Is it inaccurate to state that the Great Plague helped make English dominant in England?
I recently learned that English was not driven underground by French for 300 years as some websites claim. I want to establish if another account I have seen written is also a myth, namely that the Great Plague (bubonic plague) that struck medieval England made English the dominant language by thinning out the ranks of the nobility/aristocracy and a great many monks made English the dominant language. French had already been in retreat within a generation of the Norman invading England to the point where it was already a foreign language.
I look forward to your feedback.
davidmich
In Britain, at any rate, the “Great Plague” usually refers to the epidemic of plague that swept London and other parts of England in the 17th century. English was already thoroughly well established as the national language well before then.
You are probably thinking of what is more commonly known as the “Black Death”, the plague epidemic that devastated much of Europe, including England, in the second half of the 14th century. It may have had some relevant effects on the language, but I think it would be a major exaggeration to say that it played a crucial role in making English into the national language. Although French was the language of the ruling elite for a while in the wake of the Norman conquest in 1066, English (albeit in a form very unlike the English of today) never ceased to be the main language of the majority of the population, and, over the next few centuries, it was gradually taken on by the ruling classes too, picking up some elements of French (and transforming in other ways, too) in the process. It is true that some of the earliest post-conquest uses of English as a literary language, such as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Langland’s Piers Plowman appeared at around the time of the Black Death, but I do not think that temporal coincidence necessarily implies a causal connection between the events. If the Black Death had preferentially wiped out the Norman-descended ruling classes, that might have made a difference, but I do not think that was the case at all. Probably a greater proportion of peasants died. (And I rather think that even the ruling elite were largely English speaking, or at least bi-lingual, by this time.)
The Great Plague, just like earlier plagues, was much harder on the lower classes than the upper classes, as they were the ones living in conditions that supported it, and in less position to leave and go somewhere where they were less likely to contract it. (It’s pretty much impossible find firm numbers on deaths, but it’s generally acknowledged that they were heaviest among the poor. This is one of the more readable (and less plagued (heh) with nonsense) sites I could find about it online..)
So, yes, even if you feel that French being a common language among the nobles - and it was never the language of the common people, as, on preview, I see that njtt mentioned - made it ‘dominant’ (and by the time of the Great Plague, it really wasn’t actually that common even among the nobility), it is inaccurate to say that the Great Plague (or even the earlier plagues, which, again, hit the common people the hardest*) had anything at all to do with breaking that dominance.
This is, ironically, why the Black Death was so critical in creating a shift away from the feudal system - with the people who did the actual work in much shorter supply, they became valuable assets rather than disposable commodities.
Thanks njtt. I had confused some of my terms. I meant to say Black Death. Thanks for pointing that out. It would be helpful to find some respected scholarly workds on that period in its relation to the development of English. Can you recommend any?
The story I’ve heard is that the shift to speaking English among the nobles came about following the adoption of Parisian French by the French nobility. This resulted in the Anglo Normans being mocked for their accent when at the French court so they resorted to speaking English. No idea if this is true!
Yes, it is inaccurate to state that. As noted English was always the language of the bulk of the population and the nobility rapidly acquired the new tongue in inverse relationship to their status - the lower their rank and close the ties to the English countryside, the faster they became at least bilingual. French lingered longest at the very top of the food chain ( i.e. the royal court ) - Edward II notably made his coronation oath in French. But English finally became the official court tongue of England in 1332 after Edward III’s accession and the language of the courts in 1362. The Black Death didn’t reach England until 1348 ;).
Poking about it seems Henry IV was the first to actually take his coronation oath in English. It should be noted that Edward III was the son of a French princess and likely still pretty French in culture. The move towards English as an official language was at least partly part of the propaganda war with France.
Also worth noting that of course bilingualism went both ways - plenty of native English learned French as a second language because it became the language of the elites for centuries.
David Crystalhas written extensively on the development of the English language.
I assume you mean serious popular works, not scholarly works. Amateurs can’t read a scholar work on linguistics any more than they can read scholarly works on physics.
Thanks Exapno Mapcase. I do mean mean scholarly works, since popular works often oversimplify and leave readers like me with more questions than answers. I’ve developed a real aversion for popular history books for the simple reason that they often oversimplify important/crucial periods of history, and skirt/avoid entangled issues that scholars enjoy sinking their teeth into. So if you do know of scholarly works, I would welcome that.
davidmich
I believe that it was the loss of the French holdings of the English nobility that effectively finally forced the aristocracy to turn away from French as a language.
This was of course when England itself was under threat from Spain, so the idea of a foreign speaking court when faced with threats from abroad would not have gone down too well.
What the Black Death did do was to significantly loosen the ties that land holder had over their serfs - but that was also true of continental Europe too.
The accuracy is probably arguable ;). Isabella wasn’t particularly demure, but the events as listed are a little sensationalized and slanted. She actually spent a fair bit of time negotiating between the English and French thrones, apparently in good faith. At least at first. But when things soured with Edward II ( who really was kind of a childish, tempermental idiot and in the running for England’s worst king ), they really soured.
Her actual imprisonment only lasted a couple of years and had a lot more to do with her having dominated her son for several years of regency in his teens, requiring a coup to remove her. Although she was largely politically sidelined thereafter ( with some brief exceptions late in life at the behest of the government ) she lived on her own extensive estates, was quite wealthy and at least internally to England travelled and partied as she pleased. Basically she retired and lived the life of a comfortably rich, indulgent mother and grandmother for over a quarter century, outliving two of her four children.