00:00:15
[Music]
00:00:19
in 1077 William the Conqueror ruler of
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Normandy in England ordered the
00:00:24
construction of a special
00:00:27
building it was to be part Palace part
00:00:30
treasury part prison and part
00:00:33
Fortress it was the White Tower on the
00:00:36
banks of the terms in London and it was
00:00:38
a powerful symbol of the way that the
00:00:40
Normans were imposing themselves on this
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conquered
00:00:45
country they hadn't just brought armies
00:00:47
and architecture to mark their Authority
00:00:49
they'd also brought their language the
00:00:51
French vocabulary of power forced its
00:00:54
way into the English language crown and
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Court were both French words so a castle
00:00:59
and power and the Barons who built them
00:01:02
and so were obedience and Justice
00:01:04
treason and prison the Anglo-Saxon Kings
00:01:07
had governed using the old English
00:01:09
language now the Normans used French and
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Latin English had become the third
00:01:14
language in its own country it would
00:01:17
take over 300 years to emerge from the
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Shadows
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[Music]
00:01:54
in the Years following the arrival of
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Williams Army at py the Normans
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tightened their grip on England
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now part of a kingdom that extended
00:02:02
across the
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channel across the land Williams men
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took over every position of power in the
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state and in the
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church within 60 years the Monk and
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historian William of mry could write no
00:02:18
Englishman today is an Earl or bishop or
00:02:21
Abbott the newcomers nor at the wealth
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and guts of England nor is there any
00:02:27
hope of ending the misery
00:02:30
he wrote in Latin written English which
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had managed to establish itself so
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boldly before the conquest was now
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[Music]
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dying he breeded its last
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here now Peterburg cathedral in the mid
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12th century part of Peterburg Abbey and
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mon is M him to oxen for to the king and
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to yafim that AB
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around the country monks had been
00:03:02
recording the great events of the last
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650 years in books known as the
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Anglo-Saxon
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Chronicles they were written in the
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language of the people English and there
00:03:12
was nothing like them anywhere in
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Mainland Europe RAM and at T and at spal
00:03:20
and new is aot since the Norman conquest
00:03:22
of 1066 these unique accounts had been
00:03:25
abandoned One By One The Peter Chronicle
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was the last
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Survivor in 1154 a monk recorded that
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the Abbey had a new Abbot a man with the
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very French name of William deaville
00:03:39
choosen author of himself William dille
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is good cler and good man and fair have
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it beg he has made a good beginning the
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monk writes CHR is
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him Christ grant that he may end as well
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with this last entry 6 and a half
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centuries of written history came to an
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end Old English had ceased to be the
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language of record in the land but that
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didn't mean that it was going to go
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[Music]
00:04:18
away since the conquest English in
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varying dialects had remained the
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language spoken by 90% of the population
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from the south coast to the Uplands of
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Southern Scotland just a few miles north
00:04:29
of here even further north in Scotland
00:04:32
and West in Wales the culture and
00:04:34
language were still Celtic Old English
00:04:37
had continued to develop and change
00:04:39
partly as a result of contact with the
00:04:41
language of the D particularly here in
00:04:42
the north the grammar was becoming
00:04:45
simpler more plurals were being formed
00:04:47
by adding an S Naman for example the old
00:04:50
English plural of name became names
00:04:53
which would become our names
00:04:55
prepositions were performing more of the
00:04:57
functions of the old word endings and
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word order was becoming more fixed
00:05:02
despite being the officially ignored
00:05:04
language English would continue to
00:05:06
evolve and change and it would endure
00:05:08
resisting and absorbing the invader's
00:05:10
language until a Time came for it to
00:05:12
resume Center Stage as a nation's
00:05:17
language the Peterburg Chronicle of 1154
00:05:21
also recorded that in that year the
00:05:22
people of England acquired a new
00:05:25
king count Henry of Oru grandson of
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William the con and the first of the
00:05:30
plantagenet
00:05:32
Kings a lover of learning he spoke
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fluent Latin as well as French but no
00:05:37
English and the English acquired a new
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Queen Elena of aquan the daughter of
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William the 10th of
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[Music]
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aquatan Henry II was crowned here in
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West mitzer ABI in a lavish ceremony the
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clergy wore silk vestments that were
00:05:56
more costly than anything ever seen
00:05:57
before in England the king and queen and
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the great Barons wore silk and brade
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robes the luxury was fitting it was
00:06:04
thought for an occasion that Solomon IED
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the bringing together of so much land
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and
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wealth Henry brought his inheritance of
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William the conqueror's land in England
00:06:19
and northern France Elena the greatest
00:06:22
ays in the Western World brought with
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her a great sway the what is now France
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from the L to the Pyrenees from the road
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into the
00:06:30
Atlantic this was a huge Kingdom the
00:06:33
greater part of it made up of
00:06:34
french-speaking lands across the channel
00:06:36
as it grew the English lands and the
00:06:39
English language became an Ever less
00:06:41
significant part of it French and Latin
00:06:44
were even more firmly entrenched as the
00:06:46
languages of the court and government of
00:06:48
the
00:06:51
country yet after their coronation Henry
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and Elena rode in possession along the
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Strand and it's reported that the people
00:06:58
shouted was hail and viat Rex wishing
00:07:02
them long life in English and in Latin
00:07:04
English was still alive in the
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[Music]
00:07:17
[Music]
00:07:21
streets in the court and Royal palaces
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new ideas from across the channel were
00:07:26
in the air and new words to express them
00:07:29
Words which sang of courtesy and honor
00:07:32
questing and damsels justing and
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tournaments French words
00:07:38
everyone the vocabulary of romance and
00:07:41
chivalry was heard in England
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[Music]
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Elena England's new Queen was considered
00:08:22
the most cultured woman in
00:08:24
Europe it was she more than any other
00:08:27
who patronized The Poets and trou whose
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verses and songs created the Romantic
00:08:31
image of the Middle Ages as the age of
00:08:34
chivalry a glorious Vision that was
00:08:36
never realized outside the pages of
00:08:38
medieval
00:08:43
literature 100 years before the word
00:08:46
Cheval formed around the word for horse
00:08:48
had simply meant
00:08:50
Cavalry it was the fierceness of the
00:08:52
mounted Warriors that had carried the
00:08:54
day for the Normans at Hastings and
00:08:56
since then many English peasants had
00:08:58
come to know the m Ed Norman soldiers as
00:09:00
little more than thugs and Bullies who
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ran the country by
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[Music]
00:09:14
force but now mounted Warriors had
00:09:17
become Knights and the word chivalry
00:09:19
came to mean a whole model of ideals and
00:09:23
behavior infused with honor and altruism
00:09:27
one that prescribed how to act towards
00:09:29
one's leash Lord one's friends and
00:09:31
enemies and of course Fair cruel
00:09:35
ladies ideas had shifted and words with
00:09:39
[Music]
00:09:46
them it was in ellena's reign that
00:09:48
French writers brought the stories of
00:09:50
Arthur and his Knights out of the
00:09:52
history books and into poetry
00:09:54
cultivating a language far richer and
00:09:56
subtler than the one that the first
00:09:58
Norman settlers had SP spoken and
00:09:59
written The Poets raps aiz about Elena
00:10:02
celebrating her as the most beautiful
00:10:04
woman in the world pouring out the
00:10:06
impossible longing for the perfect woman
00:10:08
that was at the heart of the cult of
00:10:10
courtly
00:10:12
love the Poetry of Affairs of the heart
00:10:15
had come to England singing a pain and
00:10:17
joy and beginning a line in literature
00:10:20
that runs through Shakespeare sonnets
00:10:22
and the great Romantic Poets to today's
00:10:24
3 minute pop lyrics
00:10:27
[Music]
00:10:32
[Music]
00:10:36
my
00:10:38
H
00:10:39
H for
00:10:43
your oh
00:10:45
[Music]
00:10:53
Lord [ __ ]
00:10:59
[Music]
00:11:03
meanwhile England's native
00:11:05
inhabit that song was first recorded in
00:11:07
1225 making it one of the earliest
00:11:10
pieces of English that's still
00:11:11
recognizable today there's not a single
00:11:14
French word in it words like summer come
00:11:17
SE seed and new can be traced right back
00:11:20
to the Flatlands of frisia spring and
00:11:22
wood can be found in the Anglo-Saxon
00:11:24
poem baywolf and Mary sing and loud in
00:11:27
the works authorized by the great
00:11:30
there's a Pure Line of Old English
00:11:32
vocabulary here in a song that comes
00:11:34
from the peasants and the land at the
00:11:36
opposite end of the social scale from
00:11:38
the troubadors songs the French language
00:11:40
of the grand Lords hasn't penetrated
00:11:43
down to the Common
00:11:45
[Music]
00:11:48
People certainly the native English and
00:11:50
the French overlords live very different
00:11:52
lives William the Conqueror had
00:11:54
introduced the system of feudalism into
00:11:56
England and though evolving it still
00:11:58
defin find all economic and social
00:12:01
relations expressed in French words like
00:12:03
villain and vassel laborer baliff and
00:12:07
[Music]
00:12:09
factor in the country where 95% of the
00:12:13
population lived the English were
00:12:15
essentially surfs another French
00:12:19
word not technically slaves but tied for
00:12:22
life to their Lord's estate which they
00:12:24
worked for him and at a subsistence
00:12:27
level for themselves
00:12:31
while the English-speaking peasants
00:12:33
lived in small Cottages or Huts their
00:12:35
french-speaking masters live privilege
00:12:37
lives in their
00:12:39
castles our modern vocabulary still
00:12:41
reflects the distinction between
00:12:44
them English speakers tended the living
00:12:47
cattle which we still call by the old
00:12:49
English words of ox or cow French
00:12:51
speakers ate the preferred meat which
00:12:53
came to the table which we call by the
00:12:55
French word beef in the same way the
00:12:57
English sheep became the French mutton
00:12:59
calf became ve deer Venison and pig
00:13:04
pork English animal French meat in every
00:13:10
case the English labored the French
00:13:20
feasted where English underlings and
00:13:22
French Masters lived and worked together
00:13:24
the boundaries between their languages
00:13:26
inevitably wore away and the
00:13:28
vocabularies of course Countryside
00:13:32
mingled for example local men would have
00:13:34
been involved in the training and flying
00:13:36
of a nobleman's
00:13:39
hawks and some now common words have
00:13:41
come to us from
00:13:43
[Music]
00:13:45
falconry the word Falcon itself comes
00:13:47
from
00:13:48
French as does leash which refer to the
00:13:51
strip of material used to secure the
00:13:53
bird and block on which the bird stood
00:13:57
our word coda comes from the often
00:14:00
elderly man who assisted the falconer by
00:14:02
carrying the Hawks on a cad or cage
00:14:05
baate described the bird beating its
00:14:07
wings and trying to fly away chech meant
00:14:10
at first refusing to come to the
00:14:13
[Music]
00:14:26
fist our word lure comes from the
00:14:28
leather device still used in training
00:14:30
and recalling the
00:14:40
hawk Quarry was the reward given to the
00:14:43
Falcon for making a
00:14:44
[Music]
00:14:47
kill when a bird melted she was said to
00:14:50
MW and from that came the name of the
00:14:52
buildings where Hawks were kept
00:14:56
Muse today that name can still will be
00:14:59
seen attached to streets where estate
00:15:01
agents rather than hawks hunt their
00:15:06
Quarry we've just heard nine French
00:15:08
words that came into English from warn
00:15:11
activity alone steadily French
00:15:13
vocabulary was pouring over English the
00:15:17
French influence on the English language
00:15:18
as a whole is enormous in terms of
00:15:21
vocabulary not in terms of grammar but
00:15:24
in terms of vocabulary it's unmatched by
00:15:26
any other language for example fruit
00:15:29
replaces the old English wasam pretty
00:15:31
quickly within the space of about 40 or
00:15:34
50 years wasam simply isn't used but the
00:15:37
majority of words don't replace old
00:15:39
English they stand side by side with
00:15:41
them so we have um word like apple in
00:15:44
Old English meant any kind of fruit
00:15:47
whereas what happens is because fruit
00:15:49
comes in and is basically uh expresses
00:15:52
that Apple starts to mean a very
00:15:54
specific uh sort of a
00:15:56
fruit I think it's not true to say that
00:16:00
generally speaking French words came
00:16:02
into the language and ousted the old
00:16:04
English words out of it generally what
00:16:06
seems to happen is that the the Old
00:16:07
English word simply Narrows in
00:16:13
[Music]
00:16:22
meaning it was now almost 150 years
00:16:25
since the Norman Conquest though the
00:16:27
people at the top had changed the
00:16:29
ascendency of French was still absolute
00:16:32
written English that triumphant
00:16:34
achievement of Alfred and English
00:16:36
Scholars was dead and spoken English was
00:16:39
being progressively colonized throughout
00:16:41
Society by French words but the balance
00:16:44
of power and of languages was about to
00:16:47
shift
00:16:49
[Music]
00:17:02
[Music]
00:17:10
of course early 13th century English
00:17:12
society consisted of more than English
00:17:14
peasants grubbing the land and French
00:17:16
speaking ability loing it in their
00:17:19
castles trade was on the increase the
00:17:22
wool trade in particular made parts of
00:17:24
England
00:17:26
rich on the proceeds GR and churches
00:17:29
were built even in modest Villages like
00:17:31
this one at North leech in the
00:17:34
cotwell services would of course be
00:17:36
conducted in
00:17:38
[Music]
00:17:54
Latin towns were growing sometimes
00:17:57
French and English towns to go together
00:17:59
as at Norwich and
00:18:01
Nottingham then as now London was the
00:18:03
magnet its population would double in
00:18:05
the course of the 13th century as
00:18:08
feudalism loosened its grip English
00:18:10
speakers would flood in from the country
00:18:12
looking for opportunities a better
00:18:17
life custom
00:18:22
inform already established with the
00:18:24
french-speaking court officials
00:18:25
administrators lawyers Merchants but
00:18:28
also craft man who gave us the French
00:18:30
names for some tools of the
00:18:32
trade measure Mallet chisel pulley
00:18:38
bucket
00:18:40
[Music]
00:18:49
Trel this is petty France in London its
00:18:52
name shows that it originally housed a
00:18:54
community of French immigrants in the
00:18:56
Early Middle Ages there were areas like
00:18:58
this in many English towns home to
00:19:00
Craftsmen and Merchants who' come here
00:19:01
from Normandy English and French
00:19:03
speakers met and mingled in these places
00:19:06
and the English middle classes picked up
00:19:08
French words by the
00:19:10
Thousand Merchant money price discount
00:19:16
bargain contract partner and
00:19:21
bezel the English didn't just borrow
00:19:23
French vocabulary they took their names
00:19:26
then as now names were a matter of
00:19:28
fashion and the fashion in the early
00:19:30
13th century was for French so out went
00:19:33
The Good Old English ethelbert's alricks
00:19:35
and Ethel stains Dunson wolfston and
00:19:38
wolf Ricks and in came the new fangled
00:19:40
Richards and Roberts Simons and Stevens
00:19:43
John's Jeff and most popular of all
00:19:46
Williams it seemed that everywhere
00:19:48
French was the name of the
00:19:50
[Music]
00:19:51
game if this process had continued
00:19:54
whereby French percolated and penetrated
00:19:56
into every area of English society and
00:19:58
French could eventually have engulfed
00:20:01
English that didn't happen why not one
00:20:05
critical reason was that because of
00:20:07
particular historical events French
00:20:09
speakers in England became cut off from
00:20:11
their cultural and linguistic
00:20:15
roots in 124 the reigning monarch John
00:20:18
King of Normandy aquatan and England
00:20:21
lost his Norman lands in a war with the
00:20:23
much smaller Kingdom of
00:20:25
France the Norman dukedoms ancestral
00:20:28
lands of William the Conqueror and
00:20:29
cultural homelands were part of another
00:20:31
Empire
00:20:32
[Music]
00:20:34
now as long as the French nobility and
00:20:36
middle classes who lived in England kept
00:20:38
contact with their homelands in Normandy
00:20:41
as long as they thought of themselves as
00:20:42
French and married within French
00:20:44
families their identity and language
00:20:46
were secure when they lost their
00:20:49
connections across the channel their
00:20:51
language began to lose its grip on
00:20:54
[Music]
00:20:57
English one thing that happened was that
00:21:00
French speakers even within the noblest
00:21:02
families began to look for wives not
00:21:05
from across the channel but in
00:21:07
England they married English speakers
00:21:10
and in doing so they married as it were
00:21:12
into the English language as
00:21:20
[Music]
00:21:21
well it's said that The Hand That Rocks
00:21:23
the Cradle rules the
00:21:26
world it's likely that by the the middle
00:21:28
of the 13th century many children in
00:21:31
families which would previously have
00:21:32
been French speaking were learning
00:21:34
English from their mothers or
00:21:41
[Music]
00:21:51
nurses is blessed and
00:21:57
with hey
00:22:00
what this Nick is
00:22:03
long and it with
00:22:07
[Music]
00:22:09
well
00:22:11
and
00:22:16
and no doubt many of the children of
00:22:18
angl French marriages grew up bilingual
00:22:20
perhaps speaking one language to the
00:22:22
servants in the castle kitchen and
00:22:24
another at dinner in the Great Hall
00:22:30
by 1250 there's even some evidence that
00:22:32
children of the nobility were having to
00:22:34
learn French from a written primer
00:22:36
grappling with the vocabulary of what
00:22:38
was becoming effectively a foreign
00:22:41
language by the middle of the 13th
00:22:43
century more and more French speakers
00:22:46
throughout Society were themselves
00:22:47
beginning to speak English becoming
00:22:50
bilingual the result was that while
00:22:52
French itself became more of a foreign
00:22:54
language French vocabulary French words
00:22:57
continued to stre into English many more
00:23:00
words are recorded after 1250 than
00:23:03
before Abby attire sensor defend figure
00:23:07
Melody music parel plead sacrifice
00:23:12
Scarlet spy stable virtue Marshall Park
00:23:17
rain Beauty clergy cloak country fool a
00:23:24
Hillary and because French was the
00:23:26
international language of trade it
00:23:28
actually is a conduit for words from the
00:23:30
markets of the
00:23:31
East Arabic words that gave to the
00:23:34
English
00:23:35
saffron
00:23:37
mattress Hazard CER Alchemy loot Amber
00:23:45
and
00:23:47
syrup AR Checkmate comes through French
00:23:50
from the Arab shahat the king is
00:23:55
[Music]
00:23:56
dead as we've heard very often the
00:23:59
Imports didn't replace existing English
00:24:01
words but settled down with them each
00:24:03
word adopting a slightly different
00:24:05
meaning the same thing had happened with
00:24:07
English and old nor this layering effect
00:24:10
so a young English hair came to be named
00:24:13
by the French word leverate English
00:24:15
Swann French signate a small English axe
00:24:19
is a French Hatchet ask English and
00:24:22
demand from French have slightly
00:24:24
different meanings as do bit and morsel
00:24:27
wish and desire might and power room and
00:24:32
chamber on the surface some of these
00:24:34
words appear to be interchangeable and
00:24:36
sometimes they are but more
00:24:38
interestingly there are fine differences
00:24:40
that's the beauty of it answer is not
00:24:43
quite respond begin isn't always
00:24:46
commence Liberty isn't always Freedom
00:24:49
shades of meaning representing new
00:24:51
shades of thought were massively
00:24:53
absorbed into our language at that time
00:24:56
the range of what I would call all most
00:24:58
synonyms became one of the glories of
00:25:00
English contributing to the language's
00:25:02
Precision and flexibility allowing its
00:25:05
speakers and writers over the centuries
00:25:07
to select very precisely the right word
00:25:10
rather than replace English French was
00:25:13
helping equip and enrich the language
00:25:15
for the central role that it was on its
00:25:17
way to
00:25:19
[Music]
00:25:26
reassuming towards the end of the the
00:25:28
13th century a new idea of the English
00:25:30
people was being born the Norman lands
00:25:33
across the channel were a foreign
00:25:35
country now even the families who traced
00:25:37
their Roots back to William the
00:25:38
conqueror's Norman followers men with
00:25:40
French names and French blood started
00:25:42
calling themselves trueborn
00:25:45
Englishmen behind me is the tomb of
00:25:49
Edward the the Hammer of the Scots it
00:25:51
says there in Latin Latin was the
00:25:54
language of official business but when
00:25:57
the French King Philip threatened
00:25:58
invasion of England in 1295 Edward used
00:26:02
the English language as a symbol of
00:26:04
nationhood to Galvanize
00:26:06
support if Philip is able to do all the
00:26:08
evil he means to from which God protect
00:26:10
us he plans to wipe out our English
00:26:13
language entirely from the earth he said
00:26:16
the old language reborn could now be a
00:26:19
rallying point for a new mongeral people
00:26:22
The Invasion never came and though
00:26:25
Edward made the English language a
00:26:26
symbol for the country he didn't
00:26:28
elevated to official use Latin and
00:26:31
French were still the languages of state
00:26:36
affairs it was Edward's direct ancestor
00:26:38
William the Conqueror who more than two
00:26:40
centuries before had enshrined Latin and
00:26:43
French as a written languages of State
00:26:45
banishing
00:26:46
[Music]
00:26:51
English but as the 13th century gave way
00:26:53
to the 14s English was becoming the one
00:26:56
language out of the three that every
00:26:58
everyone in the country could be counted
00:26:59
on to no in 1325 for instance the
00:27:03
chronicler William of nassington could
00:27:06
write Latin can no one speak I TR but
00:27:09
those who it from school do know and
00:27:12
some know French but not Latin who are
00:27:14
used to court and dwell therein and some
00:27:18
know Latin though just in part whose use
00:27:20
of French is less than art and some can
00:27:24
understand English who neither Latin
00:27:26
know nor French but unlettered or
00:27:29
learned old or young all understand the
00:27:34
English
00:27:35
tongue the besty in which birds and
00:27:38
animals were portrayed and their
00:27:39
behavior made the basis for lessons in
00:27:41
Christian morality was a particular
00:27:43
medieval
00:27:46
form they were usually written as here
00:27:48
in
00:27:49
Latin but in a late 13th century example
00:27:53
the text is not in Latin but in
00:27:55
English the wild deer has two
00:27:58
properties he draws out the Viper from
00:28:01
the stone with his nose and swallows it
00:28:04
the Venom causes the deer to burn then
00:28:07
he rushes to the water and drinks the
00:28:10
devil is like the whale he tempts men to
00:28:13
follow their sinful lusts and in return
00:28:16
they find ruin it is the weak in faith
00:28:20
the little ones that he thus beguiles
00:28:23
and it was an animal which in just a few
00:28:25
years time would by a cruel twist of
00:28:27
fate giving English its greatest boost
00:28:29
yet a small black rodent with a Latin
00:28:33
[Music]
00:28:36
name ratus ratus the black
00:28:43
rat in 1348 ancestors of these black
00:28:47
rats deserted a ship that coming from
00:28:48
the continent had docked near
00:28:52
woth They Carried a deadly cargo a germ
00:28:56
that modern science calls pasturella
00:28:58
pestis that the 14th century named The
00:29:01
Great pestilence and that we know as the
00:29:04
Black
00:29:05
Death plague had come to
00:29:09
Britain infected rats carried the deadly
00:29:11
germ East then North they sought out
00:29:15
human habitations building nests in the
00:29:17
floors climbing the W and door walls
00:29:20
shedding the infected fleas that fed on
00:29:22
their blood and transmitted bubonic play
00:29:25
this is Ashwell in hartfordshire in the
00:29:28
Tower of the church some desperate Soul
00:29:30
perhaps the parish priest scratched a
00:29:32
poignant record on the wall in bad
00:29:38
Latin the first pestilence was in 1350
00:29:42
minus1
00:29:44
1350 pitiless wild violent only the
00:29:48
dregs of the people live to tell the
00:29:53
tale the drgs were those of the
00:29:55
English-speaking peasantry who'd
00:29:57
survived
00:29:58
though the Black Death was a human
00:30:00
catastrophe it set in train a series of
00:30:02
social upheavals which would speed the
00:30:05
English language along the road to full
00:30:06
restoration as the real and recognized
00:30:09
language of the
00:30:13
[Music]
00:30:18
nation for one thing the Black Death
00:30:20
dealt Latin the language of the church a
00:30:22
body
00:30:25
blur where people live communally as the
00:30:28
clergy did in monasteries and other
00:30:29
religious orders the incidence of
00:30:31
infection and death was
00:30:32
disproportionately
00:30:35
high at a local level many parish
00:30:37
priests either caught the plague from
00:30:39
tending their parishioners or simply ran
00:30:44
away as a result of the plague the
00:30:46
latin-speaking clergy in some parts of
00:30:48
England were reduced by almost a
00:30:53
half many of their Replacements were
00:30:55
barely literate laymen whose only
00:30:57
language was
00:30:58
[Music]
00:31:19
[Applause]
00:31:24
English England after the Black Death
00:31:26
was a very different place
00:31:28
place in many parts of the country there
00:31:31
was hardly anyone left to work the land
00:31:32
or tend the
00:31:34
livestock the acute shortage of Labor
00:31:36
meant that those who did the work had
00:31:38
the power to break from their feudal
00:31:40
past and demand better conditions higher
00:31:45
wages times were changing
00:31:59
wages Rose the price of property fell
00:32:03
working people seized the opportunities
00:32:05
they never had
00:32:07
before the fortunes of the common people
00:32:09
were changing they were Rising through
00:32:12
society and they took their English with
00:32:17
them by 1385 English had replaced French
00:32:20
in the school room and as education and
00:32:22
literacy spread so did the demand for
00:32:24
books in English and English was already
00:32:27
finding a place in the state and in the
00:32:31
law in 1362 for the first time in three
00:32:34
centuries English was acknowledged as a
00:32:37
language of official
00:32:38
business since the conquest court cases
00:32:41
had been heard in French now the law
00:32:44
recognized that too few people
00:32:46
understood that language probably
00:32:47
because many of the educated lawyers had
00:32:49
died in the plague from now on it was
00:32:52
declared cases could be pleaded showed
00:32:54
defended debated and judged in English
00:32:57
in in the same year 1362 Parliament was
00:33:00
opened here at Westminster for the first
00:33:03
time ever the chancellor addressed the
00:33:05
assembly not in French but in English
00:33:08
for the worship and honor of God King
00:33:11
Edward hath sued his prelates Dukes
00:33:14
Earls Barons and other Lords of hisra to
00:33:18
which Parliament Holden at Westminster
00:33:21
the year of the king six and soon
00:33:24
English would once again be the language
00:33:26
of Kings the country hadn't had an
00:33:28
English-speaking Monarch since Harold
00:33:30
had been hacked to death at Hastings in
00:33:32
1066 in 1399 King Richard II was deposed
00:33:36
by Henry Duke of Lancaster Parliament
00:33:38
was summoned here to the Great Hall at
00:33:40
Westminster the Dukes and Lords
00:33:42
spiritual and Temple were assembled the
00:33:44
Royal Throne draped in cloth of gold
00:33:47
stood empty then Henry stepped forward
00:33:50
crossed himself and claimed the crowd
00:33:52
and in a great symbolic moment he made
00:33:55
his speech not in the Latin language of
00:33:57
State business
00:33:58
or the French language of the royal
00:33:59
household but in what the official
00:34:01
history calls his mother tongue
00:34:05
English in the name of the father Son
00:34:08
and Holy Ghost he Henry of Lancaster
00:34:13
challenge this realm of England and the
00:34:16
corona with all the members and the
00:34:19
apperances
00:34:21
[Music]
00:34:24
Des of the blood coming from the King
00:34:28
Henry
00:34:29
thir and that that God of his graa had
00:34:34
sent me with the help of mein and of me
00:34:38
friendes to recover it the which was in
00:34:43
point to Bear undone for the fult of
00:34:47
governance and undoing of the God allows
00:34:54
[Music]
00:35:06
and so Henry Duke of Lancaster became
00:35:08
King Henry IV and English was once again
00:35:10
a royal language the tide seemed to be
00:35:13
turning in its favor by the end of the
00:35:16
14th century it was on course to regain
00:35:18
its status as the first language of the
00:35:20
country and now it also had a literary
00:35:22
champion who could harness its full
00:35:24
capabilities to produce great writing
00:35:27
Jeffrey
00:35:27
[Music]
00:35:38
one that ail with his sh as s the D of
00:35:42
March ha ped to the root and bathed
00:35:45
every Vine in such lior of which virtue
00:35:48
engendered is the
00:35:50
Flor Juan zephirus ache with his sweater
00:35:53
breath in spirit hath in every Halt and
00:35:56
ha the tender crops and the young son
00:36:00
hath in the ram his halfy Cory
00:36:03
Ron and smile fool as ma that s with
00:36:12
open long and folk to going on
00:36:15
[Music]
00:36:18
pilgrimage she also wrote those opening
00:36:20
showery lines to the Canterbury Tales
00:36:22
more than 6 centuries ago in 1387 for
00:36:25
millions of people since the Canterbury
00:36:26
Tales have been the flowering of the
00:36:28
medieval English language and also a
00:36:30
great staging post for English
00:36:34
[Music]
00:36:38
literature Cher pictured here as one of
00:36:40
his own pilgrims wasn't the only writer
00:36:42
of his time and he didn't invent the
00:36:44
language he was working with but he more
00:36:46
than any other recognized its richness
00:36:49
the potential in having at his disposal
00:36:51
vocabularies from high and low Society
00:36:53
drawn from French and Old English and he
00:36:55
worked it to the full
00:36:58
[Music]
00:37:01
cha was a Londoner and an important man
00:37:03
with connections to the royal family and
00:37:05
a high position in the Civil
00:37:08
Service he traveled widely perhaps even
00:37:10
being a spy and he knew Latin and
00:37:14
French he might have been expected like
00:37:16
many other English Poets of the time to
00:37:18
write in either of those languages for
00:37:19
an exclusive audience but he didn't he
00:37:23
chose to write in English the English
00:37:25
that was spoken in London
00:37:27
[Music]
00:37:28
language of of London would have been a
00:37:30
a huge mixture you've got people coming
00:37:33
in from um the central Midlands from the
00:37:35
northern Midlands from the northern
00:37:37
Midlands they' have bringing more
00:37:38
Scandinavian terms because it's an area
00:37:40
of strong Scandinavian settlement but
00:37:42
we'd have also have heard French Lan
00:37:44
Words which people would have heard in
00:37:46
literature as well so it's it's it's a a
00:37:50
vibrant variety of English
00:37:54
[Music]
00:38:08
be that in that season on a inw at the
00:38:12
tabard ready to wend on pilgrimage to
00:38:16
with full
00:38:18
devote at was com into that
00:38:22
hos in
00:38:24
[Music]
00:38:26
a this is what the tabin used to stand
00:38:29
now it's the rather dismal backyard of
00:38:31
gu hospital this is where Cha's pilgrims
00:38:33
gather before setting out on their
00:38:35
pilgrimage to Canterbury the buildings
00:38:37
may have gone but ch's characters a cany
00:38:40
constructed cross-section of medieval
00:38:42
society live on in his
00:38:44
[Music]
00:38:48
writing a there was and that a worthy
00:38:51
man that for the team that he first
00:38:54
began to read a note he loved shivel
00:38:58
truth and there was also a non a
00:39:01
prioress that of her sming was full
00:39:03
simple and koi a merchant was there with
00:39:07
a forked beard in mot and he on horse he
00:39:10
sat a good we was there of B bath but
00:39:15
she was Som de and that was
00:39:20
scath the Miller was a St Carl for the
00:39:23
nonis full big he was of brown and ech
00:39:26
of bonus the pilgrims set off for
00:39:30
Canterbury a journey of about 3 days
00:39:32
then and to pass the time they told each
00:39:34
other's Stories the stories have a range
00:39:36
of styles from serious moral fables to
00:39:38
bardy fces with episodes that wouldn't
00:39:41
be out of place in a carryon film what
00:39:43
cha did most brilliantly was to choose
00:39:46
and tailor his language to suit every
00:39:48
tale and its teller the creation of mood
00:39:51
and tone and the realization of
00:39:52
characters through the language is
00:39:54
something we expect of riters today so
00:39:57
it's difficult to realize how
00:39:58
extraordinary it was when cha did it he
00:40:00
showed he proved that reformed English
00:40:03
was fit for great literature which gives
00:40:05
him a key part in our story this gentil
00:40:09
[ __ ] had in his governance seven henis
00:40:13
for to all his Pleasant which were his
00:40:17
sisters and his
00:40:19
parur and wonder L to him as of colors
00:40:22
of which the firest her on here throat
00:40:26
was CID
00:40:32
fire can you tell us uh what language is
00:40:36
predominating in this particular passage
00:40:38
well you've got so many French words
00:40:40
haven't you they really hit you between
00:40:41
the eyes even today I think you you'd
00:40:43
notice him gance plance Paramore in fact
00:40:48
cha is is uh thought to be the the
00:40:51
person who introduced Paramore into the
00:40:53
English language himself and those words
00:40:56
plon
00:40:58
all appear from about the 1350s so
00:40:59
they're quite new at a time um when cha
00:41:03
used them in lpri tale question is of
00:41:05
course say why is he doing this um well
00:41:07
it's odd really isn't it because this is
00:41:09
a story about chickens it's a story
00:41:11
about a [ __ ] and his hens and you'd have
00:41:14
thought that perhaps a less refined
00:41:16
language might be in order but chos is
00:41:18
playing with a whole idea of of an
00:41:21
exalted style and so he's he's investing
00:41:24
these uh um these hens and [ __ ] with
00:41:28
uh a feeling of of great literary
00:41:32
quality you know it becomes almost a
00:41:34
mock
00:41:37
epic cha not only used existing French
00:41:40
words for poetic effect he also
00:41:42
introduced his own elevated synonyms
00:41:45
sometimes bypassing an English word in
00:41:47
favor of a more stylish French
00:41:49
[Music]
00:41:51
borrowing so English had the perfectly
00:41:54
good hard as a
00:41:55
noun ch borrowed the French word
00:41:59
difficulty in place of unap he gave us
00:42:03
disadv for shens ship dishonest for
00:42:06
building edifice for uncon ignorant and
00:42:10
for meaning
00:42:12
[Music]
00:42:15
signifiance but cha wasn't just ens
00:42:17
snared with the Elegance of French he
00:42:20
also cherished the directness and
00:42:21
earthiness of English and used it for
00:42:23
example in the Miller tale where the
00:42:25
student absol's mid assignation with the
00:42:28
neighbor's wife doesn't go quite
00:42:30
according to
00:42:32
plan this Absalon G weep his mouthful
00:42:35
Dre DK was the n as pitch or as the coal
00:42:40
and at the window would she put her
00:42:43
whole and absolon him feel bet no worse
00:42:46
but with his M he kissed her knacked
00:42:51
ears the language of course is
00:42:53
predominantly Old English and again
00:42:55
chosa is aware of what linguist would
00:42:57
call register he knows that you have to
00:42:59
have a particular style for a particular
00:43:02
Purpose with Miller tale we have both
00:43:05
the Miller himself who is a man of
00:43:07
extraordinary quality so he opens doors
00:43:09
simply by running at them with his head
00:43:10
which is a clever trick and the story
00:43:13
itself is as you know about bottoms out
00:43:15
of Windows and other such thing and of
00:43:17
course in that case it's appropriate to
00:43:20
have a simple earthy style he knows that
00:43:23
if he's talking about basic earthy stuff
00:43:26
he might as as well use Good Old English
00:43:29
words and I think it's actually marked
00:43:31
that use by not using many French words
00:43:33
I think people would have picked up on
00:43:34
that we certainly do the style seems
00:43:37
very direct almost colloquial of course
00:43:39
that's literally
00:43:41
artifice but it does seem direct and
00:43:43
colloquial and that's as a complete
00:43:45
result of the way in which he's using
00:43:47
the language the language he'd have
00:43:49
heard on the streets words like s
00:43:51
meaning ass I'm afraid and other such
00:43:54
rude words
00:43:55
[Music]
00:43:57
Scholars dispute how much vocabulary cha
00:44:00
actually introduced into English with
00:44:02
Old English he certainly reintroduced
00:44:04
Words which hadn't been written down
00:44:06
since before 1100 probably because they
00:44:08
weren't considered important or seemly
00:44:10
enough words like cherish farting
00:44:14
friendly learning loving Restless swiven
00:44:19
wasp wely and
00:44:23
willingly the brilliant Archbishop son
00:44:25
of a French Merchant had been brutally
00:44:28
murdered in 1170 by Knights acting on
00:44:30
the wishes if not instructions of Henry
00:44:32
II that first plantagenet whose wife
00:44:34
Elena had done so much to promote the
00:44:37
courtly French language which cha was
00:44:39
now mining so
00:44:49
expertly in ch's day this area around
00:44:52
the cathedral and the nearby streets
00:44:54
would have been thronged with pilgrims
00:44:55
from all over the country well the
00:44:57
thronging hasn't changed but they would
00:44:59
have been speaking in the dialect of
00:45:01
their homes English wasn't uniform in
00:45:04
the way it was spoken and Cha himself in
00:45:06
the Reeves tale gives us literature's
00:45:08
first F norer who speaks with flat
00:45:11
vowels he says him for home n for no Gan
00:45:16
for gone and Nan for non all
00:45:18
pronunciations that will be quite
00:45:20
understandable in the northeast of
00:45:21
England today cha himself worried about
00:45:25
whether his work would be mispronounced
00:45:26
or wrongly copied or just misunderstood
00:45:29
in other parts of the country he bids
00:45:31
one of his poems trus and cresa a rather
00:45:34
worried farewell voicing a concern he
00:45:36
must also have felt for the Canterbury
00:45:39
Tales go little book and for there is so
00:45:43
great diversity in English and in
00:45:45
reading of our tongue so pray God that
00:45:48
none misre they n they mism for def out
00:45:52
of tongue and read where so the B Oris
00:45:55
song that the B
00:45:58
understand a god
00:46:02
Bes of course Cha's books particularly
00:46:04
the C Tales were
00:46:06
understood his language the language of
00:46:09
late 14th century London would become
00:46:11
with some later modifications the
00:46:13
standard form of English and his genius
00:46:16
in harnessing that language to serve his
00:46:18
vision as a writer would guarantee that
00:46:20
it lived
00:46:23
on a Century and a half after his death
00:46:25
Jeffrey Scher was F famous enough for
00:46:27
this tomb to be put in Westminster Abbey
00:46:30
in the intervening years his tales had
00:46:32
spread around the country and delighted
00:46:34
listeners and readers ranging from
00:46:36
London Merchants to the Future Richard
00:46:38
III before the 15th century was out the
00:46:41
kbur tales had been printed by Thomas
00:46:43
kton ensuring the future of Cha's work
00:46:46
and furthering the process by which
00:46:47
southern English Cha's English would
00:46:50
become the
00:46:51
standard cha was the first poet to be
00:46:53
buried here in what's become poet's
00:46:56
corner it's appropriate for the man who
00:46:58
not only entertained and delighted in
00:47:00
his own work but who through expanding
00:47:02
the capabilities of the English language
00:47:04
created a standard and a platform for
00:47:06
those who followed
00:47:08
[Music]
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