A history of the English Language

106.
English in the Schools.
From a time shortly after the Conquest, French had replaced English as the language of 
the schools. In the twelfth century there are patriotic complaints that Bede and others 
formerly taught the people in English, but their lore is lost; other people now teach our 
folk.
90
A statement of Ranulph Higden in the fourteenth century shows that in his day the 
use of French in the schools was quite general. At the end of the first book of his 
Polychronicon
(c. 1327), a universal history widely circulated, he attributes the 
corruption of the English language which he observes in part to this cause: 
This apayrynge of þe burþe tunge is bycause of tweie þinges; oon is for 
children in scole 
þe vsage and manere of alle oþere naciouns 
beeþ compelled for to leue hire owne langage, and for to construe hir 
lessouns and here þynges in Frensche, and so þey haueþ seþ þe Normans 
come first in to Engelond. Also gentil men children beeþ 
to 
speke Frensche from þe tyme þet þey beeþ i-rokked in here cradel, and 
kunneþ speke and playe wiþ a childes broche; and vplondisshe men wil 
likne hym self to gentil men, and fondeþ wiþ greet besynesse for to speke 
Frensce, for to be [more] i-tolde of.
91
However, after the Black Death, two Oxford schoolmasters were responsible for a great 
innovation in English education. When the translator of Higden’s book, John Trevisa, 
came to the above passage he added a short but extremely interesting observation of his 
own: 
manere was moche i-vsed to fore þe firste moreyn and is siþþe 
sumdel i-chaunged; for Iohn Cornwaile, a maister of grammer, chaunged 
þe lore in gramer scole and construccioun of Frensche in to Englische; and 
Richard Pencriche lerned þat manere techynge of hym and oþere men of 
Pencrich; so þat now, þe 
of oure Lorde a þowsand þre hundred and 
foure score and fyue, and of þe secounde kyng Richard after þe conquest 
nyne, in alle þe gramere scoles of Engelond, children leueþ Frensche and 
construeþ and lerneþ an Englische, 
90 
Anglia,
3 (1880), 424. 
91 
Polychronicon, 
II, 159 (Rolls Series), from the version of Trevisa made 1385–1387. 
A history of the english language 138

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and haueþ þerby auauntage in oon side and disauauntage in anoþer side; 
here auauntage is, þat þey lerneþ her gramer in lasse tyme þan children 
were i-woned to doo; disauauntage is þat now children of gramer scole 
conneþ na more Frensche þan can hir lift heele, and þat is harme for hem 
and þey schulle passe þe see and trauaille in straunge landes and in many 
oþer places. Also gentil men haueþ now moche i-left for to teche here 
children Frensche. 
By a fortunate circumstance we know that there was a John Cornwall licensed to teach 
Latin grammar in Oxford at this time; his name appears in the accounts of Merton in 
1347, as does that of Pencrich a few years later.
92
The innovation was probably due to a 
scarcity of competent teachers. At any rate, after 1349 English began to be used in the 
schools and by 1385 the practice had become general.