to flock their convents (17) with foreigners, whom they invited over from the continent partly perhaps for the pleasure of their fociety, and partly (as we may fuppofe) in expectation of their fupport against the cabals of the English monks. And when the great barons, following the royal example, applied themfelves to make their peace with the church by giving her a share of their plunder, it was their ufual cufrom to begin their religious establishments with a colony from fome Norman monaftery (18).

$7. In this ftate of things, which feems to have continued (19) with little variation to the time of Ed

(17) See the preceding note. There was no great harmony at first between the Englii. monks and their new governors. See the proceedings at Glaftonbury under Thurstin, Drill. Malm. 1. iii. p. 110,] and at Canterbury againft Wido, [Chron. Saxm. p. 179, 180, ed. Gibfon.]

(18) 'The Conqueror had put Goifbert, a monk of Marmontier, at the head of his new foundation of Battle-Abbey, [Ord. Vital. 1.5v: p. 505.] Ilikemanner Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, fent for monks from Sées to begin ins abbey at Shrewsbury, [Id. I. v. p. 581.] Walter Ffpec alfo brought over monks of Clervaulk to fil his two abbies of Rivaulx and Waṛ·dun, [Ailra Risvall. ap. x. Script. p. 338.]——Befide thefe and many other independent foundations, which were in this ·manner opened for the reception of foreign monks in preference to the natives, a confiderable number of religious houses were built and endowed as cells to different monafteries abroad, and as such were constantly filled by detachments from the fuperiour society they are frequently mentioned in our hiftories under the general name of the Alien Priories; and though feveral of them, upon various pretexts, had withdrawn themselves from their foreign connexions, and been made denizens, no lets than one hundred and forty remained in 1414, which were then all fupprefied, and their revenues vefted in the crown. See the Liji. Monaft. Angl. v. i. p. 1035. (19) fuppofe that during this' whole period of above 250 years the English language was continually gaining ground by

ward III. it is probable that the French and English languages fubfifted together throughout the kingdom, flow and almoft imperceptible degrees, in proportion nearly as the English natives were emerging from that state of depreffion in which they were placed by the conqueft: we have no reason to believe that much progrefs was made in either of these matters before the reign of King John. The loss of Normandy, &c. in that reign, and the confequent regulations of Hen. III. and Louis IX. by which the fubjects of either crown were made incapable of holding lands in the dominions of the other, [Matth. Paris, ad an. 1244,] muft have greatly diminithed the ufual conflux of Normans to the English court; and the inteftine commotions in this country under John and Henry III. in which to many of the greater barons loft their lives and eftates, muft eventually have opened a way for the Englith to raise themselves to honours and poffeffions, to which they had very rarely before been admitted to afpire. In the year 1258, the 42 Hen. III. we have a particular inftance (the firft I believe of the kind) of attention on the fide of government to the Englith part of the community. The letters pa tent which the King was advised to publish in fupport of the Oxford provifions were fent to each county in Latin, French, and English, [Annal. Burton, p. 416.] One of them has been printed from the patent-roll, 43 Henry III. n. 40. m. 15, by Somner in his Di&. Sax. v. Unnan, and by Hearne, Text Roff. p. 391. At the fame time all the proceedings in the bufinefs of the provisions appear to have been carried on in French, and the principal persons in both parties are evidently of foreign extraction.—If a conjecture may be allowed in a matter fo little capable of proof, I should think it probable that the neceffity which the great barons were under at this time of engaging the body of the people to fupport them in their opposition to a new set of foreigners, chiefly Poitevins, contributed very much to abolith the invidious diftinctions which had long fubfifted between the French and English parts of the nation. In the early times after the conqueft, if we may believe Henry of Huntingdon, [L. vi. p. 370,] to be called an Englibman was a reproach: but when the Clares, the Bohuns, the Bigods, &c. were raifing armies for the expulsion of fọ

the higher orders both of the clergy and laity (20) fpeaking almost universally French, the lower retainreigners out of the kingdom, they would not probably be unwilling to have themselves confidered as natives of England; accordingly Matthew Paris, [p. 833,] calls Hugh Bigod (a brother of the Earl Marshall) virum de terra Anglorum naturalem et ingenuum ; and in another paffage, [p. 851,] he appropriates the title of alienigene to those foreigners qui Reginæ attinentes per eam introdu&i fuerant in Angliam ; and fo perhaps the word ought generally to be underflood in the transactions of that reign: none but perfons born out of England were then efteem. ed as foreigners.- About the fame time we find an archbishop of York objecting to clerks (recommended to benefices by the Pope) because they were "ignorant of the Englith lan"guage," [Mat. Par. p. 831,] which feems to imply that a knowledge of that language was then considered among the proper qualifications of an ecclefiaftick; but that it was not neceffarily required, even in the parochial clergy, appears from the great number of foreign parsons, vicars, &c. who had the King's letters of protection in the 25 year of Edw. I. See the Lifts in Prynne, t. i. p. 709---720.

(20) The testimony of Robert of Gloucefter (who lived in the times of H. III. and E. 1.) is so full and precife to this point that I trust the reader will not be displeased to fee it in his own words, or rather in the words of that very incorrect mf. which Hearne has religiously followed in his edition:

Rob. Glouc. p. 354.

Thus come lo! Engelond into Normannes honde,

And the Normans ne couthe fpeke tho bote her owe (a) speche, And fpeke French as dude atom (b), and here chyldren dude al fo teche,

So that hey men of thys lond, that of her blod come,

Holdeth aile thulke fpeche that hii of hem nome.

Vor bote (c) a man couthe French,me tolth (d) ofhym well lute; A: (e) lowe men holdeth to Englyfs and and to herkun.de ipeche yute (f).

(a) But their own.

(by Did at home.

(ej Bar but.

(d) Men told.-lute, little. (e) But.unde, natural, (f) Yet.

ing the use of their native tongue, but alfo frequently adding to it a knowledge of the other. The general inducements which the English had to acquire the French language have been touched upon above; to which must be added, that the children who were. put to learn Latin were under a neceffity of learning French at the fame time, as it was the conftant

Ich wene ther ne be man in world contreyes none,

That ne holdeth to her kunde fpeche, bote Engelond one. Ac well me wot vor to conne bothe wel yt ys,

Vor the more that a man con the more worth he ys.

I fall throw together here a few miscellaneous facts in confirmation of this general teftimony of Robert of Gloucefler. A letter of Hugh Bishop of Coventry, preferved by Hoveden [p. 704.] affures us that William Bithop of Ely, Chancellor and Prime Minifter to Richard T. linguam Anglicanam prorfus ignorabat. In the reign of Henry III. Robert of Gloucefter intending, as it should feem, to give the very words of Peter Bithop of Hereford, (whom he has juft called “a Frienfs bithop,") makes him fpeak thus-Par Crift, he fede, Sir Tomas, tu is mareis. Meint ben te ay fet. Rob. Glouc. p. 537.-There is

a more pleafant inftance of the familiar ufe of the French language by a bishop as late as the time of Edward II. Louis, confecrated Bishop of Durhamin 1 318, was unfortunately very illiterate-laicus; Latinum non intelligens, fed cum difficultate 66 pronuncians. Unde, cum in confecratione fuâ profiteri de"buit, quamvis per multos dies ante inftructorem habuiffet, legre nefcivit: et cum, auriculantibus [f. articulantibus] aliis, cum difficultate ad illud verbum metropoliticæ perve"niffet, et diu anhelans pronunciare non poffet, dixit inGallico;

66

Seit pur dite.-Et cum fimiliter celebraret ordines, nec illud "verbum in ænigmate proferre poffet, dixit circumstantibus; “Far Scint Lowys, il ne fu pas curteis,qui ceste parole ici efcrit." HiA. Dunelm. ap. Wharton, Ang. Sac. t. i. p. 761.--The transactions at Norham in 1291, the 20 Fd. I. with respect to the Scottifa fucceffon, appear to have been almoft whelly carried

practice in all fchools from the conqueft (21) till about the reign of Edward III. to make the fcholars

on in French, for which it is difficult to account but by fuppofing that language to have been the language of the court in both nations. [See the Roll de Superior. Reg. Angl. in Prynne, t. i. p. 487, et feq.] Edward's claim of the fuperiority is first made by Sir Roger Brabanfon, Sermone Gallics, and afterwards the Bishop of Bath and Wells, and the king himself, fpeak to the affembly of English and Scots on the fame language. [Ibid. p. 499, 501.]- The anfwers of the Bishop of Durham to the Pope's nuncios in Gallico, [Walt. Hemingf. ad an. 1295,] may be supposed to have been out of complaifance to the cardinals, (though, by the way, they do not appear to have been Frenchmen) but no fuch conftruction can be put upon the following fact related by Matthew of Weftininiter. [ad an. 1 301, p. 438.] The Archbishop of Canterbury informs the Pope that he had prefented his Holineffes' letters to the king in a full court, quas ipfe dominus rex reverenter recipiens, eas publica legi coram omnibus, et in Gallicâ linguà fecerat patenter exponi.

(21) Ingulphus, a contemporary writer, informs us that this practice began at the conqueft, [p. 71.] "Ipfum etiam idioma [Anglicum] tantum abhorrebant, [Normanni,] quod leges "terræ ftatutaque Anglicorum regum linguâ Gallicà tracta"rentur; et pueris etiam in fcholis principio literarum gramma, ❤tica Gallice ac non Anglice traderentur; modus etiam fcri"bendi Anglicus omitteretur, et modus Gallicus in chartis et ". in libris omnibus admitteretur." And Trevifa, the tranflater and augmenter of Higden's Polychronicon in the reign of Ri chard II. gives us a very particular account of its beginning to be difufed within his own memory. The two paffages of Hig den and Trevifa throw fo much light upon the fubject of our prefent inquiry that I thall infert them both at length from mí. Harl. 1900, as being more correct in feveral places than the mf. from which Dr. Hickes formerly printed them in his Pref. ad Thef. Ling. Septent. p. xvii.—Higden's Polychron. b. 1. c. lix. "This apayringe of the birthe tonge is by cause of **tweye thinges; oon is for children in fcole, azençs the ufage "Volume I.

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