irregularities, to remove several of the English Bishops and Abbots, whose places were in like manner immediately supplied by Foreigners. In short, in the space of a very few years, all the Sees of England were filled with Normans, or strangers naturalized, if I may so say, in Normandy, and the greatest part of the Abbeys in the kingdom were under governours of the same description.

§ vi. It must be allowed, that the confessed superiority 16 in literature of the Norman clergy over the English at that time furnished the King with a specious pretext for these promotions; and it is probable, that the Prelates, who were thus promoted, made use of the same pretext to justify themselves in disposing of all their best benefices among their friends and countrymen. That this was their constant practice is certain. Nor were the new Abbots less industrious to stock their convents 17 with Foreigners, whom they invited over from the Continent, partly perhaps for the pleasure of their society, and partly, as we may suppose, in expectation of their support against the cabals of the English monks. And when the great Barons, following the royal example, applied themselves to make their peace with the Church by giving her a share of their plunder, it was their usual custom to begin their religious establishments with a colony 18 from some Norman Monastery.

§ VII. In this state of things, which seems to have continued 19 with little variation to the

of the degradation of Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Agelmar, Bishop of the East Saxons, he proceeds thus: Abbates etiam aliqui ibi degradati sunt, operam dante rege ut quamplures ex Anglis suo honore privarentur, în quorum locum suæ gentis personas subrogavit, ob confirmationem sui (quod noviter acquisierat) regni. Hic et nonnullus, tam episcopos quam Abbates, quos nulla evidenti causa nec concilia nec leges seculi damnabant, suis honoribus privavit, et usque ad finem vitæ custodiæ mancipatos detinuit, suspicione, ut diximus, tantum inductus novi regni.

In confirmation of what is said here and in the text, if we examine the subscriptions to an Ecclesiastical Constitution in 1072, ap. Will. Malm. 1. iii. p. 117. we find that the two Archbishops, seven Bishops out of eleven, and six Abbots out of twelve, were Foreigners: and in about five years more the four other Bishopricks, and five at least of the other six Abbeys, were in the hands of Foreigners.

Another Ecclesiastical Constitution made at this time has very much the appearance of a political regulation. It orders" that the Bishops' seats shall be removed from towns to cities;" and in consequence of it the See of Lichefield was removed to Chester; that of Solesey to Chichester; that of Elmham to Thetford, and afterwards to Norwich; that of Shireburne to Salisbury, and that of Dorchester to Lincoln. Will. Malm. 1. iii. p. 118. When the King had got a set of Bishops to his mind, he would wish to have them placed where their influence coud be of most service to him.

16 Ordericus Vitalis, 1. iv. p. 519. says, that the Normans at the Conquest found the English, "agrestes et pene illiteratos;" and he imputes, with some probability, the decay of learning among them, from the time of Beda and others, to the continual ravages and oppressions of the Danes. See also William of Malmesbury, 1. iii. p. 101, 2. It may be observed too, from Continuat. Hist. Croyland, by Peter of Blois, p. 114. that the first regular lectures (of which we have any account) at Cambridge were read there by four foreign Monks, who had come over into England with Jeffrey, Abbot of Croyland, formerly Prior of St. Evroul. They are said to have read "diversis in locis a se divisi et formam Aurelianensis studii secuti,” three of them in Grammar, Logick, and Rhetorick, and the fourth in Theology.

17 See the preceding note. There was no great harmony at first between the English monks and their new governours. See the proceedings at Glastonbury under Thurstin [Will. Malm. 1. iii. p. 110], and at Canterbury against Wido. [Chron. Saxon. p. 179, 180. ed. Gibson.]

18 The Conquerour had put Goisbert, a monk of Marmontier, at the head of his new foundation of Battle Abbey. Ord. Vital. 1. iv. p. 505. In like manner Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, sent for Monks from Sées to begin his Abbey at Shrewsbury. Id. 1. iv. p. 581. Walter Espec also brought over Monks of Clervaulx to fill his two Abbeys, of Rivaulx, and Wardun. Ailr. Rievali. ap. X Script. p. 338.

Beside these and many other independent foundations, which were in this manner opened for the reception of foreign Monks in preference to the natives, a considerable number of Religious Houses were built and endowed, as cells to different monasteries abroad; and as such were constantly filled by detachments from the superiour society They are frequently mentioned in our histories under the general name of the Alien Priories; and though several of them, upon various pretexts, had withdrawn themselves from their foreign connexions and been made denizens, no less than one hundred and forty remained in 1414, which were then all suppressed and their revenues vested in the crown. See the List, Monnst, Angl. v. i. p. 1035.

19 I suppose that, during this whole period of above 250 years, the English language was continually gaining ground,

time of Edward III. it is probable, that the French and English languages subsisted together throughout the kingdom; the higher orders, both of the Clergy and Laity 20, speaking almost

by slow and almost imperceptible degrees, in proportion nearly as the English natives were emerging from that state of depression in which they were placed by the Conquest. We have no reason to believe that much progress was made in either of these matters before the reign of King John. The loss of Normandy &c. in that reign, and the consequent regulations of Henry III. and Louis IX. by which the subjects of either crown were made incapable of holding lands in the dominions of the other [Matth. Paris, ad an. 1244], must have greatly diminished the usual conflux of Normans to the English court; and the intestine commotions in this country under John and Henry III. in which so many of the greater Barons lost their lives and estates, must eventually have opened a way for the English to raise themselves to honours and possessions, to which they had very rarely before been admitted to aspire.

In the year 1258, the 42 Henry III. we have a particular instance (the first, I believe, of the kind) of attention on the side of government to the English part of the community. The Letters Patent, which the King was advised to publish in support of the Oxford Provisions, were sent to each County in Latin, French, and English. [Annal. Burton. p. 416. One of them has been printed from the Patent roll, 43 II. III. n. 40. m. 15. by Somner in his Dict. Sax. V. UNNAN, and by Hearne, Text. Roff. p. 391.] At the same time all the proceedings in the business of the Provisions appear to have been carried on in French, and the principal persons in both parties are evidently of foreign extraction. If a conjecture may be allowed in a matter so little capable of proof, I should think it probable, that the necessity, which the great Barons were under at this time, of engaging the body of the people to support them in their opposition to a new set of foreigners, chiefly Poitevins, contributed very much to abolish the invidious distinctions which had long subsisted between the French and English parts of the nation. In the early times after the Conquest, if we may believe Henry of Huntingdon [L. vi. p. 370.] “to be called an Englishman was a reproach: "but when the Clares, the Bohuns, the Bigods, &c. were raising armies for the expulsion of Foreigners out of the kingdom, they would not probably be unwilling to have themselves considered as natives of England. Accordingly Matthew Paris [p. 833.] calls Hugh Bigod (a brother of the Earl Marshall) virum de terra Anglorum naturalem et ingenuum; and in another passage [p. 851.] he appropriates the title of "alienigena" to those foreigners, “qui Reginæ attinentes per eam introducti fuerant in Angliam :" and so perhaps the word ought generally to be understood in the transactions of that reign. None but persons born out of England were then esteemed as Foreigners.

About the same time we find an Archbishop of York objecting to Clerks (recommended to benefices by the Pope), because they were "ignorant of the English language" [Mat. Par. p. 831.]; which seems to imply, that a knowledge of that language was then considered among the proper qualifications of an Ecclesiastick; but that it was not necessarily required, even in the Parochial Clergy, appears from the great number of foreign Parsons, Vicars, &c. who had the King's Letters of protection in the 25th year of Edward I. See the Lists in Prynne, t. i. p. 709–720.

The testimony of Robert of Gloucester (who lived in the times of H. III. and E. I.) is so full and precise to this point, that I trust the Reader will not be displeased to see it in his own words, or rather in the words of that very incorrect MS. which Hearne has religiously followed in his edition.

Rob. Glouc. p. 364.

Thus come lo! Engelond into Normannes honde.

And the Normans ne couthe speke tho bote her owe speche,

And speke Frenche as 'dude atom, and here chyldren dude al so teche.

So that hey men of thys lond, that of her blod come,

Holdeth alle thulke speche, that hii of hem nome.

Vor bote a man couthe French, me tolth of hym wel lute;

Ac lowe men holdeth to Englyss and to her kunde speche 'yute.

Ich wene ther ne be man in world contreyes none,

That ne holdeth to her kunde speche, bote Engelond one.

Ac wel me wot vor to conne bothe wel yt ys,

Vor the more that a man con, the more worth ǹe ys.

I shall throw together here a few miscellaneous facts in confirmation of this general testimony of Robert of Gloucester.

A letter of Hugh, Bishop of Coventry, preserved by Hoveden [p. 704.] assures us, that William, Bishop of Ely, Chancellor and Prime Minister to Richard I. " linguam Anglicanam prorsus ignorabat."

In the reign of Henry III. Robert of Gloucester, intending, as it should seem, to give the very words of Peter, Bishop of Hereford (whom he has just called "a Freinss bishop "), makes him speak thus.-" Par Crist," he sede, "Sir Tomas, tu is maveis. Meint ben te ay fet." Rob. Glouc. p. 537.

There is a more pleasant instance of the familiar use of the French language by a bishop, as late as the time of Edward II. Louis, consecrated Bishop of Durham in 1318, was unfortunately very illiterate-"laicus; Latinum non

universally French, the lower retaining the use of their native tongue, but also frequently adding to it a knowledge of the other. The general inducements which the English had to acquire the French language have been touched upon above; to which must be added, that the children, who were put to learn Latin, were under a necessity of learning French at the same time, as it was the constant practice in all schools, from the Conquest 21 till about the reign of Edward III. to make the scholars construe their Latin lessons into French. From the discontinuance of this practice, as well as from other causes, the use and, probably, the knowledge of French, as a separate language, received a considerable check. In the 36th year of Edward III. a law 22 was made, ❝ that all pleas, in the courts of the King or of any other Lord,

intelligens, sed cum difficultate pronuncians. Unde, cum in consecratione suâ profiteri debuit, quamvis per multos dies ante instructorem habuisset, legere nescivit: et cum, auriculantibus [f. articulantibus] aliis, cum difficultate ad illud verbum metropolitica pervenisset, et diu anhelans pronunciare non posset, dixit in Gallico; Seit pur dite.—Et cum similiter celebraret ordines, nec illud verbum in ænigmate proferre posset, dixit circumstantibus: Par Scint Lowys, il ne fu pas curteis, qui ceste parole ici escrit." Hist. Dunelm, ap. Wharton, Ang. Sac. t. i. p. 761.

The transactions at Norham, in 1291, the 20 Ed. I. with respect to the Scottish Succession, appear to have been almost wholly carried on in French, for which it is difficult to account but by supposing that language to have been the language of the Court in both nations. See the Roll de Superior. Reg. Angl. in Prynne, t. i. p. 487, et seq. Edward's claim of the Superiority is first made by Sir Roger Brabanson Sermone Gallico; and afterwards the Bishop of Bath and Wells, and the King himself, speak to the assembly of English and Scots in the same language. Ibid. p. 499. 501.

The answers of the Bishop of Durham to the Pope's Nuncioes in Gallico [Walt. Hemingf. ad an. 1295.] may be supposed to have been out of complaisance to the Cardinals, (though, by the way, they do not appear to have been Frenchmen;) but no such construction can be put upon the following fact related by Matthew of Westminster [ad an. 1301. p. 438.] The Archbishop of Canterbury informs the Pope, that he had presented his Holinesses letters to the King in a full court, "quas ipse dominus rex reverenter recipiens, eas publice legi coram omnibus, et in Gallicâ linguâ fecerat patenter exponi."

21 Ingulphus, a contemporary writer, informs us that this practice began at the Conquest, p. 71. "Ipsum etiam, idioma [Anglicum] tantum abhorrebant [Normanni], quod leges terræ statutaque Anglicorum regum linguâ Gallied tractarentur; et pueris etiam in scholis principia literarum grammatica Gallice ac non Anglice traderentur; modus etiam scribendi Anglicus omitteretur, et modus Gallicus in chartis et in libris omnibus admitteretur.”—And Trevisa, the translator and augmenter of Higden's Polychronicon in the reign of Richard II. gives us a very particular account of its beginning to be disused within his own memory. The two passages of Higden and Trevisa throw so much light upon the subject of our present enquiry, that I shall insert them both at length, from MS. Harl. 1900. as being more correct in several places than the MS, from which Dr. Hickes formerly printed them in his Præf. ad Thes. Ling. Septent. p. xvii.

HIGDEN'S Polychron. b. i. c. lix. This apayringe of the birthe tonge is by cause of tweye thinges: oon is for children in scole, azenes the usage and maner of alle other naciouns, beth compelled for to leve her owne langage, and for to constrewe her lessouns and her thingis a Frensche, and haveth siththe that the Normans come first into England. Also gentil mennes children beth ytauzt for to speke Frensche, from the tyme that thei beth rokked in her cradel, and kunneth speke and playe with a childes brooche. And uplondish men wole likne hem self to gentil men, and fondeth with grete bisynesse for to speke Frensche, for to be the more ytold of.

TREVISA. This maner was myche yused to fore the first moreyn, and is siththe som del ychaungide. For John Cornwaile, a maistre of grammer, chaungide the lore in grammer scole and construction of Frensch into Englisch, and Richard Pencriche lerned that maner teching of him, and other men of Pencriche. So that now, the zere of oure lord a thousand thre hundred foure score and fyve, of the secunde king Rychard after the Conquest nyne, in alle the gramer scoles of Englond children leveth Frensch, and construeth and lerneth an Englisch, and haveth therby avauntage in oon side and desavauntage in another. Her avauntage is, that thei lerneth her grammer in lasse tyme than children were wont to do. Desavauntage is, that now children of grammer scole kunneth no more Frensch tha can her lifte heele. And that is harm for hem, and thei schul passe the see and travaile in strange londes, and in many other places also. Also gentel men haveth now mych ylefte for to teche her children Frensch.

22 This celebrated statute is said by Walsinghamı [p. 179.] to have been made "ad petitionem Communitatis ;" but no such petition appears upon the Parliament-roll: and it seems rather to have been an Act of Grace, moving from the King, who on the same day entered into the fiftieth year of his age; "unde in suo Jubileo populo suo se exhibuit gratiosum." Walsing. ibid. It is remarkable too, that the cause of summons at the beginning of this Parliament was declared by Sir Henry Greene, Chief Justice, en Engleis (says the Record for the first time): and the same Entry is repeated in the Records of the Parliaments 37 and 38 Edw. III. but not in those of 40 Edw. III. or of any later Parliament; either because the custom of opening the cause of summons in French was restored again after that

shall be pleaded and judged in the English tongue," and the preamble recites, "that the French tongue (in which they had been usually pleaded, &c.) was too much unknown," or disused; and yet, for near threescore years after this 23 the proceedings in Parliament, with very few exceptions, appear to have been all in French, and the statutes continued to be published in the same language, for above one hundred and twenty years, till the first of Richard III.

§ VIII. From what has been said I think we may fairly conclude, that the English language must have imbibed a strong tincture of the French, long before the age of Chaucer, and consequently that he ought not to be charged as the importer of words and phrases, which he only used after the example of his predecessors and in common with his contemporaries This was the real fact, and is capable of being demonstrated to any one, who will take the trouble of comparing the writings of Chaucer with those of 4 Robert of Gloucester and Robert of Brunne, who both lived before him, and with those of Sir John Mandeville and Wicliff, who lived at the same time with him. If we coud for a moment suppose the contrary; if we coud suppose that the English idiom, in the age of Chaucer, remained pure and unmixed, as it was spoken in the courts of Alfred or Egbert, and that the French was still a foreign, or at least a separate language; I would ask, whether it is credible, that a Poet, writing in English upon the most familiar subjects, would stuff his compositions with French words and phrases, which, upon the above supposition, must have been unintelligible to the greatest part of his readers; or, if he had been so very absurd, is it conceivable, that he should have immediately become not only the most admired, but also the most popular writer of his time and country?

short interval, or, perhaps, because the new practice of opening it in English was so well established, in the opinion of the Clerk, as not to need being marked by a special Entry.

The reasons assigned, in the preamble to this Statute, for having Pleas and Judgements in the English tongue might all have been urged, with at least equal force, for having the Laws themselves in that language. But the times were not yet ripe for that innovation. The English scale was clearly beginning to preponderate, but the slowness of its motion proves that it had a great weight to overcome.

23 All the Parliamentary proceedings in English before 1422, the first of Henry VI. are the few which follow. The Confession of Thomas Duke of Gloucester, taken at Calais by William Rickhill and recorded in Parliament, inter Plac. Coron. 21 Ric. II. n. 9. It is printed in Tyrrell, v. iii. p. 793.

Some passages in the Deposition of Richard II. printed at the end of Knighton, int. X Scriptores.

The ordinance between William Lord the Roos and Robert Tirwhitt, Justice of the King's Bench, 13 Hen. IV. n. 18. A Petition of the Commons with the King's answer. 2 Hen. V. n. 22.

A Proviso in English inserted into a French grant of a Disme and Quinzisme. 9 Hen. V. n. 10.

At the beginning of the reign of Henry VI. the two languages seem to have been used indifferently. The Subsidy of Wolle, &c. was granted in English. 1 Hen. VI. n. 19. A Proviso in French was added by the Commons to the Articles for the Council of Regency, which are in English Ibid. n. 33. Even the Royal Assent was given to Bills in English. 2 Hen. VI. and n. 54. Be it ordeined as it is asked. Be it as it is axed.—and again, n. 55. I have stated this matter so particularly, in order to shew, that when the French language ceased to be generally understood, it was gradually disused in Parliamentary proceedings; and from thence, I think, we may fairly infer, that while it was used in those proceedings, constantly and exclusively of the English, it must have been very generally understood.

Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle has been published by Hearne, Oxf. 1724, faithfully, I dare say, but from incorrect MSS. The author speaks of himself [p. 560.] as living at the time of the Battle of Evesham in 1265; and from another passage [p. 224.] he seems to have lived beyond the year 1278, though his history ends in 1270. See Hearne's Pref. p. lxviii.

Robert Manning of Brunne, or Bourn, in Lincolnshire, translated into English rimes, from the French of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, a treatise called " Manuel de Péchés," as early as the year 1303. This work of his has never been printed, but is preserved among the Harleian MSS. n. 1701. and the Bodleian, n. 2323. He also translated from the French an history of England: the first part, or Gesta Britonum, from Master Wace: the remainder, to the death of Edward L. from Peter of Langtoft. His translation was finished in 1333. The latter part, with some extracts from the former, was printed by Hearne in 1725, from a single MS.

Sir John Mandeville's account of his Travells was written in 1356. In the last edition, Lond. 1727, the text is said to have been formed from a collation of several MSS. and seems to be tolerably correct.

Wicliff died in 1384. His translation of the New Testament was printed for the first time by Lewis, Lond. 1731. There is an immense Catalogue of other works, either really his or ascribed to him, still extant in MS. See his Life by Lewis; and Tanner, Bibl. Brit.

PART THE SECOND.

HAVING thus endeavoured to shew, in opposition to the ill-grounded censures of Verstegan and Skinner, that the corruption, or improvement, of the English language by a mixture of French was not originally owing to Chaucer, I shall proceed, in the second part of this Essay, to make some observations upon the most material peculiarities of that Norman-Saxon dialect, which I suppose to have prevailed in the age of Chaucer, and which, in substance, remains to this day the language of England.

§ 1. By what means the French tongue was first introduced and propagated in this island has been sufficiently explained above; but to ascertain with any exactness the degrees, by which it insinuated itself and was ingrafted into the Saxon, would be a much more difficult task 25, for want of a regular series of the writings of approved authors transmitted to us by authentic copies. Luckily for us, as our concern is solely with that period when the incorporation of the two languages was completed, it is of no great importance to determine the precise time at which any word or phrase became naturalized; and for the same reason, we have no need to enquire minutely, with respect to the other alterations, which the Saxon language in its several stages appears to have undergone, how far they proceeded from the natural mutability of human speech, especially among an unlearned people, and how far they were owing to a successive conflux of Danish and Norman invaders.

§ 11. The following observations therefore will chiefly refer to the state, in which the English language appears to have been about the time of Chaucer, and they will naturally divide themselves into two parts. The first will consider the remains of the antient Saxon mass, however defaced or disguised by various accidents; the second will endeavour to point out the nature and effects of the accessions, which, in the course of near three centuries, it had received from Normandy.

§ 1. For the sake of method it will be convenient to go through the several parts of speech in the order, in which they are commonly ranged by Grammarians.

1. The Prepositive Article re, reo, þat, (which answered to the 8, 4, 70, of the Greeks, in all its varieties of gender, case, and number,) had been long laid aside, and instead of it an indeclinable the was prefixed to all sorts of nouns, in all cases, and in both numbers.

2. The Declensions of the Nouns Substantive were reduced from six to one; and instead of a variety of cases in both numbers, they had only a Genitive case singular, which was uniformly deduced from the Nominative by adding to it es; or only s, if it ended in an e feminine; and that same form was used to express the Plural number in all its cases: as, Nom. Shour, Gen. Shoures, Plur. Shoures. Nom. Name, Gen. Names, Plur. Names.

The Nouns Adjective had lost all distinction of Gender, Case, or Number.

25 In order to trace with exactness the progress of any language, it seems necessary, 1. that we should have before us a continued series of authors; 2. that those authors should have been approved, as having written, at least, with purity; and 3. that their writings should have been correctly copied. In the English language, we have scarce any authors within the first century after the Conquest; of those, who wrote before Chaucer, and whose writings have been preserved, we have no testimony of approbation from their contemporaries or successors; and lastly, the Copies of their works, which we have received, are in general so full of inaccuracies, as to make it often very difficult for us to be assured, that we are in possession of the genuine words of the Author.

26 It is scarce necessary to take notice of a few Plurals, which were expressed differently, though their number was greater in the time of Chaucer than it is now. Some of them seem to retain their termination in en from the second Declension of the Saxons; as oxen, eyen, hosen, &c. Others seem to have adopted it euphoniæ gratiâ; us, brethren, eyren, instead of, boðpu, æzu. And a few seem to have been always irregularly declined; as, men, wimmea, mice, lice, fect, &c. See Hickes, Gr. A. S. p. 11, 12.