A Turning Point: The Fifteenth Century
A TURNING POINT: THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
The fifteenth century saw the dawn of the English nationalism that would prove to be so vigorous under Elizabeth I. A sense of national solidarity—a shared identity as a people—began to emerge in the first half of the fifteenth century and was directly linked to a growing regard for (and use of) the national language. Slowly but surely English began to displace French in discourse of the public arena. Grammar schools gradually stopped teaching French, and concentrated on offering education in the English language. A surge of literary and religious works began to appear in English around this period—such as Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. No longer did the English feel they had to be apologetic when using their own language.
Signs of anxiety within the establishment concerning the future of the French language in England can be seen early in the fourteenth century. In 1332, Parliament laid down that “all lords, barons, knights and honest men of good towns must exercise care and diligence to teach their children the French language.” The university authorities at Oxford, alarmed at the tendency of both dons and students to speak English, attempted to impose Latin and French on an increasingly unwilling academic institution.
The potential importance of the growing use of English for the religious life of the nation can be seen in many ways. The liturgy of the Church was in Latin, as was the Bible, which was read as part of that liturgy. While the popular view of the late medieval English church is that it was dominated by the Latin language, it needs to be realized that French was also extensively used. Many senior English clergy spoke neither English nor Latin, but only French. An eyewitness account of the consecration of the bishop of Durham in 1318 discloses the remarkable fact that the new bishop could not even read the Latin words he was required to repeat during the service. After several attempts to pronounce the Latin word metropoliticae, he announced—in French—his intention to leave that word out, and get on with the remainder of the service. This valiant attempt came to grief over the Latin word enigmate, at which point the bishop—again, in French—complained that nobody could possibly read aloud a word like that. It is little wonder that Christianity seemed to many fourteenth-century English people to be a religion whose business was conducted entirely in one of two foreign languages. Reaction against this developed outside the church hierarchy.
The reign of Henry V (1413–22) is often seen as marking a turning point in securing new respectability for the English language. The military defeat of the French armies at Agincourt mirrored a corresponding cultural defeat of the French language in England. That military victory would prove to be short-lived; the linguistic victory proved to be permanent. The same Henry V who vanquished the French at Agincourt began the trend of using the English language in his letters. The influence of the king's example can be seen in a resolution of the Brewers' Guild of London, probably dating from 1422, in which they formally declared that their guild would now conduct its business in English, not French, following the example of both king and Parliament.
The Hundred Years War (1337–1453) served to consolidate the growing popular impression that French was the language of England's enemy. It was no accident that Shakespeare placed the following words in the mouth of Jack Cade in Henry VI, Part II:
He can speak French; and therefore he is a traitor.
Portrait of William Shakespeare by an unknown artist
The French defeat of a larger English army at Formigny in April 1450 marked the end of any serious possibility that England might retain its French possessions. For the first time, English longbowmen were defeated in an open battle, having been forced to dislodge from their traditional defensive positions by the use of artillery and then were overrun by a French heavy cavalry charge. At Castillon (1453) the French destroyed the last English army with cannon, handguns, and heavy cavalry. This battle led to the recovery of Guienne and was the last major engagement of this long and increasingly pointless war.
The war with France at an end, English became the language of choice of the upper classes and government departments. No longer was English dismissed as the language of the lower classes; it was now the language of choice of a nation with an increasing sense of national identity and shared purpose, strengthened by England's growing maritime enterprise. While this would reach its zenith during the Elizabethan era, it was clearly foreshadowed in the closing years of the fifteenth century.