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The Norman Conquest—fortunately for Anglo-American culture and civilization, the last invasion of England—was, like the earlier Danish invasions, carried out by Northmen, they defeated
the English and their hapless King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 -
some of the apparent innovations in Middle English spelling were, in fact, a return to earlier conventions. For example, the digraph th had been used in some of the earliest English texts—those written before 900—
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in the Northern and the East
Midland areas. It remained unchanged, though written u or ui, in the greater
part of the West Midland and all of the Southwest until the later years of the
fourteenth century -
The feminine accusative hī likewise survived for a while in the same region, but in the later thirteenth century it was supplanted by the originally dative hir(e) or her(e), current elsewhere in objective use.
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The Beowulf manuscript (ca. A.D. 1000),
for instance, has occurrences of -as for the genitive singular -es ending, -an for both the preterit plural ending -on and the dative plural ending -um (the -m in -um had become -n late in the Old English period), -on for the infinitive ending -an, and -o
for both the genitive plural ending -
The Normans conquered England, replacing the native English nobility with Anglo-Normans and introducing Norman French
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Conversely, beginning in the Old English period, originally long vowels in syllables followed by certain consonant sequences were shortened. The consonant sequences that caused shortening included lengthened (doubled) consonants but naturally excluded those sequences that lengthened a preceding vowel, mentioned above under item 1. For example, there is shortening in hidde ‘hid’ (OE hӯdde), kepte ‘kept’ (OE cēpte), fifty (OE fīftig), fiftēne
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Grammatical changes about 1100 and pronunciation changes about
1500. -
King John lost Normandy to the French, beginning the loosening of ties
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King Henry III issued the first English-language royal proclamation
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A Survey of Middle English Dialects
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The Black Death killed an estimated one-third of England’s population and continued to plague the country for much of the rest of the century.
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in passages in late Middle English are from a translation of the
Bible made by John Wycliffe or one of his followers in the -
The Peasants’ Revolt led by Wat Tyler was the first rebellion of
working-class people against their exploitation -
John Wycliffe died, having promoted the first complete translation of
scripture -
John Wycliffe died, having promoted the first complete translation of
scripture into the English language (the Wycliffite Bible) -
The Hundred Years’ War began and lasted until 1453, promoting
English nationalism. -
William Caxton brought printing to England, thus promoting literacy
throughout the population