English Studies

ISSN: 0013-838X (Print) 1744-4217 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/nest20

The dialect in the XIIIth century

Henry Cecil Wyld

To cite this article: Henry Cecil Wyld (1921) The surrey dialect in the XIIIth century, English Studies, 3:1-6, 42-45, DOI: 10.1080/00138382108596414

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00138382108596414

Published online: 13 Aug 2008.

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experiment. You will never get through in privacy'. He said : They are entirely absorhed in loyalty.' But I was the better prophet : he was recog- nised from the one extremity of the street to the other, and never did I see such an instance of national devotion expressed.'" When the city, amid universal approval, erected in Princes Street the delicate Gothic pinnacle of white marble canopying the statue of Scott in his plaid and with his staghound at his feet, it was the recognition of what Scott meant for her in his daily walk and conversation as well as of what he was to the wider world through his books. J. A. FALCONER.

The Surrey Dialect in the XIIIth Century. In Kemble's Codex Diplomaticus there is a small collection of charters which Kemble, in Vol. VI, p. XVII, describes as 'A register on vellum of the Charters of Monastery, Surrey'. The title of the MS. is Cott. Vitellius A. XIII. I enquired of the authorities in the MS. Department of the British Museum their opinion as to the age of the MS., and Mr. J. P. Oilson informs that me on p. 77 of the volume is a document dated 15 May 1259, which is in the same hand as the Charters with which I am now concerned. In Mr. Gilson's opinion, the character of the handwriting points to a date very little later than that just mentioned — say 1259—1280. The following are the Nos. of the Charters in Kemble: — 151,222 (in Vol. Ill); 812, 844, 848, 849, 850, 856 (in Vol. IV); 986, 987, 988 (in Vol. V). Nos. 844, 848, 849, 850, are in English ; No. 987 is in Latin, but has the boundaries in English, and this Charter is the most important of all, since we have here two and a half pages of English which, while being slightly archaic in spelling, as is natural, seeing that it is apparently based upon an older model, nevertheless makes the impression of exhibiting the language of the latter half of the 13th century pretty faithfully. The Latin Charters in the collection contain several Surrey PI. Names which offer important criteria of dialect. In an article recently published, in Vol. VI of Essays and Studies (Oxford 1921) I discussed (pp. 139—142) the dialect of the ME. poem The Owl and the Nightingale, and arrived at the view, purely on linguistic grounds, that we have here a fairly pure specimen of the West Surrey dialect of the period. This result is reached partly by a process of elimination whereby the easterly areas on the one hand, and the more extreme westerly areas on the other,

Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 18:34 09 June 2016 are excluded by the application of linguistic tests which, so far as our knowledge now goes, seem to be reliable; partly also from a comparison of the main dialectal features of O. & N. with what information concerning the Surrey dialect was available. The Surrey sources which I used for the purposes of comparison were the O. E. Surrey Charter of 871—889 printed in Sweet's Oldest English Texts pp. 451 etc., and in Kemble II, p. 120 etc., and M. E. forms of Surrey Place Names. So far as the chief phonological tests are concerned, the O. E. Surrey Charter and 0. & N. agree very largely, and the differences which exist — e. g. [T] for O. E. aï2 {déle, etc.) in O. & N. as against [ë] in the Charter, may be explained from the fact that the former, for reasons presently to be 43 mentioned, was attributed to West Surrey, while the Charter belongs to East Surrey, and not unnaturally has some features in common with Kentish which disappear as we go further west. The credit of calling attention to the important additional information concerning the Surrey dialect of approximately the same date as the Owl and Nightingale, which is found in the Chertsey Chartulary, belongs entirely to Miss Serjeantson of the University of Liverpool. Miss Serjeantson had already discovered an important point connected with the treatment of O.E. eo in Surrey which enabled me with some confidence to locate the dialect of O. & N. in West Surrey. This point, as we shall see, is now further confirmed by the fresh evidence which she has discovered. The two special points which I asked Miss Serjeantson to investigate further were the treatment of O.E. y in Surrey, and the treatment of O.E. eo. As regards the first point it appeared from my investigation on the subject published in E. St'.' Vol. 47 (1913), that Surrey was mainly what I called an 'u-area' (i. e. one which O. E. y was written u in M. E.) with a small sprinkling of /-spellings, but no e-forms. Now O. & N. always writes ti in cunne, sunne, cunde, etc., but in spite of the dozens of «-spellings there are two or three instances where words thus spelt are made to rhyme with words that can only have had e in O. & M. E. Thus cunde-sehende 273, worse - m(er)she 303, mankunne-penne 1725, wrste, 'worst' 121 rh. — berste. These rhymes make it certain that the poet was at least acquainted with the e-forms. In spite of my place-name results I was not disposed, on the strength of these few rhymes, to rule Surrey out. Still less was I disposed to admit that the poem was composed in an-c-area, and written out by a scribe from an «-area who had altered all the spellings from e to u, though lie was unable to alter the rhymes. Bihcdde 102 rh. bredde may possibly stand for O.E. behydde 'hid'; in which case we should have another example of e in O. & N. Miss Serjeantson's new material proved conclusively that Surrey was overwhelmingly an //-area, but contributed the fresh information that the e-forms were not unknown, since a faint sprinkling of them actually occurs in the Chertsey Chartulary. Thus this point is set at rest, and as regards these particular forms, the dialect of O. & N. agrees with that of the other Surrey documents of the same date. The second point is to some extent bound up with the first. In O. & N. line 849 we find (in Cotton MS.) mankunne rhyming with honne, while the Jesus MS. writes cunne-heonne in the same passage. In 863 Cott. writes sunne, 'sin', and rhymes it with honne. Again, in the same place MS. Jesus writes sunne-heonne. The same rhyme is found in both MSS. in 65. In 1. 311, the MSS. write rordc and reorde, 'voice', respectively. How are we to inter- pret these o, eo spellings? If we believe that the dialect of the poet had [y], Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 18:34 09 June 2016 written u, for O. E. y, we shall assume [hynne, ryrd] ; if we believe that he spoke an e-dialect, then clearly we must pronounce [henne] to rhyme with [kenne, senne], and [rërd]. Here again Miss Serjeantson came to the rescue at the time my former article was being written. She found a M. E. Surrey PI. N. Hurtmere, in which the first element was clearly O. E. Heorot. This place is near , and the form with u (in Feudal Aids V. p. 127) established at least a probability that this characteristic treatment of O. E. eo extended at least as far west as this part of Surrey. I accepted this evidence at the time as confirming that of the rhymes in O. & N. Miss Serjeantson has now further confirmed the existence of the u (for eo) forms in Surrey by pointing out three more, in independent words in the Chertsey Chartulary 44

— nuder for O. E. neoöor and binude (twice) for O. E. be-neodan. Further, she has found four examples of Hurtmere, one of Hortespole, all in Surrey documents of the 13th century quoted in the Calender of Ancient Deeds, and one Hurteswode (Surrey) in Calender of Inquisitions of K. Edw. II, p. 248. To these may be added, representing eö, frondliche and infangenduef Chertsey Ch. No. 848. It comes to this then : if O. & N. were written by a Surrey poet cunne, brugge, etc. would be the normal forms and spellings; further he would also be acquainted with the pronunciation [y] for O.E. eo, might write u or o in words containing this vowel, and might also rhyme such words with others containing O. E. y. The poet of O. & N. does both of these things. On the other hand it by no means follows that in Surrey [y] was the only current pronunciation for O. E. eo. It is merely claimed that this form was in occasional use there. A few details will show the agreement of the language of the Chertsey Ch. with that of O. & N. I include in the following lists both PI. Ns. which exhibit the M. E. development of O. E. vowels, and independent words. 1) To begin with O. E. y. I find in the Chartulary 26 u-forms in all : — brugge eight times; Waigebrugge (2), Weibrugge (1), Woburnbrugge (1), Mimbrugge (2), brugge (2); hurst three times: Wuhurst (1), Hasulhurst (2); gridbruche(4); hulle(\); mulle (2); munstre (3); muchel{2); rugg^-strateO); — buri (2) Aldeburi, Ealdeburi. The only /-forms are Weybrigga (2). It may be noted that O. & N. has bugge 'buy' rh. ofligge 1506, and pinche Cott. 46, pinchest 578 C. & J., etc., showing unrounding before front cons. The only e-forms are wertwalen 'roots', and menechene 'nun'. Cherche occurs once, but it isdoubtful whether we ought to include it here^ O. E^y occurs thirteen^ times with u: — ich cube, kude(4); Fischude(\); Glenthuöe (2); Wheleshltde (2), Wealeshûde (2); to dare hude (2). The /-spellings are gelitlad (1), ilitlade (1); kide (1). Note that O.d-N. has Titel by the side of Mel. There are no e-forms. 2) Fracture of O.E. œ before / + cons. The old Surrey Ch. has an absence of fracture in haldan, halde, half. The Chertsey Ch. agrees with this in having, Chaluedune, alle, westhalf, Aldeburi, but has also traces of fractured forms — eald, helden (Subj. PI.), helden (Inf.), onwealde, Ealdeburi, Cealfdune. O. & N. generally has unfractured forms : — holde etc., half, salue, balde, etc., but has at least two fractured forms — beide 1715 (both MSS.), and iweld(e), 'responsibility, power' 1543, both MSS. 3) O. E. ce- Chertsey Ch. has generally a front vowel — weteres, herefter- ward, kneppe 'hillock', but also dat, at. The old Ch. generally has e. O. & N. Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 18:34 09 June 2016 certainly shows a vastly preponderating number of a-forms, but has wes. This may however be an unstressed form. MS. J. has qued 1177, 1729, etc., where Cott. has cwad. Both MSS. have e in %ef, yef 'gave', Prêt. S. 1176. 4) O. E. a1. The evidence is not very clear. The old Ch. always writes e; Chertsey has strœte, strete, also strate, made (O. E. mœd), dare, rade, on which spellings see Heuser, Alt London p. 34, and Luick, Hist. Gr. § 362. In shortened forms both Stretham and Stratham occur. The evidence from O. S N. is also not at all conclusive (see Essays and Studies VI, p. 142), but Chertsey would appear to have both tense and slack forms. The quality of the representative of œl in O. & N. remains an open question. 5) O. E. œ\ In Chertsey such spellings as — irriëre 'boundaries', erest, 45

cèrest, hebe, 'heath', Clenedone (now Clandon) are not very enlightening. The evidence from O. & N. points to a slack vowel. Brede 'breadth' rh. siede 965-6; the spellings sea, teache, neauer, may be noted. 6) O.E. to. The evidence for [y] spelt u, occurring in Chertsey, in other Surrey documents, and in O. & N. has already been given. 7) 0. E. ëâ-i. It is often difficult to find examples of the small group of words containing this vowel (long or short) in charters and PI. Ns. Fortunately Chertsey contains a typical form of 0. E. (W. S.) flyman — 'fugitive' — and it occurs three times : flemnesfremöe No. 848, flëmenesfreomde No. 349, and flemenformd No. 850. There appear to be no examples of this vowel in the old Surrey Charter, but the short vowel is written e — erfe. O. & N. has dernel cherde for the short vowel, and for the long invariably J — ¡here, etc., rru fere 223, iíefde, 'believed', teme inf. rh. breme Cott. 499, Iche inf. rh. iseche 741, C. & }., etc. The e-pronunciation as against the W. S. y (M. E. ui, u), is thus definitely established by the rhymes, and should dispose of the antiquated view that O.&N. was originally written in the . Had this been so, we should have had the typical W. S. spellings and rhymes. It is hard to come by authentic M. E. documents from_ Dorset, but the PI. Ns. of that county have Stupel — for W. S. stiepel, stypel, as we should expect. 8) Initial u (v) for/. In Chertsey Ch. we have uiuen 'five', uiftene fifteen, uinde 'find'. This spelling is extremely common in O. & N. 9) Present Participle. Chertsey has strecchinde,goinde (three times), stondind. This is the regular ending in O. & N. 10) Past Participle. The prefix ge-, i- is the rule in strong and weak verbs in Chertsey. The same is true of O. & N. The ending of the P. P. is generally -e in O. & N., -en being much rarer. In Chertsey Ch. the typical -e is found, though -en occurs more commonly, doubtless on the model of 0. E. In this brief account of the dialectal features of this collection of Surrey Charters, enough has perhaps been said to show that they furnish us with valuable information respecting the dialect of that county in the middle of the 13th century. Allowing for the archaisms in spelling and inflexions inse- parable from such documents, we have still an important body of linguistic facts which are characteristic of the dialect of the age. The agreements exhibited above between the English of the Charters and that of Owl and Nightingale can hardly be purely fortuitous. If not, they point to very close linguistic affinity, and support the view taken that the Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 18:34 09 June 2016 poem, as it stands, is in a form of the Surrey dialect of the period to which it belongs. Merton College, Oxford. HENRY CECIL WYLD. February 1921.