is the flour;

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,

And smale foweles maken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open ye,

So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,

And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,

To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

And specially, from every shires ende

Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,

The hooly blisful martir for to seke,

That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

While there are certainly many words here that appear nearly identical to those of modern English, the overall meaning of the excerpt is still quite hard to decipher without translation. Even so, notice how much it has evolved from the language of “Caedmon’s Hymn,” explored in the related post on Old English.

The Norman Invasion and the Rise of Middle English

Middle English was spoken in England from approximately 1150 – 1500 CE, and it is distinguished primarily as the language spoken after the Norman Conquest and arrival of French-speaking rulers in 1066 CE. 

In this year, the king of England died without an heir, leaving several viable claimants to the throne, one of whom was William, Duke of Normandy (a region in northern France). William waged war on the English claimants and defeated them at the Battle of Hastings, earning himself the titles of William the Conqueror and, most importantly, King of England. 

When William took the throne, he brought his mother language with him—Old French (the ancestor of modern French). Naturally, Norman courtiers and diplomats arrived to support William’s reign, replacing the country’s aristocratic classes with French-speakers while maintaining the English-speaking populace. With French now the dominant language in the country, there began to grow a linguistic class divide; French became associated with the elegance and refinement of the upper classes, and English became associated with the opposite—the crudeness and vulgarity of the lower classes.

Interestingly, this is where many modern English swear words come from. With French the prim and proper tongue and English the vulgar one, most of today’s unfavorable four-letter words derive from the association of crassness with Old English vocabulary over time (e.g., “scitte,” “ærs,” “helle,” “fukkit,” etc.). It wasn’t crass back then; it was just the “English” way to say it. While the Old French equivalents to these words did not make it into modern English dictionaries, many other French words that reflect this class divide did. For example, the Old French word for house is “mansion” whereas the Old English word is “hus.” Today, these once-synonymous words suggest different economic statuses when compared side-by-side. 

Despite the class divide, however, French vocabulary managed to insert itself into the linguistic repertoire of common English-speakers as well, rapidly altering the language to one that incorporated both Latinate and Germanic functions. 

Chaucer: The Father of English Literature

As a member of the near upper class, Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – 1400), the author of the excerpt above, spoke both French and English. While he held several prominent civil service positions throughout his lifetime, he is most known for his poetry, especially The Canterbury Tales. More than just an esteemed poet, however, he is regarded by many as the “Father of English Literature” because of how he elevated the English language by writing high-quality poetry in English rather than in French—something which was rarely done in Medieval England. 

During this time, literature was composed primarily in French because only the aristocratic classes could read and write, and the aristocrats spoke French within their lofty circles. Chaucer, existing in a space that seemed almost to border the classes, was able to sympathize and identify with the common people, and through his writing, he worked to uplift the lower classes both linguistically and narratively. 

By writing in English, Chaucer pulled the language out of the gutters where it had been dismissed as unworthy of literary endeavors and set it on a plane rivaling French accomplishment. By giving English its own literature, he gave it (and its speakers by association) authority and a unique cultural prestige. 

The Canterbury Tales: An Equalizing Force

In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer explores incongruities in the class divides by crafting a narrative in which English citizens from various social spheres, or “degrees,” as Chaucer calls them, travel together on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. While some companions far outrank others, every traveler is given an equal voice as, one at a time, they each share a story with the group. And the special part—they all tell their tales in English. In The Canterbury Tales, English becomes a connecting force, a language that enables the high and the low to intermingle and enjoy themselves while doing so.

Here are the opening lines of the “General Prologue” in translation:

                 When April with its sweet-smelling showers

                 Has pierced the drought of March to the root,

                 And bathed every vein (of the plants) in such liquid

                 By which power the flower is created;

                 When the West Wind also with its sweet breath,

                 In every wood and field has breathed life into

                 The tender new leaves, and the young sun

                 Has run half its course in Aries,

                 And small fowls make melody,

                 Those that sleep all the night with open eyes

                 (So Nature incites them in their hearts),

                 Then folk long to go on pilgrimages,

                 And professional pilgrims to seek foreign shores,

                 To distant shrines, known in various lands;

                 And specially from every shire's end

                 Of England to Canterbury they travel,

                 To seek the holy blessed martyr,

                 Who helped them when they were sick.
(Translation from Harvard University’s Geoffrey Chaucer Website.)

Equal in language and their human condition, they are also equal because of a common religious drive pulling them, “from every shire’s end,” to Canterbury.

Pronunciation, Printing, and the Great Vowel Shift

While there was no standard spelling in Middle English, there was a system for pronunciation: everything was pronounced phonetically. This is why in modern English there exist many words with strange silent letters, such as “enough,” “thought,” or “knight.” Believe it or not, each letter in these words used to be necessary to produce an accurate sound. The k in knight was voiced like the hard k’s of today, and the gh was a glottal sound made in the back of the throat.  

Vowels in Middle English followed the continental pronunciation, meaning that they used the same convention as many of the Latinate languages in continental Europe, resembling the pronunciation of today’s Spanish or Italian vowels. There were a few standard diphthongs that produced unique English sounds (i.e., au and aw), but apart from ensuring these were represented relatively accurately, English-speakers could spell the words however they saw fit.

Around 1400 CE, Middle English underwent what scholars call the Great Vowel Shift, where English-speakers began to move away from the continental pronunciation of vowels and toward a wider variety of sounds—the sounds we use today in modern English vowels. No one is entirely sure why this shift occurred, only that it did, and that in doing so it pushed the language into yet another era.   

With the invention of the Gutenberg printing press circa 1440 CE, literature became much more accessible to non-aristocratic crowds. Because of this, literacy rates in England began to rise and printing officials crafted standard spelling and pronunciation conventions to establish linguistic order. These changes, along with the effects of the Great Vowel Shift, solidified a new manifestation of English, one we now identify as Early Modern English.

See next week’s post on Early Modern English and Romeo and Juliet!