William the conqueror

The Middle English period

By Daniela.Mellado
  • 1066 BCE

    1066

    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
  • 900 BCE

    900 Consonants

    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—
  • 14 BCE

    fourteenth century

    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
  • 18

    The feminine pronoun

    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.
  • Aug 1, 1000

    The Beowulf manuscript 1000

    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
  • Jan 1, 1066

    SOME KEY EVENTS

    The Normans conquered England, replacing the native English nobility with Anglo-Normans and introducing Norman French
  • Jun 5, 1066

    Beginning in the Old English period

    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
  • Period: Jan 1, 1100 to Dec 26, 1500

    English middle P

    Grammatical changes about 1100 and pronunciation changes about
    1500.
  • Jan 1, 1204

    1204

    King John lost Normandy to the French, beginning the loosening of ties
  • Jan 2, 1258

    1258

    King Henry III issued the first English-language royal proclamation
  • Period: Jan 5, 1290 to Dec 5, 1350

    1290–1350.

    A Survey of Middle English Dialects
  • Mar 4, 1350

    1348–50

    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.
  • Nov 7, 1380

    1380s.

    in passages in late Middle English are from a translation of the
    Bible made by John Wycliffe or one of his followers in the
  • Jan 5, 1381

    1381

    The Peasants’ Revolt led by Wat Tyler was the first rebellion of
    working-class people against their exploitation
  • Jan 3, 1384

    1384

    John Wycliffe died, having promoted the first complete translation of
    scripture
  • Jan 6, 1384

    1384

    John Wycliffe died, having promoted the first complete translation of
    scripture into the English language (the Wycliffite Bible)
  • Mar 3, 1453

    1337 -1453,

    The Hundred Years’ War began and lasted until 1453, promoting
    English nationalism.
  • Jan 6, 1476

    1476

    William Caxton brought printing to England, thus promoting literacy
    throughout the population