Middle English

Middle English refers to the varieties of English spoken in England after the Norman Conquest of 1066 until the late fifteenth century. Its dialects evolved from Old English under the influence of Anglo-Norman French and Old Norse, and four main dialects are distinguished in England: Northern, East Midland, West Midland and Southern. Many Old English grammatical features were simplified or lost, most case distinctions in nouns, adjectives and verbs disappeared, and vocabulary was widely borrowed from Anglo-Norman, especially in politics, law, the arts and religion. A new literary style emerged in the fourteenth century with writers such as John Wycliffe and Geoffrey Chaucer, and by about 1470 a standard based on London dialects, the Chancery Standard, had become established. In this atlas the entry names texts composed or preserved in Middle English.