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91-549: Middle English Bible (MEB) or Wycliffe's Bible or Wycliffite Bibles or Wycliffian Bibles ( WYC ) are names given for a sequence of orthodox Middle English Bible translations from the Latin Vulgate which appeared over a period from approximately 1382 to 1395. Two different translations have been identified, a word-for-word translation known as the Early Version (EV) and the more sense-by-sense Later Version (LV). They are

182-687: 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

273-635: A Middle English "gloss" on the Latin text, similar to the Vespasian Psalter . It typically kept the order of individual words unchanged from the Latin, which could lead to confusion or meaninglessness in English. It has been described as unintelligible without reference to the original Latin Vulgate. For example, the phrase " Dominum formidabunt adversarii ejus " in 1 Samuel 2:10 was translated as "The Lord shulen drede

364-417: A close regard to the word order and syntax of the Latin base text: the word order being traditionally suspected of being divinely inspired; the later versions give some indication of being revised in the direction of idiomatic Middle English. A wide variety of Middle English dialects are represented. The number of LV manuscripts is much larger than the number of EV manuscripts. Some manuscripts mix books of

455-495: A copy and submitted it to Thomas Arundel , then Archbishop of York , who approved it. Arundel publicly reiterated his approval at Anne's funeral in 1394. The Oon of Foure was a gospel harmony in Middle English, a translation of Clement of Llanthony 's 12th century Latin work Concordia quattuor evangelistarum , itself a collection of mainly patristic exegetical fragments whose extracted biblical passages often deviate from

546-732: 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

637-493: 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

728-636: A later period: " for though greedy clerks (clergy) are wooden by simony, heresy, and many other sins, and despise and stop holy writ, as much as they can, yet the commoners cry after holy writ, to know it, and keep it, with great cost and peril of their lives." [1] In 1904, Anna Paues published manuscripts of an unknown third translation of the New Testament (missing most of the Gospels) in Southern Middle English , including two sets of translations of

819-486: 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

910-431: 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,

1001-601: A mistake, they may have been lost to time, or be the texts now known as the Wycliffian Early Version. Trevisa also translated Scriptures into Anglo-Norman French , the tongue of his aristocratic patron Lord Berkeley. Some confusion also exists that he translated scriptures into Cornish. Ten LV manuscripts begin with a so-called General Prologue (GP, also known as Four and Twenty Books ) written by "Simple Creature" that has also subsequently been attributed to Purvey from either 1395 or 1396. This prologue, analogous to

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1092-608: A more verbatim rendering of the Vulgate and had little consideration for the differences between the Latin and the English , making some passages confusing. The Later Version translation itself does not contain unusual or heretical renderings, and was so widely accepted that it was owned by obedient churchmen and bishops alike, when not accompanied by seditious or heretical material. The anonymous "general prologue" included in some manuscripts of

1183-536: A name perhaps derived the medieval Dutch word meaning "to mutter". This may have reflected a Lollard's practice of vocal reading of the Scripture. The most important group of Lollards were a group of knights who were a part of the king's court. Sir William Neville, Sir John Montague and Sir William Beachamp were a part of this group and had the support of the Black Prince and his younger brother John of Gaunt , reflecting

1274-1060: A noticeable change in style after Baruch 3:20. Two surviving manuscripts mark this verse with notes: one reads "Explicit translacionem Nicholay de herford" and another "Here endith the translacioun of N, and now bigynneth the translacioun of J and of othere men". Hereford fled England for Rome in 1382, returning in 1391, and the J who took over may have been John Trevisa or John Purvey. These notes suggest that Wycliffe did not personally produce this entire translation, and may not have written any of it. For example, Psalm 6:2,3 in one EV version (closer to modern orthography) is: Lord, in thi wodnesse (anger, rage) undernim (rebuke) thou not me;  Ne in thi wrathe chastise thou me. Have mercy of me, Lord, for I am syk;  Hele me, Lord, for disturbid ben alle my bonys. And in another EV version: Lord, in thi woodnesse (anger, rage) undernyme (rebuke) nouȝt me;  Ne in thi wraththe blame nat me. Have mercy of me lord for y am syyk;  Hele me lord, for alle my bones been trowbled. The Later Version (LV)

1365-572: 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

1456-518: 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

1547-782: Is Middle English glosses of the Vugate Matthew. Primers were English vernacular prayer books (or Book of Hours ) to assist lay or clergy preparation for the Use of Sarum Latin Mass. About half of these have Psalms derive from the LV, but the other half have Psalms with translations from some other source(s), now lost, but perhaps owing something to the EV. Wycliffe Bible texts are the most common manuscript literature in Middle English . (The second-most common manuscript

1638-788: Is Nicholas Love's Meditations on the Life of Christ which Bishop Arundel promoted as an alternative to Wycliffite lives of Christ.) Over 250 Wycliffean manuscripts survive; only 20 of these are complete bibles; other forms are the New Testament only, the Gospels and some letters only, or excerpted into Gospel Harmonies. There exist only a very few copies of the EV. 40 percent of manuscripts are illuminated , suggesting they were for presentation or aristocratic use; others had fancy or rubricated initial letters. "The plain text of all four gospels survives in twenty full Bibles, ninety-three complete New Testaments, and at least twenty-six manuscripts with only parts of

1729-597: Is a form of 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

1820-433: 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

1911-513: 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

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2002-592: The Catholic epistles from ca. 1388. Margaret Joyce Powell (1916) edited the non-Wycliffean Middle English commentary and translation of the Gospels of Mark and Luke, and the Pauline epistles, in Northern Midland Middle English dating them to the late 1300s. According to scholar of English Andrew Kraebel "Nothing about these works indicates that they are Lollard productions." Also with Northern features, this

2093-592: 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

2184-600: 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

2275-472: 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

2366-566: 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

2457-685: The Prologus Galeatus , advocates reading the Old Testament, summarizes its books and relevant moral lessons, and explains the medieval four senses of Scripture and the interpretation rules of St. Augustine and St. Isidore . The reliability of the GP has been questioned, because its statements do not square well with other evidence: see below. The writer of the prologue also explains the purported methodology of translating holy scriptures. He describes four rules all translators should acknowledge: Firstly,

2548-471: The University of Oxford directly or with a team including John Purvey and Nicholas Hereford , to promote Wycliffite ideas, used by Lollards for clandestine public reading at their meetings, or contained heterodox translations antagonistic to Catholicism. The term "Lollard Bible" is sometimes used for a Wycliffean Bible with inflamatory Wycliffite texts added. At the Oxford Convocation of 1408, it

2639-531: The deuterocanonical books (called the Apocrypha by most Protestants ) and also included the non-canonical 3 Esdras (which is now called 2 Esdras ) and Paul's epistle to the Laodiceans . The later version, though somewhat improved, still retained a number of infelicities of style, some of which may reflect the contemporary transitions in Middle English grammar, as in its version of Genesis 1:3 below. Orthography

2730-621: 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

2821-422: 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

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2912-409: 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

3003-467: 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

3094-597: 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

3185-622: The Bible from the earlier version with other books of the later version; some scholars speculate that the earlier version may have been meant as a rough draft that was gradually improved by various scholars into the somewhat better English of the second version. The translators worked from the Vulgate , the Latin Bible that was the standard Biblical text of Western Christianity, using the standard Paris text , and without reference to or knowledge of Greek or Hebrew. The manuscripts of complete bibles included

3276-568: 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

3367-532: The King James Version of 1611 mentions that "even in our King Richard the second's days, John Trevisa translated them [the Gospels] into English, and many English Bibles in written hand are yet to be seen that divers translated, as it is very probable, in that age." William Caxton in 1482 also mentioned a translation of the bible into English by Trevisa. However, no such Gospels or Scriptures now exist; it may be

3458-523: The Later Version (LV) version of the Bible, but popularly ascribed to Purvey, speaks of the method of "a poor catiff lettid fro prehying" and discusses the meaning and renders it "myche travile, with diverse felawis and helperis." He also delves in the ideas how a labourer at Scripture hath "nede to live a clene life, and with good livyng and great traviel" meaning to come to "trewe understanding of holi writ." However, problematically, this tract does not match

3549-533: The Middle English Bible to Wycliffe and his circle. He had reviewed the EV and LV from a Catholic doctrinal perspective and found no translation errors that could have made the scriptural parts heretical. 21st century historians have further noted "there is no direct evidence to connect any of the 250 surviving manuscripts of the MEB to heterodox users." Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME )

3640-414: The New Testament. Many of the manuscripts have apparatus to link to the liturgical calendar. As well, many of the English vernacular primers (or Book of Hours ) use versions of Wycliffean text for their Psalms and scripture translations. One LV copy sold at auction on 5 December 2016 for US$ 1,692,500. In 1894, Irish Benedictine historian Dom Aidan Gasquet challenged the conventional attribution of

3731-545: 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

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3822-571: 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

3913-544: 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 ,

4004-606: The Vulgate. A scholar has suggested the translation represents an intermediate translation project between the literalisms of the EV and the modernisms of the LV. In most manuscripts, the One of Four was followed by Wycliffean Middle English epistles or works by Wycliffe. There may be some confusion here with the Monotesseron gospel harmony, whose translation is sometimes attributed to Wycliffe, but which otherwise may have been based on Jean Gerson 's 1420 work of that name. The preface to

4095-710: 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

4186-651: The aduersaries of him" in the first version, then revised to "Aduersaries of the Lord schulen drede him" in the second version. John Stacey points out that "The scribe's desire to keep the words in their original order was stronger at this point than his regard for the rules of grammar." The manuscript often taken as the original was written by five different people and ends at Baruch 3:20. These authors used different forms of words, such as loving vs lufand or luvend , making it unlikely that they were merely different scribes performing dictation. The finished first translation contains

4277-494: 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

4368-464: The basis of the EV. After the Early Version was completed, John Purvey (attrib.) supplemented its translation of the Gospels with extensive commentary. Some of this commentary was original, but most was translated from earlier commentaries, especially Thomas Aquinas ' Catena Aurea . The complete version, known as the Glossed Gospels , consisted of more than 90% commentary. Following medieval idiom,

4459-468: The bishop of Worcester, and were then amalgamated at a college unlicensed and dismissed by law from practising preaching. He then ignored the ban and later admitted to preaching across the country. In 1388, a commission was sent to all bishops to watch for heretical writings by Purvey and Wycliffe's disciples. Ultimately, Purvey was accused of preaching heresy . Archbishop Arundel investigated Purvey's teachings and found several counts of heresy including

4550-694: 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

4641-414: 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

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4732-507: 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

4823-450: The connection of the GP and the LV: "Simple Creature, far from being a major participant in the translation project, was a wannabe." One suggested resolution is that the GP relates to a now lost revision between the EV and LV. Another is that it was an introduction to the Old Testament translation only. The GP also contains polemical anti-clerical material that seems to relate to the restrictions of

4914-478: 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

5005-488: 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

5096-531: 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

5187-428: The earliest known literal translations of the entire Bible into English ( Middle English ) however several other translations of most New Testament books into Middle English are extant. The authorship, orthodoxy, usage and ownership has been controversial in the past century, with historians now downplaying the certainty of past beliefs that the translations were made by controversial English theologian John Wycliffe of

5278-468: 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

5369-418: 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

5460-399: The glosses characterize "multiple, often figurative meanings as integral to the text": "It asserts that scripture is always more than what the basic text immediately communicates." Only one supposedly heretical teaching has been identified; in one copy, the commentary on Luke 17:19 purportedly promotes a doctrine like salvation by faith alone . Despite this, Queen Anne of Bohemia received

5551-412: 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,

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5642-648: The invalidity of wrongful excommunication , and the ineffectuality of papal law. He was imprisoned in 1390. Nonetheless he continued to write various works, including commentaries, sermons and treatises condemning what he perceived to be the corruptions of the Catholic Church . By 1401, he was brought before convocation and chose not to face death by burning, like William Sawtrey , he recanted at St Paul's Cross in London and returned to orthodoxy . He confessed on 6 March 1401 and revoked his heresies. Afterwards Purvey

5733-513: The known history of the translation: describes an idealized de novo translation methodology by a humble individual but fails to mention the EV, Wyciffe, Nicholas or other translators. They were in the midst of this undertaking when Wycliffe died in 1384. From Lutterworth, Purvey then moved to Bristol , a city that was well known at the time for its sympathies of Wycliffe and his followers. Meanwhile in 1387, Purvey, Hereford, Aston, Parker, and Swynderby were banned from preaching by Henry Wakefield,

5824-459: 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

5915-417: 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

6006-427: 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

6097-498: 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

6188-681: 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

6279-423: 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

6370-403: 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

6461-518: 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

6552-564: 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

6643-736: 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

6734-458: 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

6825-409: 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

6916-500: The tradition of noble anticlericalism. At Lutterworth, it has been traditionally held that Purvey, with Wycliffe's concurrence, revised the 1382 Middle English EV (Earlier Version) translation of the Bible, probably originally mostly done by Nicholas of Hereford and perhaps with Wycliffe, known as the LV (Later Version.) The revised LV version of the Bible associated with Purvey's name was completed in 1388. The LV revision use more idiomatic Middle English. The 1382 EV translation has been

7007-462: The translator must be sure of the text he is translating. This he has done by comparing many old copies of the Latin bible to assure authenticity of the text. Secondly, the translator must study the text in order to understand the meaning. Purvey explains that one cannot translate a text without having a grasp of what is being read. Third, the translator must consult grammar, diction, and reference works to understand rare and unfamiliar words. Fourth, once

7098-467: The translator understands the text, translation begins by not giving a literal interpretation but expressing the meaning of the text in the receptor language (English), not just translating the word but the sentence as well. This method does not mention the Earlier Version (EV) at all, nor does it mention other translators, leading to scholarly doubts about either the connection of the LV with the EV, or

7189-578: The whole Bible. Wycliffe later wrote several long exegetical commentaries on Revelation and the four Gospels which included Middle English translations of the passages being discussed. To these were added translations of most of the Catholic Epistles. As well, some of his English tracts or works included translations. One theory of the production of the Wycliffean Bibles is that these passages were extracted, collated and completed by others to form

7280-589: 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

7371-717: Was born around 1354 in Lathbury , near Newport Pagnell in the county of Buckinghamshire, England. If he translated the Bible, he must have been a great scholar, however there is no record of him attending or graduating university. He become a priest on 13 March 1377, or 1378. It has been assumed by previous generations of scholars that Purvey became acquainted with Wycliffe's ideas in Oxford. In around 1382, Purvey lived with Wycliffe at Lutterworth , Leicestershire, along with Nicholas of Hereford and John Aston , and became one of Wycliffe's disciples. Wycliffe's disciples were called Lollards ;

7462-500: Was in flux as well. The familiar verse of John 3:16 is rendered in various English versions as: For more historical and modern translations, see Misplaced Pages article John 3:16 . The first translations (Early Version(s), or EV) are rigid and literal translations of the Latin Vulgate Bible . The existing manuscripts of the Early Version vary considerably from one another, showing revision. The Early Version may have begun as

7553-425: 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

7644-697: Was issued eight to twelve years after Wycliffe's death. This version has been subsequently attributed to John Purvey . It is generally more idiomatic English and takes more liberties with the Vulgate text. Nevertheless, the translation itself was never attacked for misleading word choices the way that William Tyndale 's early translations were. For example, Psalms 6:1,2 is Lord repreve thou not me in thy strong veniaunce (vengeance):  neither chastise thou me in thin(e) ire. Lord have mercy of me for I am sijk make thou me hool:  for alle my boness be troblid. Historian Mary Raschko attributes to Wycliffites three primary forms of gospel literature: Wycliffe

7735-615: Was left alone, and by the end of 1401 he was inducted to the vicarage of West Hythe in Kent . The Lollard priests not involved in uprisings who recanted were not penalized and allowed to go on in their careers. In 1403, he resigned from his parish, and for the next eighteen years it seems he preached or assisted at Mass wherever he could. In 1407 he was criticized in the Lollard text The Testimony of William Thorpe as being neither hot nor cold. On his death, his books and robes were consistent with those

7826-464: 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/ . John Purvey Historians by the 1980s characterized Purvey's reputation as "a largely posthumous concoction of dubious connections, unwarranted assumptions, and, in some cases, mere speculation." He

7917-520: 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

8008-417: 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"),

8099-413: Was part of a broader revival of English academic exegesis "in the last quarter" of the fourteenth century, including Oxford theologians such as Richard Ullerston and William of Woodford , O.F.M. According to historian Mary Dove, there has been a neglected culture of medieval English biblicism outside Wycliffite circles. Wycliffe's early Postilla super totam Bibliam were brief commentaries or notes on

8190-545: Was solemnly voted that in England no new translation of the Bible should be made without prior approval. Surviving copies of the Wycliffian Bibles fall into two broad textual families, the early version(s) (EV) and the later version (LV). The EV was likely aimed towards the less-learned clergymen or laymen seeking to understand the Vulgate, while the later, more coherent version may have been aimed towards all literates and for public reading. Both versions are characterized by

8281-469: 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

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