Middle English

By facebooker_1937096236356993
  • 1066

    The Norman conquest

    under William the Conqueror
  • 1086

    “Domesday Book” compiled

    William invented this to increase the taxes for paying his army
  • 1100

    London becomes de facto capital of England

    They also imposed a new language, literature and traditions
  • 1150

    Manuscripts in Middle English

    The oldest date from this period
  • 1154

    "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle” discontinued

  • 1154

    Eleanor of Aquitaine,

    French wife of Henry II, becomes Queen Consort of England
  • 1167

    Oxford University was established

  • 1180

    The “Ormulum” text of the monk Orm completed

  • 1204

    King John

    loses the province of Normandy to France
  • 1209

    Cambridge University was established

  • 1349

    The Black Death

    killed one third of the British population
  • 1362

    The Statute of Pleading replaces French with English as the language of law (although records continue to be kept in Latin)

    Replaced French with English as the language of law
  • 1362

    English

    English is used in English Parliament for the first time
  • 1370

    William Langland writes “Piers Plowman”

  • 1384

    John Wycliffe publishes his English translation of “The Bible”

    Publishes his English translation of “The Bible”
  • 1385

    English replaces Latin as main language...

    in schools (except Universities of Oxford and Cambridge)
  • 1388

    Chaucer begins “The Canterbury Tales”

  • 1399

    Henry IV becomes first English-speaking...

    monarch since before the Conquest
  • 1450

    The Great Vowel Shift begins

  • 1476

    William Caxton

    Establishes the first English printing press
  • 1500

    Start of English Renaissance