In the Middle Ages , a squire was the shield - or armour -bearer of a knight .
90-446: By century Sir Degrevant is a Middle English romance from the early fifteenth century. Generally classified as a "composite romance," that is, a romance that does not fit easily into the standard classification of romances, it is praised for its realism and plot. The poem is preserved in two manuscripts along with a variety of secular and courtly texts, one of which was compiled by the fifteenth-century scribe Robert Thornton . It
180-501: A portmanteau of the words squire and parson . The squire would also have performed a number of important local duties, in particular that of Justice of the Peace or Member of Parliament. Such was the power of the squires at this time that modern historians have created the term 'squirearchy'. Politically, during the 19th century, squires tended to be Tories , whereas the greatest landlords tended to be Whigs . The position of squire
270-687: A Koiné language between Old Norse and Old English, though this is disputed. Viking influence on Old English is most apparent in pronouns , modals, comparatives, pronominal adverbs (like hence and together ), conjunctions, and prepositions show the most marked Danish influence. The best evidence of Scandinavian influence appears in extensive word borrowings; however, texts from the period in Scandinavia and Northern England do not provide certain evidence of an influence on syntax. However, at least one scholarly study of this influence shows that Old English may have been replaced entirely by Norse, by virtue of
360-564: A gentleman but below a knight . In the modern world, the term has correspondingly often been extended (albeit only in very formal writing) to all men without any higher title. It is used post-nominally, usually in abbreviated form: "John Smith, Esq.", for example. In the United States , this style is most common among lawyers , borrowing from the English tradition whereby all barristers were styled "esquires". ( Solicitors were entitled only to
450-461: A scutifer . The Classical Latin equivalent was armiger ("arms bearer"). The most common definition of squire refers to the Middle Ages. A well-known squire was Juleseth Von Lichtenstein, the squire of the famous Lord West. Lord West and his squire were famous for dominating many battles, and providing medical cures for deadly illnesses. A squire was typically a young boy, training to become
540-531: A character in her novel Silas Marner . One of the main characters of Anthony Trollope 's Doctor Thorne , published in 1858, is Squire Francis Newbold Gresham. Sherlock Holmes ' ancestors are mentioned to be country squires in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. The "Royal Esquires" of the late-medieval English Court were not young men studying for knighthood. Far more frequently, and certainly from Edward III to Henry VIII , they tended to be men of
630-732: A demonstrative ( þis , þat ), after a possessive pronoun (e.g., hir , our ), or with a name or in a form of address. This derives from the Old English "weak" declension of adjectives. This inflexion continued to be used in writing even after final -e had ceased to be pronounced. In earlier texts, multisyllable adjectives also receive a final -e in these situations, but this occurs less regularly in later Middle English texts. Otherwise, adjectives have no ending and adjectives already ending in -e etymologically receive no ending as well. Earlier texts sometimes inflect adjectives for case as well. Layamon's Brut inflects adjectives for
720-402: A knight. A boy became a page at the age of 7 then a squire at age 14. Squires were the second step to becoming a knight, after having served as a page . Boys served a knight as an attendant, doing simple but important tasks such as saddling a horse or caring for the knight's weapons and armour. The squire would sometimes carry the knight's flag into battle with his master. The typical jobs of
810-493: A largely Anglo-Saxon vocabulary (with many Norse borrowings in the northern parts of the country) but a greatly simplified inflectional system. The grammatical relations that were expressed in Old English by the dative and instrumental cases were replaced in Early Middle English with prepositional constructions. The Old English genitive - es survives in the -'s of the modern English possessive , but most of
900-486: A lengthened – and later also modified – pronunciation of a preceding vowel. For example, in name , originally pronounced as two syllables, the /a/ in the first syllable (originally an open syllable) lengthened, the final weak vowel was later dropped, and the remaining long vowel was modified in the Great Vowel Shift (for these sound changes, see Phonology , above). The final ⟨e⟩ , now silent, thus became
990-488: A lesser extent), and, therefore, it cannot be attributed simply to the influence of French-speaking sections of the population: English did, after all, remain the vernacular . It is also argued that Norse immigrants to England had a great impact on the loss of inflectional endings in Middle English. One argument is that, although Norse and English speakers were somewhat comprehensible to each other due to similar morphology,
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#17328374094241080-416: A letter to the earl seeking legal redress. When the earl refuses to make reparations, Degrevant avenges himself by attacking the earl's hunting troop and then his castle. During this latter engagement, the earl's daughter, Melydor, watches from the castle walls and Degrevant falls in love with her. Melydor initially rebuffs Degrevant's attempt to declare his love, but later grants it to him. Her father sets up
1170-463: A part in the plot—for instance, Degrevant ambushes the earl, and uses arrows as an offensive weapon; there is never a formal duel between the two opponents. Since the romance is concerned with household and marriage, it also opens up a space for female desire and for the discussion of the difference between male and female desire. Diamond summarizes: What women want is a handsome, valiant, wealthy and noble lover, triumph over fierce paternal opposition,
1260-572: A process called apophony ), as in Modern English. With the discontinuation of the Late West Saxon standard used for the writing of Old English in the period prior to the Norman Conquest, Middle English came to be written in a wide variety of scribal forms, reflecting different regional dialects and orthographic conventions. Later in the Middle English period, however, and particularly with
1350-567: A similar age to the monarch ; having his complete trust. In the 15th-century Black Book of the Household – a set of ordinances composed for Edward IV for the "Governance and Regulation of the Royal Household" – the king had only four "Esquires for the Bodie"; these were the most senior servants in the royal household, with total access to the royal person at all hours. They were the senior staff of
1440-428: A splendid wardrobe, and a fabulous room of their own. What men want is a noble reputation, a huge deer park in which to spend their days hunting, extensive and prosperous estates, triumph over would-be oppressors, and a beautiful opinionated heiress. With its happy ending, the romance suggests that these different desires can be reconciled. Louise Sylvester, in a study of heterosexuality in medieval romance, argues that
1530-589: A squire included: The young King Arthur served as Sir Kay 's squire in the traditional tale of the Sword in the Stone that appears in literary works, including Le Morte d'Arthur and The Once and Future King . One of the pilgrim-storytellers in The Canterbury Tales is a squire who is the son of the knight that he serves. In Miguel de Cervantes ' Don Quixote , the babbling Sancho Panza serves as squire of
1620-507: A tournament to promote the chances of another suitor (the Duke of Gerle), but Degrevant defeats him thrice. The lovers meet secretly in her splendidly decorated bedroom (it contains paintings of saints and angels, and such details as glass from Westphalia and "curtain cords made of mermaids' hair won by Duke Betyse," a reference to a duke from a fourteenth-century chanson de geste Les Voeux du paon ), but they remain chaste until marriage. Finally,
1710-518: A variant of the Northumbrian dialect (prevalent in northern England and spoken in southeast Scotland ). During the Middle English period, many Old English grammatical features either became simplified or disappeared altogether. Noun, adjective, and verb inflections were simplified by the reduction (and eventual elimination) of most grammatical case distinctions. Middle English also saw considerable adoption of Anglo-Norman vocabulary, especially in
1800-412: Is notable for its blending of literary material and social reality. The title character, while a perfect knight in many respects, is initially reluctant to love. His life changes when he seeks redress from his neighbour for the killing of his men and damages done to his property. He falls in love with the neighbour's daughter, and after she initially denies him her love, she accepts him. They both convince
1890-433: Is now rare and used only in oxen and as part of a double plural , in children and brethren . Some dialects still have forms such as eyen (for eyes ), shoon (for shoes ), hosen (for hose(s) ), kine (for cows ), and been (for bees ). Grammatical gender survived to a limited extent in early Middle English before being replaced by natural gender in the course of the Middle English period. Grammatical gender
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#17328374094241980-421: Is the "perfect romance hero": intent on hunting and adventures, he is young, handsome, and strong; most importantly to the plot, he is not interested in the love of a woman. While he is on a crusade , his neighbour, an earl, does great damage to Degrevant's property and kills the foresters who oversee his deer park . Degrevant hurries back from Granada , repairs the fences and the other damage done, then addresses
2070-497: The Confessio Amantis ), and John Lydgate (various shorter poems and other texts). Sir Degrevant is the only full-length romance in the manuscript. The Lincoln Thornton MS ( Lincoln, Dean and Chapter Library MS 91) contains seven romances copied by Roberth Thornton , the fifteenth-century landowner, scribe, and manuscript compiler. The romance is praised for its realism. George Kane writes, "The love affair, made exciting by
2160-513: The Augustinian canon Orrm wrote the Ormulum , one of the oldest surviving texts in Middle English. The influence of Old Norse aided the development of English from a synthetic language with relatively free word order to a more analytic language with a stricter word order. Both Old English and Old Norse were synthetic languages with complicated inflections. Communication between Vikings in
2250-473: The Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485, and an extra five esquires by the end of his reign in 1509. His son Henry VIII retained his father's esquires of the body while dismissing others of his father's senior officers and even executing some (for example, Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley ), but he vastly increased the number of that select group, as he enlarged the rest of the royal household as set down in
2340-592: The Danelaw and their Anglo-Saxon neighbours resulted in the erosion of inflection in both languages. Old Norse may have had a more profound impact on Middle and Modern English development than any other language. The effect of Old Norse on Old English was substantive, pervasive, and of a democratic character. Like close cousins, Old Norse and Old English resembled each other, and with some words and grammatical structures in common, speakers of each language roughly understood each other, but according to historian Simeon Potler
2430-655: The Early English Text Society and published in 1949; this edition is generally preferred by scholars. In 1966, A.C. Gibbs published a selection from the romance in the York Medieval Texts series. In 2005, Erik Kooper edited the text for the Middle English Text Series, available online from the University of Rochester. Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME ) is a form of
2520-600: The Early Modern English and Modern English eras. Middle English generally did not have silent letters . For example, knight was pronounced [ˈkniçt] (with both the ⟨k⟩ and the ⟨gh⟩ pronounced, the latter sounding as the ⟨ch⟩ in German Knecht ). The major exception was the silent ⟨e⟩ – originally pronounced but lost in normal speech by Chaucer's time. This letter, however, came to indicate
2610-633: The English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English period. Scholarly opinion varies, but the University of Valencia states the period when Middle English was spoken as being from 1150 to 1500. This stage of the development of the English language roughly coincided with
2700-472: The High and Late Middle Ages . Middle English saw significant changes to its vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and orthography . Writing conventions during the Middle English period varied widely. Examples of writing from this period that have survived show extensive regional variation. The more standardized Old English literary variety broke down and writing in English became fragmented and localized and was, for
2790-566: The Norman Conquest , had normally been written in French. Like Chaucer's work, this new standard was based on the East Midlands-influenced speech of London. Clerks using this standard were usually familiar with French and Latin , influencing the forms they chose. The Chancery Standard, which was adopted slowly, was used in England by bureaucrats for most official purposes, excluding those of
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2880-621: The 12th century, incorporating a unique phonetic spelling system; and the Ancrene Wisse and the Katherine Group , religious texts written for anchoresses , apparently in the West Midlands in the early 13th century. The language found in the last two works is sometimes called the AB language . Additional literary sources of the 12th and 13th centuries include Layamon's Brut and The Owl and
2970-422: The 13th century and was replaced by thorn. Thorn mostly fell out of use during the 14th century and was replaced by ⟨th⟩ . Anachronistic usage of the scribal abbreviation [REDACTED] ( þe , "the") has led to the modern mispronunciation of thorn as ⟨ y ⟩ in this context; see ye olde . Wynn, which represented the phoneme /w/ , was replaced by ⟨ w ⟩ during
3060-409: The 13th century. Due to its similarity to the letter ⟨p⟩ , it is mostly represented by ⟨w⟩ in modern editions of Old and Middle English texts even when the manuscript has wynn. Under Norman influence, the continental Carolingian minuscule replaced the insular script that had been used for Old English. However, because of the significant difference in appearance between
3150-467: The 14th century, even after the loss of the majority of the continental possessions of the English monarchy . In the aftermath of the Black Death of the 14th century, there was significant migration into London , of people to the counties of the southeast of England and from the east and central Midlands of England, and a new prestige London dialect began to develop as a result of this clash of
3240-597: The 1540s after the printing and wide distribution of the English Bible and Prayer Book , which made the new standard of English publicly recognizable and lasted until about 1650. The main changes between the Old English sound system and that of Middle English include: The combination of the last three processes listed above led to the spelling conventions associated with silent ⟨e⟩ and doubled consonants (see under Orthography , below). Middle English retains only two distinct noun-ending patterns from
3330-568: The Church and legalities, which used Latin and Law French respectively. The Chancery Standard's influence on later forms of written English is disputed, but it did undoubtedly provide the core around which Early Modern English formed. Early Modern English emerged with the help of William Caxton 's printing press, developed during the 1470s. The press stabilized English through a push towards standardization, led by Chancery Standard enthusiast and writer Richard Pynson . Early Modern English began in
3420-545: The Nightingale . Some scholars have defined "Early Middle English" as encompassing English texts up to 1350. This longer time frame would extend the corpus to include many Middle English Romances (especially those of the Auchinleck manuscript c. 1330 ). Gradually, the wealthy and the government Anglicised again, although Norman (and subsequently French ) remained the dominant language of literature and law until
3510-571: The Norse speakers' inability to reproduce the ending sounds of English words influenced Middle English's loss of inflectional endings. Important texts for the reconstruction of the evolution of Middle English out of Old English are the Peterborough Chronicle , which continued to be compiled up to 1154; the Ormulum , a biblical commentary probably composed in Lincolnshire in the second half of
3600-544: The Old English -eþ , Midland dialects showing -en from about 1200, and Northern forms using -es in the third person singular as well as the plural. The past tense of weak verbs was formed by adding an -ed(e) , -d(e) , or -t(e) ending. The past-tense forms, without their personal endings, also served as past participles with past-participle prefixes derived from Old English: i- , y- , and sometimes bi- . Strong verbs , by contrast, formed their past tense by changing their stem vowel (e.g., binden became bound ,
3690-517: The Statutes of Eltham. The position was highly regarded, for the value of its close access to the king. At least two notable late-medieval gentlemen are recorded contemporaneously as refusing knighthood, declaring that to be an " Esquire of the Body " was a far-greater honour. In the post-medieval world, the title of esquire came to belong to all men of the higher landed gentry ; an esquire ranked socially above
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3780-710: The abundance of Modern English words for the mechanisms of government that are derived from Anglo-Norman, such as court , judge , jury , appeal , and parliament . There are also many Norman-derived terms relating to the chivalric cultures that arose in the 12th century, an era of feudalism , seigneurialism , and crusading . Words were often taken from Latin, usually through French transmission. This gave rise to various synonyms, including kingly (inherited from Old English), royal (from French, inherited from Vulgar Latin), and regal (from French, which borrowed it from Classical Latin). Later French appropriations were derived from standard, rather than Norman, French. Examples of
3870-494: The areas of politics, law, the arts, and religion, as well as poetic and emotive diction. Conventional English vocabulary remained primarily Germanic in its sources, with Old Norse influences becoming more apparent. Significant changes in pronunciation took place, particularly involving long vowels and diphthongs, which in the later Middle English period began to undergo the Great Vowel Shift . Little survives of early Middle English literature , due in part to Norman domination and
3960-694: The change from Old English to Norse syntax. While the Old Norse influence was strongest in the dialects under Danish control that composed the southern part of the Northern England (corresponding to the Scandinavian Kingdom of Jórvík ), the East Midlands and the East of England , words in the spoken language emerged in the 10th and 11th centuries near the transition from Old to Middle English. Influence on
4050-414: The clergy for written communication and record-keeping. A significant number of Norman words were borrowed into English and used alongside native Germanic words with similar meanings. Examples of Norman/Germanic pairs in Modern English include pig and pork , calf and veal , wood and forest , and freedom and liberty . The role of Anglo-Norman as the language of government and law can be seen in
4140-507: The comparative and superlative (e.g., greet , great; gretter , greater). Adjectives ending in -ly or -lich formed comparatives either with -lier , -liest or -loker , -lokest . A few adjectives also displayed Germanic umlaut in their comparatives and superlatives, such as long , lenger . Other irregular forms were mostly the same as in modern English. Middle English personal pronouns were mostly developed from those of Old English , with
4230-555: The deluded Don. In the children's book The Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop , the protagonist William serves as the squire of Sir Simon, a knight from the Middle Ages who got transported to the present. In the English countryside from the Middle Ages until the early 20th century, there was often one principal family of landed gentry , owning much of the land and living in the largest house, often referred to by people lower down
4320-478: The development of the Chancery Standard in the 15th century, orthography became relatively standardised in a form based on the East Midlands-influenced speech of London. Spelling at the time was mostly quite regular . (There was a fairly consistent correspondence between letters and sounds.) The irregularity of present-day English orthography is largely due to pronunciation changes that have taken place over
4410-488: The different dialects, that was based chiefly on the speech of the East Midlands but also influenced by that of other regions. The writing of this period, however, continues to reflect a variety of regional forms of English. The Ayenbite of Inwyt , a translation of a French confessional prose work, completed in 1340, is written in a Kentish dialect . The best known writer of Middle English, Geoffrey Chaucer , wrote in
4500-531: The double consonant represented a sound that was (or had previously been) geminated (i.e., had genuinely been "doubled" and would thus have regularly blocked the lengthening of the preceding vowel). In other cases, by analogy, the consonant was written double merely to indicate the lack of lengthening. The basic Old English Latin alphabet consisted of 20 standard letters plus four additional letters: ash ⟨æ⟩ , eth ⟨ð⟩ , thorn ⟨þ⟩ , and wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ . There
4590-608: The earl agrees to his daughter's engagement with Degrevant, convinced by his daughter and his wife's pleas and by Degrevant's obvious chivalry and strength. The couple have seven children and enjoy a happy and prosperous life together. When Melydor dies, Degrevant returns to the crusade and dies in the Holy Land . The poem is dated in the early fifteenth century. Its verse is tail rhyme , in stanzas of sixteen lines with "conventional thematic and verbal formulas." There are no known sources or analogues. The poem survives in two manuscripts from
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#17328374094244680-468: The end of the Middle English period only the strong -'s ending (variously spelled) was in use. Some formerly feminine nouns, as well as some weak nouns, continued to make their genitive forms with -e or no ending (e.g., fole hoves , horses' hooves), and nouns of relationship ending in -er frequently have no genitive ending (e.g., fader bone , "father's bane"). The strong -(e)s plural form has survived into Modern English. The weak -(e)n form
4770-418: The exception of the third person plural, a borrowing from Old Norse (the original Old English form clashed with the third person singular and was eventually dropped). Also, the nominative form of the feminine third person singular was replaced by a form of the demonstrative that developed into sche (modern she ), but the alternative heyr remained in some areas for a long time. As with nouns, there
4860-412: The indicator of the longer and changed pronunciation of ⟨a⟩ . In fact, vowels could have this lengthened and modified pronunciation in various positions, particularly before a single consonant letter and another vowel or before certain pairs of consonants. A related convention involved the doubling of consonant letters to show that the preceding vowel was not to be lengthened. In some cases,
4950-401: The initial encounter between the two lovers is completely dominated by his perspective and his feelings. Moreover, she notes after a linguistic analysis that even Melydor's very language (which has more slips and meaningless tags than Degrevant's), which Sylvester qualifies as "powerless speech," serves to deny her an independent and powerful status. The romance was edited by Leslie Casson for
5040-546: The late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, the Findern Anthology and the Lincoln Thornton MS . The Findern Anthology ( Cambridge University Library , MS Ff.1.6) contains a variety of texts (the manuscript itself is a composite, like the poem, according to Davenport) with secular and courtly poetry, including selections from Geoffrey Chaucer ( Parlement of Foules and other texts), John Gower (some tales from
5130-419: The love affair between Melydor and Degrevant develops according to stereotypical masculinist heterosexual Western patterns. Love happens to people and is not an act of will; Degrevant, as a strong knight, is undone by his feelings and loses all interest in other activities, such as hunting; he vehemently denies the suggestion by his squire that he be interested in the daughter because of the earl's wealth; at least
5220-459: The main difference lied on their inflectional endings, which led to much confusion within the mixed population that existed in the Danelaw, this endings tended gradually to become obscured and finally lost, "simplifying English grammar" in the process. In time, the inflections melted away and the analytic pattern emerged. Cultural and linguistic arguments have been made for Early Middle English being
5310-417: The masculine accusative, genitive, and dative, the feminine dative, and the plural genitive. The Owl and the Nightingale adds a final -e to all adjectives not in the nominative, here only inflecting adjectives in the weak declension (as described above). Comparatives and superlatives were usually formed by adding -er and -est . Adjectives with long vowels sometimes shortened these vowels in
5400-427: The more complex system of inflection in Old English : Nouns of the weak declension are primarily inherited from Old English n -stem nouns but also from ō -stem, wō -stem, and u -stem nouns, which did not inflect in the same way as n -stem nouns in Old English, but joined the weak declension in Middle English. Nouns of the strong declension are inherited from the other Old English noun stem classes. Some nouns of
5490-547: The most part, being improvised. By the end of the period (about 1470), and aided by the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1439, a standard based on the London dialects (Chancery Standard) had become established. This largely formed the basis for Modern English spelling, although pronunciation has changed considerably since that time. Middle English was succeeded in England by Early Modern English , which lasted until about 1650. Scots developed concurrently from
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#17328374094245580-624: The novel Tom Jones by Henry Fielding , who was himself a squire and magistrate. There is also a notable squire in Cormac McCarthy's Outer Dark and Charles Reade 's 1856 novel It is Never Too Late to Mend , where the squire uses his authority to abuse the postal and judicial services. In the Aubrey-Maturin series of novels by Patrick O'Brian , Jack Aubrey's father, General Aubrey and later Jack himself, are typical squires. Mary Ann Evans , alias George Eliot , includes Squire Cass as
5670-681: The old insular g and the Carolingian g (modern g ), the former continued in use as a separate letter, known as yogh , written ⟨ȝ⟩ . This was adopted for use to represent a variety of sounds: [ɣ], [j], [dʒ], [x], [ç] , while the Carolingian g was normally used for [g]. Instances of yogh were eventually replaced by ⟨j⟩ or ⟨y⟩ and by ⟨gh⟩ in words like night and laugh . In Middle Scots , yogh became indistinguishable from cursive z , and printers tended to use ⟨z⟩ when yogh
5760-423: The other case endings disappeared in the Early Middle English period, including most of the roughly one dozen forms of the definite article ("the"). The dual personal pronouns (denoting exactly two) also disappeared from English during this period. The loss of case endings was part of a general trend from inflections to fixed word order that also occurred in other Germanic languages (though more slowly and to
5850-599: The other lesser servants of the privy chamber and acted as his valet, and stood guard while he was shaved, washed or bathed. One stood behind his chair when he dined. Squires accompanied him at play, including wagering with him on the results of games (see wagers lost and won recorded in the account books of Henry VII , each page signed by the king, National Archives at Kew ) and delivered confidential messages of all kinds. Edward IV and Richard III only appointed four esquires each. Henry VII appointed four of his closest "companions of Our late Exile" within days of his victory at
5940-420: The overbearing and initially violent father to grant Degrevant his daughter's hand in marriage. The plot of Sir Degrevant revolves around the title character and his neighbour, an earl, whose daughter Myldore falls in love with Sir Degrevant. While there is a "perfunctory connection" with King Arthur and his court, the romance is devoid of the usual marvels associated with Arthurian literature. Sir Degrevant
6030-478: The peaceful resolution of competing sexual and economic interests. A.C. Gibbs notes that the romance, with all its literary elements (of duels, quests, and love) is also a reminder of the social reality of knighthood. The titular hero is also a landowner, with all the pursuant cares, and is called back from his crusade by the news that his men and his property have been attacked by his unchivalrous neighbour. Realistic elements (as opposed to literary convention) also play
6120-421: The poem also involves extensive debates on love, between Sir Degrevant and his squire , between Degrevant and Melydor, and between Melydor and her maid. Further debate on love takes place when Melydor (in the company of her maid) and Degrevant (with his squire) meet in her orchard, "an archetypal, courtly pastoral setting", into which Degrevant and his squire have entered, fully armed. According to Davenport, one of
6210-520: The poet's intentions was to express the "wonders and restraints of virtuous love." The love of Degrevant and Melydor, though the wooing in presented as classical courtly love , ends in marriage and children—a deviation from the original formulation of courtly love that grew common in romances of this era. Scholars have seen in the poem a reflection of fifteenth-century concerns with matchmaking between noble families. The happy ending, which unites two formerly conflicted families through marriage, allows for
6300-411: The poet's popular verse form and contrasts it with the broad vocabulary used in the poem, and identifies literary borrowing from "alliterative poetry, love-lyric, and court allegory, as well as literary romance"; he concludes that the result of the poet's skill in "mixing" of themes and styles makes for "an unusually well-constructed and unified narrative." As W.A. Davenport noted, the composite nature of
6390-403: The prestige that came with writing in French rather than English. During the 14th century, a new style of literature emerged with the works of writers including John Wycliffe and Geoffrey Chaucer , whose Canterbury Tales remains the most studied and read work of the period. The transition from Late Old English to Early Middle English had taken place by the 1150s to 1180s, the period when
6480-475: The privy chamber, and the closest of the king's "Affinity" (i.e., his most intimate daily companions), and were the only servants in the household who were required – not just allowed – to bear arms in the king's presence, as one of their duties was to act as bodyguards "of last resort" in the event of an immediate threat to the royal person. In times of war when their royal master was "under arms" himself, they would also fight at his side. They oversaw his pages and
6570-697: The prohibitive costs associated with maintaining large country houses . In Scotland , whilst esquire and gentleman are technically correctly used at the Court of the Lord Lyon , the title laird , in place of squire, is more common. Moreover, in Scotland, lairds append their territorial designation to their names as was traditionally done on the mainland of Europe ( e.g. , Donald Cameron of Lochiel). The territorial designation fell into disuse in England early on, save for peers of
6660-697: The realm . The later form of squire as a gentleman appears in much of English literature , for example in the form of Squire Trelawney in Robert Louis Stevenson 's Treasure Island . William Makepeace Thackeray depicted a squire in Vanity Fair as a lecherous, ill-educated, badly mannered relic of an earlier age. However, he clearly shows their control of the life of the parish. Others include Squire Hamley in Elizabeth Gaskell 's Wives and Daughters and Squire Allworthy (based on Ralph Allen ) in
6750-518: The replacement of the top levels of the English-speaking political and ecclesiastical hierarchies by Norman rulers who spoke a dialect of Old French , now known as Old Norman , which developed in England into Anglo-Norman . The use of Norman as the preferred language of literature and polite discourse fundamentally altered the role of Old English in education and administration, even though many Normans of this period were illiterate and depended on
6840-564: The resulting doublet pairs include warden (from Norman) and guardian (from later French; both share a common ancestor loaned from Germanic). The end of Anglo-Saxon rule did not result in immediate changes to the language. The general population would have spoken the same dialects as they had before the Conquest. Once the writing of Old English came to an end, Middle English had no standard language, only dialects that evolved individually from Old English. Early Middle English (1150–1350) has
6930-418: The risk with which it is conducted, is very close to life in some of its touches. The effects of this romance, supported by skillful construction, a tone perfectly maintained, characters realistically conceived and developed, and a tolerably incisive narrative, is entirely good and persuasive." Other critics agree; Arlyn Diamond notes the "lively plot and remarkable density of description." W.A. Davenport analyzes
7020-736: The second half of the 14th century in the emerging London dialect, although he also portrays some of his characters as speaking in northern dialects, as in " The Reeve's Tale ". In the English-speaking areas of lowland Scotland , an independent standard was developing, based on the Northumbrian dialect . This would develop into what came to be known as the Scots language . A large number of terms for abstract concepts were adopted directly from scholastic philosophical Latin (rather than via French). Examples are "absolute", "act", "demonstration", and "probable". The Chancery Standard of written English emerged c. 1430 in official documents that, since
7110-458: The second person singular in -(e)st (e.g., þou spekest , "thou speakest"), and the third person singular in -eþ (e.g., he comeþ , "he cometh/he comes"). ( þ (the letter "thorn") is pronounced like the unvoiced th in "think", but under certain circumstances, it may be like the voiced th in "that"). The following table illustrates a typical conjugation pattern: Plural forms vary strongly by dialect, with Southern dialects preserving
7200-419: The social scale as the "big house". The head of this family was often the lord of the manor and called "the squire". Lords of the manor held the rank of esquire by prescription. Squires were gentlemen, usually with a coat of arms , and were often related to peers . The squire usually lived at the village manor house and owned an estate , comprising the village, with the villagers being his tenants. If
7290-453: The squire owned the advowson or living (i.e. "was patron ") of the parish church — and he often did — he would choose the incumbent, designated as either a rector , or if the parish had a lay rector or impropriator , who was often the squire himself, a vicar . These roles were often filled by a younger son of the squire or of another family of local gentry. Some squires also became parish incumbents themselves and were known as squarsons;
7380-409: The strong type have an -e in the nominative/accusative singular, like the weak declension, but otherwise strong endings. Often, these are the same nouns that had an -e in the nominative/accusative singular of Old English (they, in turn, were inherited from Proto-Germanic ja -stem and i -stem nouns). The distinct dative case was lost in early Middle English, and although the genitive survived, by
7470-502: The term was applied to members of the landed gentry . In contemporary American usage, "squire" is the title given to justices of the peace or similar local dignitaries. Squire is a shortened version of the word esquire , from the Old French escuier (modern French écuyer ), itself derived from the Late Latin scutarius ("shield bearer"), in medieval or Old English
7560-589: The written languages only appeared from the beginning of the 13th century, this delay in Scandinavian lexical influence in English has been attributed to the lack of written evidence from the areas of Danish control, as the majority of written sources from Old English were produced in the West Saxon dialect spoken in Wessex , the heart of Anglo-Saxon political power at the time. The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 saw
7650-425: Was indicated by agreement of articles and pronouns (e.g., þo ule "the feminine owl") or using the pronoun he to refer to masculine nouns such as helm ("helmet"), or phrases such as scaft stærcne (strong shaft), with the masculine accusative adjective ending -ne . Single-syllable adjectives added -e when modifying a noun in the plural and when used after the definite article ( þe ), after
7740-463: Was not available in their fonts; this led to new spellings (often giving rise to new pronunciations), as in McKenzie , where the ⟨z⟩ replaced a yogh, which had the pronunciation /j/ . Squire Use of the term evolved over time. Initially, a squire served as a knight's apprentice. Later, a village leader or a lord of the manor might come to be known as a "squire", and still later,
7830-520: Was not yet a distinct j , v , or w , and Old English scribes did not generally use k , q , or z . Ash was no longer required in Middle English, as the Old English vowel /æ/ that it represented had merged into /a/ . The symbol nonetheless came to be used as a ligature for the digraph ⟨ae⟩ in many words of Greek or Latin origin, as did ⟨œ⟩ for ⟨oe⟩ . Eth and thorn both represented /θ/ or its allophone / ð / in Old English. Eth fell out of use during
7920-417: Was ousted by it in most dialects by the 15th. The following table shows some of the various Middle English pronouns. Many other variations are noted in Middle English sources because of differences in spellings and pronunciations at different times and in different dialects. As a general rule, the indicative first person singular of verbs in the present tense ended in -e (e.g., ich here , "I hear"),
8010-469: Was some inflectional simplification (the distinct Old English dual forms were lost), but pronouns, unlike nouns, retained distinct nominative and accusative forms. Third person pronouns also retained a distinction between accusative and dative forms, but that was gradually lost: The masculine hine was replaced by him south of the River Thames by the early 14th century, and the neuter dative him
8100-460: Was traditionally associated with occupation of the manor house, which would often itself confer the dignity of squire. It is unclear how widely the village squire may still be said to survive today, but where it does, the role is likely more dependent upon a recognition of lineage and long family association rather than land, which, while relevant, is nowadays likely to be considerably smaller than in former years due to high post-war death duties and
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