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(delwedd F6255) (tudalen 350)
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TRANSACTIONS
OF THE
PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY,
1868-9.
PUBLISHED FOR THE SOCIETY BY
ASHER & CO.
l.ondon: 13, BEDFORD STREET, COVENT GARDEN, Berlin: 11, UNTER DEN LINDEN.
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(delwedd F6256) (tudalen 351)
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CONTENTS.
J; The \Only Ji;ngli•h 'Proclimlli ion oCHenry III., ' is o
tober - i258; , and its, Treatment ..by former Editors , and.,
Tfanslai;Ors, (cohsider<m, and illui;trat.ed'(with'a Glos.si\rial lndex, p.
108', 127); to which are •added editi'ons \of. tho 'Cuckoo Song. and the
'Pri5one1'a l'rityer, lyrics d;the imth century (p. 103. - 107; arid a list
of Obsolete'WorilS
in them, p. 101 - 2). By' AtEUNDER J. ELLIS, Eaq. 1 - 135
II. A Comish Glossary. By WHITLEY STOKES, Esq. 137 - 250
III. Note on Endlicher's Gaulish Glossary. By WHITLEY
&roKEs, Eaq. 261 - 254
III.* The Aoouoati, e Plural in the British Languages. By WHITLEY STOKES, Eaq.
. . . . . . . • . . 255, 256
IV. On the Derivation of Son., Nunu, .d. nm, U.xor, Wife, ...o.r,
Omnia, aoltu, every, all, 6Ao1. By Pruf. T. HEWITT
KEY . . . • . . . . . . .. . . . . • . 257 - 272
v. The History of the ' in English. By HENRY SWEET,
Esq. (with a Noto by the Rev. T. 0. Cockayne) . . 273·288
VI. English Etymologies (adaw, boulderi, bur<m charcoal, doi forcemeae, jul101n
e, gellJflaW, go to pot, tadpole). By
liENSLEIGH WEDGWOOD, Esq. . . . . . 288 - 295
VII. On some of the Suffixes of Greek and Latin Prepositions.
By Pro( T. HEWITT KEY. • • . . . • • . . 295 - 311
VII I. A partial attempt to reconcile the Laws of Latin Rhythm with those of
Modern Languages.• By Prof. T. HEWITT
KEY 311 - 351
IX. The Norman Element in the spoken and written English of the 12th, 13th, and
14th centuries, and in our Pro
vincial Dialects (with an Examination of Chaucer's use
of the final e, p. 428 - 447) . By JOSEPH PAYNK, Esq. 352 - 440 Index 450 - 452
.APPENDIX -
List of Members
Notices of Meetings
Treasurer'• Cash Account for 1868 and 1869
1 8
9 - 18
19, 20
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(delwedd F6257) (tudalen 352)
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352
IX. - THE NORMAN ELEMENT IN THE SPOKEN AND WRITTEN ENGLISH OF THE 12TH, 13TH,
AND 14TH CENTURIES, AND IN OUR PROVINCIAL DIALECTS. (1)
By JOSEPH PAYNE, Esq:
PART 1 - GENERAL PRINCIPLES. PRONUNCIATION OF EARLY NORMAN AND ENGLISH.
THE inquiry I propose to institute has not hitherto
received much attention from our philologists. They have generally been
contented with pointing out the obvious resemblance between some of our
common words and their modem French equivalents, and have apparently
forgotten that when the introduction of the Normans into England introduced
their language also, that language was not, strictly speaking, French. It was,
in fact, a dialect, derived equally with others from a common source, and
holding equal rank with its collateral sister - dialects. The designation
common to them all was the Langue d'Oil. Circumstances, mainly historical, at
length gave one of these the pre-eminence, and it was developed into the
French language; but in the 12th and 13th centuries, while the simultaneous
competition was going on, no one could have positively predicted which would
take the lead. There was, at least, a chance for the Norman, which, as Fallot
(2) remarks, was the earliest formed, was characterized by great simplicity
and energy, and was first distinguished by its literary productions.
The langue d'Oïl - the French spoken in those days north of La Rochelle - is comprehended
by Fallot and Burguy (3) under three dialects – 1st., the Burgundian, that of
the east and centre or heart of France, bounded in a general way by, and
including, the Ile de France, Burgundy, Lorraine, and part of Anjou; 2nd., the
Picardian, that of the north-east, includin.g
'
1/ It is important to say that the paper here printed differs in many respects
from that which was read before the Society.
2/ “Recherches sure les formes grammaticale de la langue
rançaise et de ses dialectes au xiiie siècle.” Par Gustave allot. Paris,
1839.
3/ “Grammaire de la languo d'Oïl. ou Grammaire des dialectes français aux
xiie et xiiie siècle.” Deuxième édition.” In 3 vols., one of which is a very
valuable Glossary. Berlin, 1869.
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(delwedd F6258) (tudalen 353)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 353
Picardy, Artois, Flandre, Hainault, Namur, the Walloon district of Liège, and
part of Brabant; 3rd., the Norman, extending over Normandy, Brittany, Maine, part
of Poitou, and of Anjou, and the Channel Islands. Of these three dialects, the
Burgundian was accepted about the middle of the 14th century as the French language;
the Picardian and Norman accordingly descended to the rank of patois - a
position which, after many and great changes, they still hold. (1)
It is important here to insist on the distinction which is very clearly
stated by Littré, in the Introduction to his noble French Dictionary, between
a dialect and a patois - a distinction which we have not yet adopted in
English. As long as a language is in process of formation, certain physical
and historical circumstances render the speaking and writing of it in
different localities characteristic, and mark off their areas from each other
- so that while the language of the entire country is fundamentally the same,
there are various local peculiarities of pronunciation, vocabulary, and
idiom. These constitute the various dialects. As soon, however, as one of
these provincial dialects takes the lead, it usually subordinates to its own many
of the peculiarities of the others, and forms out of the whole the standard
language. Its literature, too, becomes the standard of taste. The other
dialects lose their literary character - if they had any - altogether, and
those features which remain unabsorbed in the common language constitute the
patois of special districts.(2) Until, however, the question of precedence is
settled, the leading dialects have equal rank. In this sense, Burgundian, Picardian,
and Norman are separate and individual existences, founded, indeed, on a
common basis, but having special features which ought not to be confounded. This
distinction did not escape the acute observation of our renowned Roger Bacon,
who, in his Opus Majus (as quoted by M.M. Duméril,
1/ In deference to the authority of Fallet and Burguy, I have given above
their classification, but that of Littré is perhaps to be preferred. His is a
fourfold division — (1.) Eastern, Burgundian; (2.) Western, Norman; (3.)
Northern, Picard; (4.) Parisian, that of the Ile de France as well as that of
the Orleannais and Tourangeais. This last was the "French of
Paris," which became "French."
2/ "L'on définera le patois un dialecte qui n'ayant
pas plus de culture littéraire, sert seulement aux usages de la vie
commune." — Littré.
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(delwedd F6259) (tudalen 354)
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864 ON THE NORMAN ELEMENT.
in their “Dictionnaire du Patois normand”), speaks of the “lingua gallicana
(i.e. the French language in general) quae apud Gallicos (meaning probably
the inhabitants of the Ile de France), et Picardos, et Normannos et Burgundos,
multiplici variatur idiomate.” “Et quod,'' he goes on to say, “proprie dicitur
in idiomate Picardorum horrescit apud Burgundos, imo apud Gallicos viciniores.”
This, though written in the 13th century, is as clear and explicit as though Fallot
or Burguy had written it, and shows beyond question that the distinction
between the dialects was well understood and maintained at the period which
we have to consider.
We may now proceed to notice that in these times Normans and Frenchmen, as
well as the Norman and French languages, were considered as terms not only
quite distinct from, but even as opposed to, each other. Wace, in the 12th
century, speaks of “Norman (pl.) e Franceis”, and Benoît de Sainte Maure, about
the same time, says: “Toz tems voudrent Francheiz Normanz desheriter;” and in
a Latin poem, with French lines intermingled, published by Wright (“Political
Songs”, Camden Society) and attributed to Henry III.'s reign, we find:
Sic ex veste vestem formant
Engleis, Tyeis (Germans), Franceis, Normant (pl). - p. 53.
Whether the Norman, which had advanced side by side with the other dialects, and
had even, in some respects, won a higher reputation than theirs in the 11th
and 12th centuries by its literature, - for the “Vie de Saint Alexis” and the
famous “Chanson de Roland” of the 11th, and the “Quatre livres des Rois” of
the 12th century, all bear the Norman impress upon them, - began to be
conscious of any inferiority to the French before the Norman Conquest, we
cannot confidently say, but it is clear that the so-called Anglo Norman
writers of the 13th century were accustomed to apologize for their
incompetence to write in the “French of Paris”. Luces de Gast tells us that
he knows little about French (“non mie pour ce que ie sache grantment
francois”), inasmuch as his “langue” and “parleure” belong rather
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(delwedd F6260) (tudalen 355)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 355
"a la maniere dengleterre que a cele de france, comme cis qui fu en
engleterre nez." William of Waddington, again, confesses that his French is
abominable, but pleads nevertheless:
De Ie franceis vile ne del rimer
Ne me deit nuls hom blamer;
Kar en engletere fu ne
E norri, e ordine, e aleve.
Lastly, we find Gower, about the middle of the 14th century, writing in
excuse for his Frenc:
Et si jeo nai de francois la faconde,
Pardonetz moi qe jeo de ceo forsvoie.
Jeo sui englois, si quier par tiele voie
Estre excuse.
Balades, Pauli's edition of Gower, Introduction, p. xxviii.
The decadence once commenced went rapidly on, and accordingly we find special
English localities early notorious for bad French. Mapes writes in the 12th
century: "Cum vitiose quis illâ (i.e. Gallica lingua) loquitur, dicimus
eum loqui Gallicum Merlebergae." It was not only Marlborough French,
however, that had an indifferent reputation. Langland, in his "Vision of
William concerning Piers the Plowman" (Passus V. Skeat's ed. Crowley
Text), introduces "Coveitise," wilfully confounding the meanings of
"riflynge" and " “restitution," and accounting thus for
his ignorance
For I lernede nevere rede on boke;
And I can no frenche, in feith,
But of the ferthest ende of Norfolke.
Whether this Norfolk French was no French at all, as some think, or a
particularly corrupt jargon, we have no means of ascertaining. The third
instance that may be cited is that of the famous "stole of
Stratford-atte-Bowe," the language taught in which was evidently something
very different from "the Frenssh of Parys," though whether the
difference consisted in a corruption of the idiom, or of the pronunciation,
is by no means clear. It is, however, sufficiently obvious that the Norman of
England, exposed to a variety of influences, from which that of the Continent
was exempt, gradually changed its character. It is only necessary here to
observe that it was for the most part this altered or corrupted Norman which
ultimately became an integral part
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(delwedd F6261) (tudalen 356)
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356 ON THE NORMAN ELEMENT.
of the English language; and further to remark, that the changes it underwent
were generally of the same kind as those which a similar cause - contact with
the Teutonic lan-guage and spirit - had already brought about in the
north-east of France and west of Belgium, where the Artesian, Flemish and
Walloon patois prevailed.
Not only, then, have we to show that of the dialects of France, the Norman,
far more than any other, formed the principal element in the fusion of French
with English, but that it was Norman modified to some extent by peculiar
local circumstances which differentiated it from the Norman of the Continent.
Into the large field of inquiry thus opened, I venture with much diffidence.
To explore it fully would require an intimate acquaintance with contemporary
Norman and English texts of the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, and also with
Norman and English patois, as actually existing and by assumption, preserving
still, however disguised, archaic words and idioms. I can only claim the
merit of a first adventurer, with no authoritative guide to follow, whose
errors and shortcomings may, however, at least show those who succeed him
what to avoid in order to make their own researches accurate and fruitful
(1). Such an inquiry as is here proposed could hardly have been instituted
until now. It is only in comparatively recent times that the texts which
furnish the basis of such investigations have been made public, and the
principle generally recognized, that, in order to understand the de-velopment
of our language, we must go back to the days when it was first formed, and
the native energy, with a sure instinct, laid hold of and appropriated to its
own purpose that Romance element which constituted and must ever constitute
so important a feature of our English tongue. Fifty years ago scarcely
anything certain was known of the "old French," with which alone we
have to deal when we inquire into the
1/ Since this was written, my attention has been directed to "Recherches
sur la fusion du franco-normand et de l'anglo-saxon, par J. P. H.
Thommerel." Paris, 1841. It has, however, supplied me with very little
information. The author's acquaintance with Norman texts, and also with the
English language, was evidently very limited. Some of his examples have
proved useful.
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(delwedd F6262) (tudalen 357)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 357
derivation of English words from the French. The
labours, however, of MM. Roquefort, Michel, Le Roux de Lincy, Paulin Paris, Jubinal,
Dumeril, Montaiglon, Littre, and many others in France; and of Warton, Madden,
Halliwell, Wright, the Roxburghe, . Surtees, Camden, Percy, and, beyond all
others, the Early English Text, Societies in England, have done much to furnish
the materials on which all such investigations must be founded. Still, to
determine the relation between early French and early English something was
wanting, and that has been supplied mainly by the interesting researches of
Fallot and Burguy, who have shown the necessity of recognizing the dialects
to which I have referred as the foundation of all true knowledge of the
langue d'Oi:l. For the want of this recognition all IJTevious inquiries into
the original fonnation of the French language had been attended with
comparatively little success. On the other hand, until this more exact knowledge
of the leading dialectic characteristics of old French was attained, references
to that language, as the origin of the Romance element in our own, could not
be otherwise than vague and unsatisfactory .1
1 As in addition to Fallot and Burguy for the ancient dialects, we shall haYe
to refer to various glosuries for pat - Ols, I beg to subjoin a fut of those
which I havechiefly consulted: -
1. Dictionnaire du Patois normand, pa - r NM. FAiClestand et Alfred Dumfril.
1, 849
2. Dictionnairo du Patoia d& Pays de Bray ·[arrondissemcnt de Neufcbatcl],
par
!'Abbe J.E. Dooorde. Rouen, 1862.
3. Glossaire du Patois nonnand, par M. Louis Du Bois; augmcnte des deu.x
tiers ct publi& par M. Julien Travers. Caen, 186.
4. Petit Dictionnaire du Patois ·normand en usage danll. l'anondis.sement do
Pont - Audemer, par L. F. Vasnicr. Roucn, 1862:.
6. Dictionna.iro Rouchi fran.s, par G. A. J. Hcart. Yalcncienncs, 1834.
6. GI0868ire du Pawis picard, par I'Abbe Jules Corblet. Paris, 1861.
7. Remarquoe aur le Patois, par E. Escallier. Douai, 1866.
8. Dictionnaire Otymologique du Patois poitevin, par Gabriel LOrrier. Niort,
1, 867
9. Olossa.ire du Poitou, de la Saintongo ct de l'Aunis, par L. Favre. Niort,
1868.
10. Notice du Patoia vend!cn, par Revcllire·Upeaul. Niort et Paris, 1869.
11. Vocabulaire du - dialecte ct du patois de la
province de Bourgognc, par Mignard. Paria et D9on, 1870.
12, Glossairc dee ld10mes Populairee du Nord ct du centre de la France, par
J. Baumgarten, 1870. Tome l , Livraison 1. 'l'his work is now in course
of publication . It it to contain between thirty and forty thousand pa.toil
words.
13. Dictionnairo franco - norme.nd, ou rocucil dos mot.a
particulfon au dialecte de Guernsey. Par Georges Met.i'fier. London, 1870.
Reference hns also been made to Oberlin's 11 F..ssni aur le Patois lorrnin
{Stra.ebonrg, 1776), to August Fucha'a ''Andeutungen Uber die wichtien
rome.nischcn Mundarten {Berlin, 1840), &nd cspeeially to Schnakenburg's
0Ta' bJeau synoptique el comparatif idiOmco popuiair<o OU pawis do la
France (Berlin, 1840).
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(delwedd F6263) (tudalen 358)
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358 ON THE NORMAN ELEMENT.
Hence we find all our lexicographers referring English words,
which are now five or six hundred years old, to modem French forms. Thus they
derive glory from ghire, glorious from glor:e11x, courtesy from co11rtoide, ho11011r
from honneur, etc. These words are, indeed, old French, as old as the English
words in question, but they are not the special dialectic forms from which the
English words were derived. If we substitute for gloire, glorieux, etc., the proper
Norman words glorie, glorius or glorious, ctirtesie or cortesie, honor or
honour, we see whence and how the English words derived their ancient and modem
forms. It may, perhaps, be as well to illustrate this point by a few examples,
showing the ancient dialectic forms. In the Norman - French poem, Vie de
Saint Alexis, of the 11th century, 1 we have Prest est la glorie qued illi
volt duner; and in Les quatre livres des Rois· of the 12th, chaere de glorie le
fait aveir; but in the Sermons de Saint Bernard of the same date, we find la
glo1·e de ton creator; and in the Roman de la Rose of the 13th century, gloire,
not glorie, is constantly employed. In a similar way we trace ivorie, memorie,
victorie, as written in our old English, not to the standard French forms itJOire,
memoire, mctoire, but to the Norman forms ivorie, memorie, oictorie, as found
in Charleruagne (Michel's ed. p. 15): Cascun tient en ea buche un corn de
ivorie blanc; in the Life of Edward the Confessor (Luard's ed.): en Sainte
memorie ehonur; and in Political Songs (Camden Society,
p. 125): Mes par sa mort, le cuens Montfort conquist la 'ictorie. The
standard French forms, also, it may be remarked, are frequently found in
Norman texts. Thus the title of the second work, just quoted, is La estoire
de seint 1Edward le rei; but, on the other hand, the special Norman forms are
not, it is believed, ever found in the texts of the other dialects.•
Then as to the termination - otM in glorious, it can easily be
1 Given in Karl Bartsch', admirable Cbrestomathie do l'ancien frana.' Leipzig,
1866.
2 Even Mr. Vedgwood, who frequently, but by no means uniformly, quotes
dialectic words to illustrate bis sub. jecty tells ua that 1tory comes from
hUtoirt and iVQry from ir, •oir1. Gl<>ry, 1nemcry, and tiitory he does
not notice.
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(delwedd F6264) (tudalen 359)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 369
shown that it was a characteristic of the Norman dialect, and
that in its earliest form it was - os or - us. In the Chanson de Roland, a
Norman text of the 11th century, we have - Laissez lee ai en le
dol<>ros camp. Pur orgoillos veintre e
esmaier.'' Hoi te cumant al glorius celeste. In Charlemagne
(12th century), dolorus, glorius, Mdua, Joiua, are found. In the next century,
- ous, adopted probably at first to define the pronunciation by
distinguishing the long tonic from the short atonic u, was the rule rathez
than the exception in Anglo - Norman texts. InSpecimens of Lyric Poetry
composed in England in the reign of Edward I. (Percy Soeiety, Wright's ed.)
we meet with hidous (moult serra hidous quant jugera, etc., p. 86) and JOyOU8
(molt fu
/&yous barrun, etc., p. 98); and inthe Political Songs, gloriousement for
glorieusement . In non - Norman texts of the 12th and 13th centuries we find
the forms orguetleus, gloriex, and glorieus, hideus, Joieus, rorageus, honteus,
etc.: but the termination - eits is comparatively rare, and - eux rarer, so
that there can be no doubt that the Anglo - Norman words irous, coveitous or
cuveitus, desirous, gracious, hidous, g1·evous, pitoua , etc., all accented
on the last syllable, were the immediate source of the corresponding English
words.1
It will now be advisable, taking Fallot and.Burguy for our chief guides, to
show what were the main characteristics of the Norman of the 12th, 13th, and
14th centuries, as distinguished from the other contemporary dialects. The
Norman area, it will be remembered, (see p. 2), extended far beyond the
limits of the province so called, and it may here be remarked that such
limits were from their nature liable to continual shifting. Hence we find that
Norman dialectic influences pervaded, even in the 18th century, the Ile de
France, and Picardy, while, on the other hand, these, and especially the
latter, introduced into the Norman features not originally belonging to it. To
Norman influence is due the substi -
l The old Norman termination - otU, thus preeeed in English, though loet in
Normandy itself, being now aupeneded by the ordina.rJ. - euz, - e141e, ia
still heard in Poitou, u it was in the Hth century. The Po1teTI.n peasant of
the neighbourhood of Poiticn i1 amouroua: or lwmtoin, furiouz, or Auroeu:
(Patois Songs in 11 Glossaire du Poitou ''), very much 11 he was at the
period of the great battle.
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(delwedd F6265) (tudalen 360)
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360 ON THE NORMAN ELEMENT.
tution of reine, veitie, peine, pese1 - , preiser, for the Burgun
dian forms t'Oine, roirle, poine, poiser, pro er, as well as the general
adoption of the Norman sound of oi = (ee) for that of - oi = (ue) in the
imperfect tense of the verb, as in aveit for avoit. On the other hand, Burgundian
influence made diphthongs of what were simple vowels in Norman, as aimer for
amer; and Picardian changed Norman c into ch and cl! into c or k, as faclum
for faceon, vacque for vache, etc. These features, originnlly derived from
without, became at last characteristics of the dialect itself; and hence I
have ventured to consider that whatever Norman had become at the moment of
its contact and incorporation with English, is essentially Norman to us, though
it might have been Burgundian or Picnrdian to Normans themselves.
The most marked general feature of the original Norman dialect was what
Fallot designates as scheresse - dryness or bareness. This quality, which we
might, perhaps, rather call simplicity, manifested itself in the preference
of single vowels to diphthongs, and of single to double consonants, as, fur
instnnce, jur for jour, /ere for faire, bele for belle, bone for bonne, quor
for cueur, honor or honur for l1onneur, amor or amur for amotw, corage or
ctirage for courage, eel for ciel, ben for bien, cum for comme, etc.
The special characteristics, then, of the Norman dialect of the 12th and 13th
centuries, taken in its widest extent of area, were as follows: -
1. - The Norman dialect employed simple e, in place of the ie, ei, ai, and oi
of the other dialects.
Thus, (1) Norman e = ie in eel (ciel), hen (bien), chef (chief ), manere
(maniere), matere (matiere), ped or pe (pied), pere (pierre).
(2) Norman e = ei in vetitet, erite (veriteit, 1 veritei), este (esteit, p.
part. of estre), 1 mestrie (meistrie, maistrie), aver (aveir, avoir).
(3) Norman e = ai in pes (pais) fet (fait), fere (faire),
1 Et dist kil die «rit1it
Si com la chose avoit t1it (CtC).
DolopatM1, n. 11277, 8.
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(delwedd F6266) (tudalen 361)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 361
lesser (laisser), plesir (plaisir), mes (mais) resun (raison),
cler (clair).
(4) Norman e = oi in ver (voir), CTere (croire), pes (pois),
feble (floible, foible).
Il. - This simple e was commonly interchangeable within the Norman dialectic
area with the characteristic Norman diphthong ei, which, therefore, was also
employed frequently for the ai and oi of the other dialects. In later, or
Anglo - Norman, ai generally superseded ei.
Thus, (1) Norman ei or e = :ai in meseise, mesese (meeaise), p eis, pes, pees
(pais, paix), f eire, f ere (faire), feit fet (fait), reisun, resun (raison),
cleir, cler (clair), leiser, lesser (laisser), meistre, mestre (maistre), deis,
des (dais), meisun, mesm1 (maison) plein, ple11 (plain), conrei, conre
(conrai), effrei, effre
/frewr (effraier).
(2) Norman ei or e = :oi in rei, re (roi), feid, f ei, fe (foi), curteisie, curtesie
(cortoisie), Engleis (Englois)feseit (faisoit), beire, bere (boire), meis
(mois), feiz, fes, fees (fois), peison, pesoun, pesson (poisson), heir, eir, her
(hoir), lei, /ey, le (Joi), deit (doit), treis, trei Ires, (trois), feir e, fere
(foire), peine, pene (poine), neir, ner (noir), aveir, aver (avoir), creire, CTere
(croire), leisir lesir, (loisir), preiere, preere (proiere), red (roid).
(3) In later, or Anglo - Norman, as seen in Langtoft's Chronicle, most of the
forms in ei appear as ai, as ray, fay,
baire, Englais, pra iere, fays, fair e, raison, laiiser, curtaysie, maistre, dait,
trais, plain, paine, nair, aiser, ew., thus leading
directly to the forms which ultimately became English.
(4) Norman patois. In the present patois of Normandy and Poitou, we find
similarly deit, dei (doigt), end1·eit, (endroit) peire (poire), freid (froid),
mei, me (moi), tei, te (toi), beire, bere (boire, to dri11R, or a drink), deit
(doit), crere (croire), je crei, j e ere (crois), ser (soir), vechi (voici), velai
(voila), veir, veyre, vere (voir), and in Jersey, and Guernsey vel, vee
(voir), trais (trois), pouvere (pouvoir), quei (quoi), fe (foi), vi.zin, (voisin),
vere (vrai), veie (voie), etc.
III. - Simple U = :O was generally used in early Norman for
the o, ou, and often for the eo, oe, oi, eu, ue, ui, of the
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(delwedd F6267) (tudalen 362)
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362 ON THB NORMAN ELEMENT.
other dialects. In later, or Anglo - Norman, the long or tonic
un = on, ur = or and us = O! generally became oun, our, ous.
(1) Thus, Norman u = o in gul (gole, mod. gueule), nun, non (nom), mun (mon),
munt (mont), funt (font), uncle (oncle), curteis (cortois).
(2) Norman U = OU in culur (colour, mod. couleur), dolur dolour (doleur), truver
(trouver), rute (route), VU8 (vous), u (ou).
(3) Norman u = eu or lie in hure (heure), flur, far (fieur). sitl (seul), hidus
(hideus), glorius (glorieux), urent (eurent), lur (leur), fu (feu), put (peut).
(4) Norman U = Oe, eo in utJre (oevre, eovre, mod. amvre),
puple (poeple, pueple, mod. peuple), u.t (oes).
(5) Norman u· = oi, ui, iu in pusant (poissant, puissant), nut (noit, nuit), /rut
(fruit), brut (bruit), cruz (cruis, crois), dus (doi, dui), fuson (foison), angusse
(angoissc), buche (boiche, bouche), luer (loier, loner), pus (puis), pitsnez
(puisnez), lute (luite, mod. lutte), lu (liu mod. lieu).
(6) Many of the forms given as of the other dialects gradually came also into
use in Norman texts, interchangeably with those containing simple u. Hence in
the 13th century bruit, f ruit, nuit, puet, cruis, crois, poeple, tuit (mod.
tout), are found alongside of the simple forms brut,
fi!tt, nut, put, cruz, puple, tut, etc., though the sound, as will be shown
presently, was probably the same.
(7) Towards the close of the 13th century, and especially in the 14th, the
simple tonic u was generally represented in Norman and Anglo - Norman by ou, especially
before n, r, and
s. Thus we find honour, noitn, religioun, chanoun, pavillo un, flour, mound, baroun,
cowur, vawur, savour, socour, hidous, gwrious, etc., very commonly for honur,
nun, jlur, etc., before or concurrently with the adoption of many of these
words in English.
IV. .A.s tonic un and ur came to be defined in later Norman by oun and our, so
in a still later stage, and especially in Anglo - Norman, an became very
generally fixed or defined as aun.
Thus en/ant became en/aunt; grant, graunt; ante, aunte;
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(delwedd F6268) (tudalen 363)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 363
avant, avaunt; chant, chaunt; hant, haunt; chance, chaunce;
lance, launce; comander, comaunder; ssns, san.z, &auns, saunz; chambre, chaumbre,
etc., where the u, being inorganic, represents, as will be shown further on, probably
nothin g more than a link or glide between the sound of a and 11. In
Langtoft's Chronicle, which is a marked specimen of Anglo Norman, we find
words ending in - aunce, in sets or tirades, rhyming together, sixteen at a
time, as f!engau nce, Fraunce, par launcc, destaunce, ordinaunce, etc.
V. - In later, and to a slight extent in early, Norman, it became a usage - perhaps
derived in the first instance from Picard influence - to employ ch for the ce,
c (soft), a, ss, ac, a:, z, of the French of Paris.I
(1). Thus, Norman ch = ce, c (soft), s, etc., in chertain, chelui, merclli, clleinture,
client, comencller, aperchut, fachon, garcllon, chinq, machon, grucller, mucller,
for the corresponding certain, celui, mcrci, ceinture, faceon, macun, gruser,
musser, etc.
(2). Norman patois. Though not extensively prevalent in Norman texts, this usage
has been and is a very noticeable feature in Norman patois. In Chansons
normandes du xv siecle (Caen, 1866) we find commencller, panche (panse, Eng.
paunch), etc.; also in the Muse normande (Rouen, 1624, ) we meet with
chervelle, chimetire, client, fachon, puchelle , mucllv (musser), etc.; and
in the actual patois, pieche, garchon, lechon, cauclles (chauBSes), plache, placher,
agucher (aiguiser), bochu (bossu), lachet (lacet), fichelle, atticher, bercher,
cha (<;a), chinq, cheinture, achteu (a cette heure), Ooutanche (Coutance)
chime, chire, inJersey, faichon, chinq, client, etc., and in Poitou, a.f!aicher
(affaisser), recllter (rester), laiclzer (laisser). The Rouchi patois, spoken
in the district of which Valenciennes is the centre, has douche, chire, clzidre,
cites, etc. It may also be noticed that clz = (tsh), as in English, is very
1 This tendency ia ap:parent even in the earliest French. Thus kinu, fr on«, fr
uu, the original femmioe1 of 6lanc, franc, fr u(c), became Manche, fr che, fr
u<M (fralcbe). JJoo<• also and/oru became bouclte andforcM (fourchc).
Our March, moreover, i.iJ a dialectic form (found a.ho in Normao literature)
of Mari, r.nd tho ch in Frirn:h is, perhaps, also dialectic.
In the 13th century we ftnd -
Et chi est la flnl dou roumo11A;
' Soit pais et ulU1 as
ue<>utan1.
WiUiom, IM Clerk •f N•N11111idy (Wriglal'1 .4.11f1/o - Norma11 Literature, p.
432.)
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(delwedd F6269) (tudalen 364)
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364 ON THE NORMAN ELEME!\'T,
frequently heard in Norman patois, thus: tchien, etchelle,
etchineux, etcha, tchenna (cela), etc. This is also the constant usage of the
Walloon patois - - Ch suivi d'une voyelle se prononce tch. (Grandgagnage, Dictionnaire
etymologique de la Langue wallonne (Introduction, p. iii). ·
VI. - Another characteristic feature, more obviously due to Picard or Flemish
influence, yet fully established in the Norman of the 12th and 13th centuries,
is the adoption of hard
c = k = qu for Burgundian ch, and sometimes of hard fl for soft !I = j = (dzh).
Thus (l) Norman hard C = ch in acater (acheter), cose
(chose), cacher (chssaer), cambre (chambre), capel (chapel, mod. chapeau), car
(char), candelle (chandelle), escaufer (eschauft'er, mod. echauft'er), castel
(chaste , mod. chateau), cantel (chantel).
(2) Norman k = ch in Karks (Charles), kaste (chaste).
(3) Norman qu = ch in quesne (chesne, mod. chene), poque
(poche), poque tte (pochette).
(4) Norman hard u = soft fl or j in gardin (jardin), gambe (jambe), gai
(geai), garret (jarret), goir (joir, mod. jouir ), gaiole (jaiole, mod.
ge6le), garbe (gerbe). •
'(5) Norman patois. - H ere we find cache (chasse), canckon (chanson), acater,
aqueter (acheter), candelle (chandelle), calenger (O.Fr. chalanger), cat (chat),
refiquer (reficher),
.camp (champ), caqueter (cacheter), tJacque (vache), quemise (chemise), attaquai
(attacher), querrue (charrue), liquerie (lecherie), gardin (jardin), gambe
(jambe), gambon (jambon ), gartier (jarretiere), caud, in Jersey (chaud), and
in Guernsey, caines (chaines), caire (chaire). VII. - A feature extensively
but not exclusively Norman is the changing of initial and sometimes medial el,
em, en, er, es, into al, am, an, ar, as.1 It is also to be noticed that in
making this dialectic change m or n frequently disappears.•
1 It is curious to note the change of i to t and then to a, in a sort of
series, a.s developed in the formation of some French words. Thw lingw, Ieng,
langU4; si/tJa1 tt/r;t, 1a/ve (cf. sslvtge); titie1 .rtn1 ssn ssans); n'nc, rettC1
raHC (rang); pign'tia, pence, part1ae; inimicua, tt'emi, anemi ( .Fr.) i
cingtllt4m, 1ttrgle, 8a1'gl8; Pitrum, verre, varre (patois); viridi•, f1trde,
tJarde, vart, (patois); brin, brtn, bran (Eng. bran.); 1iccu1, 1ec, 1ae
(hence English ssck, a dry wine), etc.
This observation, which aoes not seem to have been ma.de before, will be
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(delwedd F6270) (tudalen 365)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 365
Thus (1) Norman al = ::el in AleaMre (Eleanore), halme
(helme), &aloe (selve, forest).
(2) Norman am, an = em, en in amaladir (enmaladir), ssmplir (aemplir), amender
(emender), camise (chemise) Jame (feme, femme), &ambler (sembler), tamer
(temer, tofear), ancantur (enchanteor), anemi (enemi), antremettre
(entremetre), manacer (menacer), ampiere (empire), ameraude (emeraude), pandre
(pendre), pansif (pensif), rangier (renger), rang (renc), tam& (terns, mod.
temps), oandre (vendre), jantis (gentils, gentis).
(3) Norman ar = er' in aparceooir (apercevoir), sarquel, sarcu, sarcou
(chercu, mod. cercueil), araeir (er soir, mod. hier soir), parece (pereee, mod.
paresse), argot (ergot), sarge (serge).
(4) Norman as = e• in aspandre (espandre), ascuter, ascoutir (escout.er, mod.
ecouter), assai (essai), astat (estat), assart (essart).
(5) Norman a = em, en in abelir = [ambelir'] = embelir, af fourcher = [anfourcher]
= enfourcher, adurer = [andurer] =
endurer, s afranchir [anfranchir] = enfranchir, achaison = [anchaison] = enchaison,
encheson; atiser = [antiser] = entiser, enticer; alacer = [anlacer] = enlacer;
alarger =
[anlarger] = enlarger; arager = [anrager] = enrager; Bari
= [Hanri) = Henri.
(6) Norman and otherpatois. - This tendency of old French
or Norman has been preserved in the patois, especially of the east and north
- east. Hence we find in Norman patois af fondrer (effondrer), affray
(effrei, effroi), aculer (eculer), afronte (effronte), amaladir (enmaladir), ampres
(empres), anemi (ennemi), arsei, arser (er soir), bran (brcn), canivotte
(chenevotte), argot (ergot), sarmon (sermon), sangleau (cengleau), etc. In
the Poitevin, a sub - dialect of Norman, the
found to throw light on many French and some English words, not hitherto
explained. Of the latter M1art, anuiy, apayre, auay, afraid, a«>mbra, tUlonid
, etc., may be mentioned in pwing.
' Par for per inparfair t, parf ait, etc., is common to all the dialects.
2 The theoretic tramitional forms are enclosed in brackets.
s This law of change bss escaped the obscation of Diez and Burguy, who both
derive adurer from 0Murar1 avoo chaDgement do la pr6fi.J.c. 1t is, no doubt, merely
a dialectic variation of nulurer.
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(delwedd F6271) (tudalen 366)
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366 ON THB NORMAN ELEMENT.
usage is even more common, as tarrible (terrible), pardre (perdre), paraonne
(personne), vardure (verdure), varbe (verbe), mar (mer), amar (amer), ajfre
(effrai), piarre (pierre), ar6e (herbe), argarder (regarder), a&sayer
(essayer), etc.
Again, Moliere in Le Medecin malgre lui, introduces servanta from the countr7,
generally Norman s, saying - charcher, li6arte, parmission, sarimonie, sarviteur,
aparru, varre, parsonnes, etc.; and Cyrano de Bergerac, a contemporary of
Moliere, also puts into the mouths of countrymen acoutez, hyvar, mar&y, har6e8,
varmine, pardre, vart, etc., thus giving abundant evidence of the usage in
French patois.1
Lastly, to illustrate the occasional elimination of m or n as accompanying
the conversion of e into a, we have in Norman
patois ajamber = [anjamber] = enjamber, arager = [anragerJ =
enrager, atamer = [antamer] = entamer, acoire, in Jersey, = [ancoire] = encore,
adret = [andret or androit] = endroit,
ajfourcher = [anfourcher] = enfourcher, aclus = [anolus] =
enclus, enclos.
Nor is this usage confined to the Norman area. We frequently find traces of
it in the Walloon patois, thus: afmisi (embrasser), aboisener (theoretic
emboissonner), abell (embelir), abroki (embrocher), adurer (endurer), agawuler
(enjoler), asener = [ensener] = enseigner, etc.•
VIII. Lastly, the transposition of letters in certain combinations is a
noticeable feature of the Norman dialect.s
Hence we find pernum, pernellt, berbis, bregere, prendere , f urment, October,
for prenons, prenent, brebis, bergere, prendre, frumen t, Octobre. It is
possible too that this tendency, which generated Malthide for Mathilde, led
to the curious form Nichole, which everywhere representa the Eng -
l It is hardly ble that our own provincial pronunciations arw, •a'ant or
•arra1ll1 tiarmin, oargil, .farten. parb;m (perilous), arrant, par•on, harbt,
maroy, etc., a.re not traditional, and due to orman influence. To tho same
source mar be traced marvel, tnarvell<nu, and cklrk, and, perhaps. the ten
dency: to ve to er and m the sound of or and an in Dorby, Berkshire, Hervey, Hertford,
Bernard, Grenville, etc.
i 0 Laveritable tra.duetion waUonne du fr. en eat e, and this booomoss before
a
coruonant. (G1'andgagnage, i. pp.2.)
3 Burguy (tl. 194) notices the transposition of r in er, as frequent in
Norman
text..
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(delwedd F6272) (tudalen 367)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 367
lish Lincoln in Anglo - Norman. Supposing the initial l (Marie de France
writes Incolne), and final ne to be ignored, we have incol, which would
easily beoome Nicole or Nic/wle. There is also reason to believe in a virtual,
where there was no apparent, tran.sposition. Thus the Norman words
adoer8<Jrie, memorie, teatimonie, seem to have been pronounced as adoerssire,
t118111oire, teatimoiM, though when they became
English words they were probably pronounced as written.
Norman and other patois. Here we have, argarder, agarder
= regarder, enienu, ar11enu = revenu, also
ertrouver, erligion,
er4ource, erchever = re9evoir, erplitdii (Jersey) = repliquer,
ertchulli (Jersey) = reculer, berloquea, bertellu, and the curious instance of
no, nou = on, paralleled by do = od
= Lat. apud. InPicardy we also find
eri;anger = rechanger,
er.filler = reficher, emir = revenir, erclwn, elclwn = lon, eel = de, eddam =
dedans, edpia = depis, depuis, = je, ep4er = peser, peur4ent = present, etc,
Having thus attained, by reference to Norman texts of the 12th and 13th
centuries, and to traces of it in modern patois, some notion of the main
peculiarities of the Norman dialect, we are prepared to examine the reeults
of its contact and incorporation with Early English. This further
investigation naturally resolves itself into two parts - 1st , the connection
of Norman with early - spoken English, and, 2nd, its connection with early - written
English. The present paper will be confined to the former.
NORMAN AND EABLY ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION.1
The general preposition which will be maintained in this paper is, that in
the 12th, 13th, and 14thcenturies the phonetic elements of the Norman - French
dialect and of the English language were for the moat part identical - that
is, that the
1 In eursuing thisinquiry, towhich I have beengradually led by circumetancet,
on a ba.nlJ independent of that adopted by Mr. Ellis, yet conftnningto
aconsiderable extent his conclwiont, I beg w deprecate emphatically the idea
of competing wih his multifarious learning, and die depth and accuracy Of his
research . His Treatise on Early English Pronunciation will be found ao
exhaustive of the aub·· ject, that all will ack.nwlodf{e that there. ii
nothing else in .the guage either eqm.l or second to 1t. 'the theory which I have
assumed tS eo dierent from Mr. Ellis'&, that it doea not necessrily - except
in a few important pomta interfere with his.
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(delwedd F6273) (tudalen 368)
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368 ON THE NORMAN
ELEMENT.
same symbols were associated by both Normans and Englishmen with nearly, if
not quite, the same sounds. If, then, the logical conclusion of such a theory
be admitted, and Englishmen of the period in question pronounced Norman very
nearly as Normans pronounced English, it must be evident that an
investigation into either Norman or Early English pronunciation can hardly
fail to throw light on the other. It is somewhat surprising that the learned
native inquirers into the history of the French language have wholly
neglected so promising a field of research; and, on the other hand, that
histories of our own language have been repeatedly written without anything
more than the slightest reference to a phenomenon perhaps unexampled in
ethnology - the complete amalgamation of two languages of different origin,
and presenting at the time of their amalgamation so many organic points of
difference. (1) The changes, especially in pronunciation, which each has
passed through subsequently have produced in the 19th century results so
different, that we do not easily acquiesce in the notion that six hundred
years ago the English Bishop Grosseteste, a Suffolk man, and the Norman Marie
de France of the same date, would, if they had met - and they perhaps did
meet - have had nothing very flagrant to correct in each other's
pronunciation of Norman or English .(2) Supposing,
1/ Ampère, indeed (Histoire de is formation de la langue française, p. 397),
makes the singular assertion that "La prononciation anglaise actuelle
s'explique en grand° partie par l'ancienne prononciation normande, et de son
côté, l’explique," —a statement directly contradicted by the results of
Mr. Ellis's investigations, and logically opposed to Génin and Littré’s
declaration that "En général, dans les sons fondamentaux, la
prononciation (française) d'aujourd'hui reproduit la prononciation
d'autrefois;" for, if both are true, modern English and modern French should
be pronounced alike—a manifest reductio ad absurdum. Le Héricher (Histoire et
Glossaire du Normand, de l'Anglaia et de is langue francaise i. 23) also
makes the less extravagant assertion, "Quand la prononciation normande
n'existera plus, on pourra la retrouver, presque toute entière, dans la
prononciation anglaise."
2/ It may be worth while to illustrate
this point, en passant, by instances of Norman and English words rhyming
together in the 13th century or beginning of the 14th. The Norman words are
printed in italics.
A. Name fame, colas was, sale ale.
B. Trinite be, be contre, gref lef, here manere, wente rente.
I, Y. Fyn (end) swyn, lefdi Marie, hi (they) cri, lif strif.
O. More restore, aros porpose, ros thus, none sone.
U. Adun brun, dun prisun, spuse huse, crune tune.
AI, AY. Taile bataile,
away fay, chamberlayn fayn, pay clay.
EI, EY. Galeic pleie, preie seie (say), weye valeye, ateyne seyne (to say).
AI, EI. Fair heir, seide betraide.
OU. Adoun sarmoun, valour four, boure flour, oute route.
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(delwedd F6274) (tudalen 369)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 369
however, that the vowel.e in both languages were phonetically
equivalent, that in Norman there was no nasal m or n, no liquid ll or gn, and
that consonants which have now dis· appeared were then generally both written
and pronounced the difficulty of admitting the hypothesis in question would
be greatly diminished, and we should find less cause to wonder that a
revolution 80 remarkable was - as it appears to us so easily effected. The very
fact, indeed, that 80 complete an amalgamation and interfusion of two
languages, radically dif. ferent from each other in many respects, actually
took place
at all, forms, primd facie, an argument of no little weight in
support of the theory that they were pronounced nearly alike.' The
recognition of this common platform would greatly facilitate both the
literary and colloquial use of Norman words in English.
The main difficulty in an inquiry into the actual speech of ancient times
lies in determining how to begin. We may either regard present usage as the result
of ante· cedent changes, and, proceeding from effects to causes, ascend by
different stages to the earliest times, or we may take some point in those
earliest times, assume a theory with regard to the facts which then existed, endeavour
to show that these were generally consistent with it, and thence proceed from
stage to stage downwards. Except that I do not generally pursue the inquiry
out of the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, the second is the plan that I have
adopted. The assumption with which I commence is that the literary
pronunciation of Church Latin in the 13th century was a tradition of ages, '
and largely influenced the phonetic character of the vast body of words
imported from the Latin language of the time into the Norman dialect
prevailing at the same period. This conclusion, whether formally stated or
not, is evidently that
1 E..·cn the eound of the charactcriAtie EnliL h th he th in that) may have
:sb: !d:r;n i£; !:etr.ftt/.t, , ' cufo e:8m? J:;, .>
dire, etc., while in a very few localities these words are piu, meze, /;fu, dir.f.
(Printe communication, obligingly furnished by Pipon..Marctt, Esq., rocureur
Genlral of Jersey.)
2 Thia assumption was adopted before I knew that Mr. Ellia had to wme extent
employ the same basis.
25
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(delwedd F6275) (tudalen 370)
|
370 ON THE NORMAN ELEMEr
of the great majority of the writers who have treated the
general subject.' Its probability will be confirmed by the subsequent
investigation which is based upon it.
It is assumed, then, (1) that the Norman pronunciatioI) introduced into
England mainly coincided with that of the Latin, as traditionally handed down;
(2) that the Norman words transferred into English retained their native
sound; and (3) that this Norman pronunciation agreed for the most part, where
the symbols were the same, with that prevailing at the same time, on
independent grounds, in pure English. Reference is generally to be understood,
whether always expressed or not, ns made to the Norman and English of the
13th century, at which time the process of amalgamation between the two
languages was probably in most active operation. A few features only of
especial significance appear to have distinguished the 14th from the 13th
century.•
No attempt will be made in the following pages to distinguish between long
and short vowels, except in the case of t•, where the distinction is
important. It is the quality
rather than the quantity of the sounds which will be mainly considered, and this
quality will, in the absence of contemporary critical authorities, be for the
most part deduced from a comparison of rhymes.
NonMAN AND ENGLISH a = (ss) or (ro).
In Political Songs (Camden Society) these rhymes of the 13th century show the
identity of the Latin and
French a -
Sic ex l'ette Teet.em f<>NlfOnl
Engleis, Tyeis (Germans) Franc.ii, Nonnant (plural) (p. 68);
Sic mantellus fit apella
Ci git Ii drap, e l& pel 1(p. 64);
' See amongst others the opinion of Mr. Ellil {Early English Pron., p. 246). Uc
spcakll, however, with some doubt of long u, which had, he thinU:, at the end
of the 13th century, tho sound of the modern French u = (yy).
2 Inorder to avoid ambiguity, Mr. Elli.s's valuable paheotrpe will be
employed.
to indicate sounds, and will be, for the sake of diitinctness, wcloscd in
brackets. The symbola that will be most required aro tho followin. In this
ayatem, a in father is (ss), in man (re), in hall (.u.), in mare (ee) i e m
me ii(ii)1 in met (e), uoaccentOO as in the - man (v); i in time iJ oi), in
jt (•);o in ore is (00)1 in on (:>); u in brute is (uu), in pull (u), in
but (a), m use (iuu). The diphthong ai in aye is (ai), 011 iµ house is (au) i
oy in boy (:n). 'l'he French u in tlO.te is (yy), tu in jeuno u (oo). The
consonant& have their u.sual symbols. CA in chest is (tsb), j in jest i•
(dzb), and 9 i!(q}. The accent ii denoted by a turnod period. Thus makmg is
(meelciq).
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(delwedd F6276) (tudalen 371)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 371
and in Early English Poems (Philological Society's ed.,
pp. 124 - 126, and 128 - 130), in two songs entitled Deo Gracias, we find the
word gracias rhyming with the Norman sofas, cas (also written csss and case),
and trespas (also written trespace), as well as with pl111l (also written
plac e), spas, grsss, fsss (also written grace and/ace), etc.
Then we have these same words rhyming with English gras and was, which also
rhyme with Latin caritas. Moreover, Walter deBiblesworth's Treatiseof the
13th century (Wright's Vocabularies) shows us English 11ittegale rhyming with
Norman ssle.' These instances, added to those collected from Chaucer by
Mr..EllIB (E. E. Pron. pp. 2b9, 260), abundantly prove that Norman and
EnglIBh a = (ss) or (ro).
NORlllAN AND ENGLISH e = (ee) or (e).
In Political Songs, Latin and French medial and final
e are found rhyming in
Brum.a tandem, revertentc,
Ta&t unt sur la cbapc ente (grafted)
Pleriqwi capucium (p. 63).
and in E. E. Poems (p. 127) Latin est, Nor. best (beast}, Eng. le1le and
heste, are rhymes, as also m (Eng.) and caritale, he11t (Eng.) and jugement (Nor.).
In Political Songs (p.192), moreover, the, free , vylle, leaute, se, and be, all
rhyme together. Mr. EllIB, too (E. E. Pron., pp. 261 - 2), gives numerous
instances from Chaucer confirming, with those just adduced, the assumption that
Norman and English e = (ee) or (e).1
NORMAN AND ENGLISH i = (ii) or (ii).
Specimens of Lyric Poetry composed in England in the
1 Ou la ru.Nioole, the nittegal1,
Meut chauute ke''•YT• en ., , i, (p. 163). ·
A.nothcr - imtance is quoted by Erru;;t Martin in the notes to his edition
(pub. in 1869) of WilliRm tbe clerk of Normandy's Lo beu.nt Deu.'' The
passage, attributed to Gui, laum• Guiart, is not complimentary to our
ancestors:
!n!\:b}.f:sad e:;,
8eTent la guise et male, etc.
(i.e., the English, who know how, well and ill, to drink to drunkennCM, with
great tankards full of good ale, etc.) Guer1oi, according to Bur.guy, is a
nonr.al equiwalent of «'u1eil, but some make it = guere much, and 1oif thm1t.
2 Villon (16th cent.) hu balai1 rhyming with Lat.pro/<1 (ed.Jannet, p.109).
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(delwedd F6277) (tudalen 372)
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372 ON THE NORMAN
ELEMENT.
reign of Edward the First (Percy Society) furnish us with
Scripsi hmc carmina in tafJ, .lia !
Moo 01te} est en mi la vile de Pari1;
fhi1 t:r1:1:.°fh:dcle:' , (p. 66);
d 1
where we see Latin, Norman, and English rhyming together.
Maria, too, is found rhyming with pr ia; and in Political Songs (p. 253) cyre
(Nor.) rhymes with fire (Eng.), dire
(Nor.) and shire (Eng.). Again in Kyng .Alisaunder (Weber's ed. p. 8) we find
-
A nd '° he learned, jco voua dy,
Ay to acquellc his enemye, - t
The above instances only confirm Mr.Ellie's elaborate discussion of this
point {pp. 270 - 297·), and show that Norman and English i = (ii) or (ii).
NORMAN AND ENGLISH O = ( oo) and (uu).
No instance of direct rhyme between Latin and Norman o has been met with, '
but the English rhyme achoo, principio , quoted by Mr. Ellis, and i - do, tho,
Jo, and eo (Lat.), (E. E. Poems, p. 127), appear to show that they would, if
met with, have illustrated the general proposition. At the same time, however,
it is also extremely probable that long o was very frequently not (oo) but
(uu). Norman texts of the 12th and 13th centuries present many instances of o
and u rhyming together, and as the u g.enerally afterwards became ou, we are
led to believe that o in such cases must have
been = (uu). Thus in an Anglo - Norman poem on the Conquest of Ireland
(Michel's ed.) we have -
En Yrlandt a iceljor
N'i out reia de tel ••lur (p. 2).
La tere mist en ar80n
Pur deetruire le felun (p. 29).
alsomany such instances as this: -
Atant s'en turne li reis Dermot
Ven Scint - Da.vid tant cum iipou t,
which shows that Dermot was = (Dermuut - ).
' Theabove, and numerous inJtances in Early Norman and English poemA, seem to
show that when final e followed a vowel, both in Norman and English, it wu
often not so•ndcd. This view is also maintained by Professor Mussa61\ of
Vienna. (Sec Preface to u La Prise de Pampclune. 'Vien, 1864.) His word! are
stumm e no.ch einem Vocnle ft'ir kcinc Sylbc zBDlt. See, however, Mr.
:; te d:r;h:! !n ef:1lt: hfn t; o
i Villon in the 16th century bss ''et puis lw !:le grand credo (ed. Jannet,
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(delwedd F6278) (tudalen 373)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 373
In the cases cited, a.nd many similar ones, the form with u
may be often fo)llld nearly alongside of that with o. Thus fur , arsun, put, via,
pume, criatur, nun, even in the 13th century, and more so in the 12th, are
quite as common as J·or, arson, etc. The conclusion, then, seems to be that
not only in the rhymes quoted, but wherever the o is an evident equivalent to
u, and shown to be so by its being frequently translated into ou - which, indeed,
became almost constant in the latter end of the 13th century - it is to be
sounded (uu). Hence, finding, in the Anglo - Norman Life of Edward the
Confessor (Luard's ed.), prove rhyming with truve (also written trueve), and
prove also written proeve (the combination oe being, BS· will be shown = [uu]),
we conclude that this Norman word, when received into English as preoven (see
Ancren Riwle), was pronounced in the same way - that is, that Norman and
English pruv = proeve = prove, all had the sound (pruuv). The same argument
applies to lresor (Saxon Chron. 1137) = (tresuur·), font and mont (fuunt, muunt)
(ib.), (Homilies E. E. T. S., Morris), move, .Rome, ' a.nd probably many
others.
The same argument applies also to· some native English words, . and it is
probable that shoo, with its variant sl1oe (though it rhymes with principio),
gode, occasionally written goud (Layamon), goed(Dame Siriz in
Wright'sAnecdota Literaria), guod (Amis a.nd Amiloun, Weber), gude (Sir
Perceval), rode, which is also roed (Dame Siriz), were, if not generally, yet
sometimes pronounced (shuu, guud, etc.); and there is, at least, a doubt
whether hoo in the li.Iie An herowd on a skaffold made a hoo (Chaucer, C. T.
2534) is not the Nor· man hti (hue a.nd cry) and really intended for hu = (auu),
which would be its proper sound, - a notiou which ill con· firmed by
the:occurrence, of ho and cry, in The Court of Love. If this be the case, then
i - doo, which rhymes with hoo, must be (iduu·). Nor is it improbable that
the sound of o = (uu) in modern to, two, do, move, prove, gold, choose, lose,
p. 71), and also quid ne quod - - Colas Tatr0t •' (p. 97), which ahow the
general quality of long and short o at that time.
1 Rome, often written Rum4 or Rummf in Anglo - Norman texts, rhymes with
word& containing either u or &D. o which wu = (uu).
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(delwedd F6279) (tudalen 374)
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374 ON THE NORMAN
ELEMENT,
rood, dome, Rome, and some other words in the same cate
gory, is a tradition of ancient times.
(1) NORMAN AND ENOl.ISH LONG, TONIC U = (un). - {2) NORMAN AND ENGLISH SHORT,
ATONIC u = () or (e).
(1) Norman and English long, tonic u = (nu)
The equivalence of the Latin and Norman u is seen in the following instances
from De Thaun's Livre des Oreatures (Wright's ed.): -
Li Griu (Greeke) dicnt par num
Que ad num zodiacum;
Eu Lt.tin la ape/um
Par veir 1igniferum (p. 26};
as also in Life of Edward the Confessor: -
Louent le reidu cicl la '•
.Cao.tent, Te Dcum latulamu1 (p. 82);
and in Political Songs: -
Esi nu.s lojuggium ,
Non e66e O<>tffugium (p. 64).
The question which first comes for discussion is, what was the sound of the
Latin u, which, as we see, was the equivalent of Norman u, in the 12th and
13th centuries? An almost universa! tradition assumes that the medireval
Latin u was pronounced (uu) as in modern Italian. On this as
•umption the above instances would show that the Norman long was also (uu).
Very high authorities, however, as Ampere and Diez, are of opinion that the
ancient sound was the same as the modern, and that '• for example, was in the
earliest times = (nyym). On the other hand, Genin, Chevallet, Fallot, Burguy,
and Littre, consider both the Latin and old French u as (uu) and would
therefore pro· nounce num as (nuum). A brief statement of these different
opinions may not be out of place here.
Ampere (Histoire de la formation de la langue fro.naise,
2nd ed. 1869) maintains (p.402) that - L'u avait au moyen i\ge le SOil peu
melodieux qu'il 0. de nos jours.
Diez (Gro.mmatik der Romanischen Sprachen, i. 415) says, speaking of the
French u: - Nur do.a Zeichen entspricht dem gemeinrom. 11, der Laut ist der
des deutschen ii, den iibrigen rom. Schriftsprachen fremd; and again: An dem
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(delwedd F6280) (tudalen 375)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 375
hohen Alter des getriibten fra.nz. u est nicht zu zweifeln.
On the other hand, Genin (Variations de la langue franyaise depuis le xii•
Siecle ), says (p. 166): La premiere valeur de cette lettre u fut le son 011,
comme en Latin. Chevallet ( Origine de la langue franyaise, 1853) says (i.
66): TJ avait en Latin le son que nous donnons en fra.nais 8 la voyelle ou;
and in another place (i. 94): Oun et our etaie11t egalement representes par
tm et ur, parceque les Normands donnaient sans doute ii l'1i de ces finales, un
son sourd ii peu pres semblable a celui que nous donnons ii 011. Fallot (p.
27), speaking of the continual interchange of u and ou dans lee textes de
Normandie, warns us not to believe that the Norman u had bien fixe et bien
determine, la prononciation de notre u franyais. At the same time, he is of
opinion (but gives no argument in proof) that when the Norman u represents the
French eu, it should be pronounced as French u. Burguy (i. 30), adopting
generally the conclusions of Fallot, speaks of the Anglo - Norman ou as a
traduction de l'u normand. Escallier ( Remarques sur le patois, Douai, 1856)
notes that Selon toute probabilite, autrefois l'u dans la plupart des cas se
prononyait ou, and thinks that the French u probably entered the language in
the 16th century.
The only one among the authorities for u = (yy) who really investigates the
subject is Diez. Heconsiders that this sound originated in the vowel
combinations left after the loss of the medial consonant in such words as
maur, 111eur, from maturua, ceu from oUu8, ruit from rugitua, riu, mi, from
ri11UB, .etc. If, however, it shall be shown hereafter that the Normans probably
pronounced meur, veu, and rui, as (muur, vuu, and ruu) his argument, as far
as Norman is concerned, will be deprived of much, if not all, its force.
In the absence then of any authoritative decision on the identity of the
Latin u with modern French u, I shall attempt to show that the Norman u was
certainly (uu) in the 13th century. The Norman forms in ur, us, etc., such as
aeignur, labur, honur, gremu, gloriua, are found generally in
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(delwedd F6281) (tudalen 376)
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376 ON THB NORMAN ELEJ4BNT.
the 12th century. InDe Thaun's poems, for instance, there are scarcely any
others. In the 13th century, however, we begin to find the u interpreted by ou
= (uu) to a very large extent, though in numerous cases the forms remain in
use as well. During the first half, indeed, of the 13th century (see Edward
the Confessor, dated about 1'M5) instances of our and 1)118 are uncommon. In
the latter half, however, they abound: De Biblesworth scarcely loses an
opportunity of employing ou for the older u or o. Within a few pages we have
moun, soun, vous, garsoun,
/rount, graci - Ous, pledour, fount (funt), comoun, Ro11me (Rum), leoun, mour
(mur), etc., for sun or son, garcun, /runt or fr<>nf, etc., and grue in
one place is interpreted gnce in another. In Lyric Poetry (Edward the First'a
reign) we have in the first twelve pages the following instances: - Soule (for
sol or sul, mod. seul), amour, moun, mound, bouche, douce, tresoun, sount
(ako aunt), ount (unt or ont), corouce, desouz, faucotm, mout (mut for mult),
prisoun , noun (non or nun), resoun, hounte, salveour (salveor), socour, colour,
valour, encounlre, doun, honour (also honur), odour, four, llabotmde, graciouse,
lycour, pardoun, counte (mod. compte), baroun, sourmounter, dolour, rancour.
These instances will suffice to show, what, indeed, can hardly be doubted, that
the Norman 11 was represented and interpreted by OU = (uu) in the end of the
13th century. It will be observed that honour and honur both occur in the
above list. Singularly, too, they each rhyme with other words: honour with
colour, odour, four, and lumur withjlur, sur, obscur. Why this change of the
vowel? The answer seems to be that the writer merely humours the eye in
retaining the older form in the latter instance, the fact being that
adjectives, like sur and obscur, in which the termination formed a part of
the radical, seem never to have changed their form, al'ld he was therefore
debarred from altering sur and obscur into sour and obscour, though he might
have written jl011r for jlur. It cannot, however, be imagined that this
circumstance affected the pronunciation, which, in this case, was, most
likely, (suur and obskuur).
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(delwedd F6282) (tudalen 377)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 377
On similar grounds, when in the same poem we find envey sure, cure, honure, and
nature rhyming together, we conclude that hom1re (part of the verb honorer or
honurer, and written in another passage of the poem honourt) fixes the sound
of
- ure in the other words, and that
nature therefore was (nretuur).
Applying theae arguments to English, we may conclude
that prisun, tur, and curt in the Sa:con Chronicle - mule crune, lechurs, font
= funt, mo11t = munt, lit>reiimn, in Old E11glUih Homili.es (E. E. T. S.)
- pa88iun, icrunet, iaulet (soiled), salue, liun, tur11 in Sei11te
llfarherete (E. E.T. S.) - vertu, aturn, jl - un, frut, puUiun, mesure, charbucle
in Hali llfeidenhad (E.
E. T. S.) - - colur, cupe, galun, mesaventur, in King Horn (E. E. T. S.) - baruns,
ho1.ur, felun, capun, resun, COl!eitus, 1mvius, angussus, honure (verb), oresun,
demure, sucur, due, in Ftoriz and Blanchejlur (E.E.T.S.) were pronounced as
Norman
words - that is, with u = (uu). As therefore in King Horn
(p. 10) mesa - ventur rhymes with the English bur {bower) and
dute with English abute; in p. 13, cuppe with Eng. uppe; in
p. 14, crune with Eng. tune (town); in p. 19, avent14re with Eng. but·e; in
p. 20, COf!erture also with bure; in p. 38, turn, with Eng. murne; spuse with
Eng. huse; in p. 31, ture with English p11r e {pore), et.c., the English words
cited must have contained the same sound as the Norman.
Some years later the u, both Norman and English, almost simultaneously, received
the graphic interpretation ou.1 In Havelok (about Ul80), for instance, such
words as bur, tur, tun, crune, begin to appear as hour, tour, toun, croune, while
others which appear equally eligible for change remain unchanged. The ultimate
result was that the
th English long u became almost universally ou = (uu), re
taining that exact sound, however, only when ou was accented. The
corresponding Norman u was not quite so much affected, inasmuch as alarge
number of substantives and adjectives end -
1 Mr. Ellis (Ear. Eng. Pro. p. 471) givos good reasons for making the goueral
substitution ol 011 for u in Englieb words, a test of the age of tbe MS. in
which it oocurs. Such a MS. could hardly, he thinb, be dated earlier than
1280. Tho interval between thia year and 1310 he callo the variable period.
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(delwedd F6283) (tudalen 378)
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378 ON THE NORMAN ELEMENT.
ing in ure always remained unchanged. It has been argued
(see Mr. Ellis's E. E. Pron. p. 298) that the fact that nature, acenture, lure,
etc., retained the u, while in the great majority of instances it was changed
for ou, shows that the pronunciation of these words, whatever it might have
been before, was now, in the 14th century (nss·tyyr - , etc.) - that is, that
the proper French u (yy) is the true sound of long u in Chaucer. It has been
shown (see p. 25) that nature was, in the 13th century, in the same category as
honure, and that it must then have been (nootuur·). The fact that some
unknown law stopped such words as nature, eni - eysure, c11re, aur, obsc11r
from changing into nato11re, obscour, etc., could hardly have affected the
quality of these vowels. We are not, however, left to conjecture on this
point. In the Alliterativa Poem& (p. 59) nature is written nat1we, and
that the writer intends his w to represent u (uu) is shown by the rhymes
sslue, remioe (Sir Gawayne, E. E.T. S. p. 47), where 11e = I06 ·
= (uu). On the same grounds, it is
presumed that due, blue, aue, of Norman origin, and English true, !me, which
are found in the Alliterative Poems (pp. 13 and 27) rhyming together under
the forms dwe, blwe, awe, trwe, and h10e, could have had no ·other pronunciation
than (duu, bluu, sun, truu, Hun). Shoreham, too, rhymes soure (i.e., sure)
with coloure.
There appears then, on the whole, no place for the modern French u in Norman,
and therefore not in English, of the 13th and 14th centuries.
If previously to the end of the 13th century Norman and English u had the
sound of the Latin u, it is not to be imagined (in the entire absence of
proof to the contrary) that the retention of the ordinary form could have
utterly changed the phonetic quality of the vowel.
It can, moreover, be shown that even if nature never appears as natoure, words
of precisely the same form in Norman do adopt this form in English. The word
creatu1·e appears as creatoure in Seinte Margarete (E. E. T. S.):
Alao yneleoue hit nott }at his mittes were so strongo
Eni BO boll crM.tour'in hi& wombe afonge (pp. 169, 170) i
Oreatoure also rhymes with pltsre in E. E. Poems, p. 14
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(delwedd F6284) (tudalen 379)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 379
and in Towneley Mysteries (Surtoos SOO. ed., p. 20) we
find it a.gain -
That maide man Ii.ch a oreatour1,
Fnrest of favoure
Mau mut lllf me JMromDtfr1.
There is every reason, then, to believe that nature in Chaucer was (nretuur)
and generally that u long was (uu).
(2) Norman and English short, a.tonic u = (11) or (a).
The method hitherto pursued of comparing first Latin and Norman and then
Norman and English rhymes does not appear to be applicable to the
investigation into the nature of short Norman u, inasmuch as no atonic vowel
could form the final syllable of a Norman verse. The inquiry must be carried
on from a different point of view. The long and short Norman differed, not only
in quantity but also in quality, and this difference seems to have been
immediately due to the laws of French accentuation as established from a very
early date in that language. As these laws form a distinguishing feature of
Norman and early French, generally, and exercised a powerful influence both
on the pronunciation and the ultimate form of numerous English words of
Romance origin, it is necossary to give a brief description of the system.
Diez, in his Grammatik, appears to have been the first to direct attention to
the great importance of the acute or tonic accent in Romance words. He calla
it in one place the soul of the word (die Seele des Wortes), in another its
centre of gravity (Schwerpunct), I and in a third, he says: Der Accent ist in
der romanischen Spra.chbildung der Angel punct (pole or axis) um welche sie
sich dreht (i. 468). Littre, too, illustrating the leading principle thus
stated, says, with reference to French, L'accent tonique peut tre dit l'ame
du mot; c'est lui qui en subordonne les parties, qui y cree !'unite et qui
fa.it que les diverses syllabes n' apparaissent pas comme un bloc informe de
syllabes independsntes. (Preface to his Dictionary, p. xxv.) These quotations
will
1 Die urspriingliche Quantitat hat ihre Kraft verloren, der Accent aber, in
welchem recht cigentlich der Schwerpunet des Wortee liegt, bchauptet eich an
eeiner Stelle und iibt nun auf die Quanlitiit einen frUher ungokannten
Einf!uss •• (i. 464).
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(delwedd F6285) (tudalen 380)
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380 ON THE NORMAN
ELEMENT.
serve to show the importance of the subject, which, it is believed, has not
been previously discussed in reference to Early English pronunciation.
In the course of his remarks on the tonic accent, Diez thus briefly states
the principle which has been so ably investigated and illustrated by Gaston
Paris, (1) Brachet, (2) and others, in reference to the formation of the
French language - "dieser (the tonic accent) im allgemeinen seine ursprüngliche
Stelle behauptet." (i. 468). It may be enunciated as follows: -
1. In the formation of the Romance languages generally the original tonic
accent of the Latin maintained its place, the accented syllable of the one
determining the stress of the voice in the others. Hence French honúr,viáge,
amér, natúre, cartéis, were thus accented because the corresponding syllables
in honórem, viáticum, amáre, natúram, curténsem, had the tonic accent.
2. The tendency to emphasize strongly the tonic syllable involved naturally,
as it were, and of necessity, the shortening and obscuration of the atonic
syllables. Hence unaccented syllables, originally long, were practically
shortened by taking a less prominent place in the word, as in honorér, which
represents the Latin honoráre.
3. As a consequence of the operation of this natural law, the atonics were
affected, more or less, in proportion to their nearness to the absorbing
tonic, so that the vowel affected by the secondary accent, which was
necessary for pronouncing words of three or more syllables, would be more
definite than that immediately preceding the tonic. Thus, the first u in
curagus (kuh·adzhuus·) would be more definite than that in curage (ka·raadzh·).
It is a natural deduction from these premises that the tonic syllable would
be very strongly accented. This seems to have been always especially the case
in Normandy, where it
1/ Étude sur le rôle de l'accent latin dans la langue française, par
Gaston Paris, 1862.
2/ Grammaire
Historique de la langue française, par Auguste Brachet, 1867.
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(delwedd F6286) (tudalen 381)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ.
381
is even now a marked characteristic of the patois pronunciation. I am,
therefore, quite unable to assent to Mr. Ellis's position (Introduction to
Morris's Chaucer) that "French words seem to have been pronounced [in
Chaucer's time] with equal stress, as at present."
The operation of these principles will be seen in the development of one or
two Norman radicals into their derivatives. Take, first, cuer (mod. coeur),
which was probably pronounced (kuur). When, however, by the addition of -age,
there results curáge, both the quantity and quality of the original (kuur)
are affected, and cur would almost of necessity become (ka·r), and the entire
word (ka·raadzh·) (1) The force of the
accent thus not merely shortens the vowel, but transforms it. That which was
principal has now become subordinate, and serves to introduce another to the
position of honour lately occupied by itself. But in the process of development
curage next receives the formative syllable -us and becomes curagús. The
lately long vowel a is now changed, both in quantity and quality, while the
first vowel u, by re-
In order to do justice to this theory, the reader should throw the full
stress of the voice on the tonic syllable - the "Schwerpunct,"
"Angelpunct," or "Seele" of the word. The sound of cur is
not to be accommodated to that of the modern French syllable in courage, in
which the stress is almost equally divided between the syllables. The true
sound in the Norman word was probably as nearly as possible that which we
give to the word to in to-day (ta·dee·), or to the cor in correct, in rapidly
uttering "quite correct" (ka·rect·). A similar transformation is
observable in pronouncing savage and captain as (saev·idzh and kaep·ten or kaep·tin).
So with regard to hónorable, it is obvious that hónareble, hónereble, hóinireble
or hónureble, might almost equally well represent the phonetic value of the
atonic vowels. The general tendency, indeed, of all atonic vowels is to
become (a·), a sound nearly resembling the French e muet; but there are numerous
exceptions. (See Gaston Paris, pp. 101, 102.)
As additional instances of the obscuring effect of the law of accentuation on
the atonics, we may notice that theoretic fairdi became ferdi, and then Norm.
frai ; honóur became onóur, and frequently enóur and anóur ; curúne, crune
(Eng. crown); maisóun, mesóun ; finir, fenir ; divin, devin; mirácle, merácle
(Eng. patois, by change of accent, mérricle); espiritál, esperitél (Eng.
patois, spérrit and spérrity). The total loss of the atonic syllable (as we
have seen in frai, crune) also explains glise for eglise, cossais for ecossáis,
pitaphe for epitáphe, etc., and illustrates the formative law by which the
medial short atonic was lost in converting circulare into cerclér, caritatem
into cherté, masticare into machér, seperare into sevrér, simulare into
sembler' etc. The Chaucerian words potecary (for apothecaire) prentis (for
apprentis) and pistell (for epistle) also confirm the usage. (The accents
used above are merely employed for convenience ; there are none in Old
French.)
As regards the final e, reasons will be given at the end of this paper for
believing that the final unaccented e in Norman and English was not generally
sounded. That assumption is recognized in the notation.
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(delwedd F6287) (tudalen 382)
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382 ON TBll NOR.M:AN ELEMENT.
ceiving a secondary accent, becomes more definite than it was
in curage. The result would probably be (kar - adzhuus·). A second instance
may be adduced in support of this view. The Norman word curt (mod. oour)
became curtt!is, by theory (k1Jrtees·), and this again curtei81e (kar·tesii -
). This statement alone does not advance the argument, but it is
presumptively confirmed by reference to our own patois, in which the word
curtei81e, in Chaucer curtesle or curteisle, and subsequently by contraction
and change of accent, curtsy, appears as c11rtch11 or curchy. Now, it is all
but certain that this sound of the u is traditional, and was derived
originally from the lips of the Norman settlers. At all events, it contains
no trace of (u). But we have also the word kercher, which might be equally
well spelt curcher. This would have been in Norman cuvrecMf, or, by a
contraction, which is seen in the early English cure (cover) (see Glossary to
Capgrave's Chronicle), and, by loss of f, which was frequent when/ was final,
curche (two.syllables). This, though a theoretic form, is almost certainly
correct, and, from its pronunciation, either with or without /, must have
been derived the cu1·chyfe, kyr chefe, kerchief (Chaucer), kerchef, kerchere,
kerclte, and kerchy, which we find in Early English texts and in the mouths
of modern peasants. The final er is, of course, a rough substitute for the final
Norman e, which is here sounded. The only safe conclusion then seems to be
that the original cw· must have been (kur) or (kar). But there is still
another word which bears a similar testimony. The original form of curfew was
cuweju, or, as in a Statute of Edward I., quoted by Way in the P1·omptorium
Parvulorum, c061»'eju. This would become curfu, the proper Norman
pronunciation of which would be, by the theory both for short and long u
(kurfuu·), or when the accent was changed (kar·fu). Later, ju became feu and
got the modem English pronunciation.
If these views are correct, then the atonio u in the Norman wordsju1· nt!e, trublt!r,
culur, cumf6rt, corbt!r or curbt!r, custume, curtlne, hurter, s - ucur, cimtrt!e,
nurlr, jl urlr, t1w11t!r, bout6n, mut6n, borjoune, bugt!tte, buteil/U!r, ciitelit!r,
must have been (n), which, when submitted to the English accentuation, and
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(delwedd F6288) (tudalen 383)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 383
changed into (a), has been transmitted to us as a Norman
tradition, and accounts for our present pronunciation of journey, trouble, joust,
nourish, country, c<m1pany, colour, comfort, hurt, button, mutton, burgeon,
budget, butler, cutler, as well as for the obsolete or obsolescent sound of
courteoua, courtesy (an abnormal form for curteyse), tournament, and
sovereign. This argument is further confirmed by the ordinary pronunciation
of Monmouth, Montfort, Montgomery, Montmorency, etc., and still more by the
fact that when ou, representing an original u (uu), is unaccented, in English
words, it is converted naturally into (a), as we see in honour (on·ar), neighbour
(nee·bar), famous (feem·as), and especially in the patois pronunciation of
workhouse and 1oashhouse, which in some parts of England isquite
undistinguishable from (warbis, wosh·as). On thesame principle Ne1c T6wn
becomes Newton, where - ton = (tlln or tan) It is, moreover, probable that
the provincial sounds heard in biltcher, puzzen, pii.dden, cuahion, puah, all
words of Norman origin, in which u = (a), are traditional. Infact, the
general law of the obscuration of the vowel sound in atonic syllables, expounded
in reference to Norman, applies equally to English. To the considerations
already adduced, one more may be added. The frequent interchange of short u, e,
and i in Early English poems, in such words as werk, toirk, wurk (also work);
cherclie, chirche, ch11rche; che:rl, churl; gerl, girl, gttrl; kertle, kirtle,
kttrtle, kurtel; er/he, ttrthe, etc., not only in different texts but in the
same, and sometimes in the same page, seems to show that whatever was the
sound cf ttr in these words, that of er and ir was identical with it. It is
not to be supposed that the writer who thus capriciously varies his
orthography intended to impose an equally capricious pronunciation on his
readers. Although, therefore, we miglit pronounce cherclie with the e of
cherry, chirche with the i of spirit, and cliurclw with the u of full, as
well as with the sound which we now give it, it is hardly probable that it
had more than one of these sounds - the real question being which. On the
ground, then, of the traditional pronunciation of curchy, erclier, and curfew,
as well as of the theory that the atonic
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(delwedd F6289) (tudalen 384)
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short u was generally (a), it appears probable that churche
was (tshartsh), and that the variants cherche and chirche had the ssme sound.
There seems then, to be very little evidence, if any, of the existence of the
short u of full in the Norman or English of the 13ih and 14th centuries.
1NORMAN AND ENGLISH DIPHTHONGS.
In introducing a discussion of the difficult question of Norman and English diphthongs,
and broaching a somewhat novel theory with regard to them, it may be important
to state that the original Norman dialect was distinguished by an indisposition
to diphthongal combinations. A single glance at a page of the Norman text of
the Quatre livres des Rois, '' of the 12th century, compared with the
contemporary Burgundian of the Choix de Sermons de Saint Bernard' will
illustrate this assertion. In the one we are struck with the constant
occurrence of such forms as 1wre, veritet, frere, pert, doner, veer, concut, ·tignee,
asez, conus, truver, chanted (past· part.), amer, etc., while their counterparts
in the other are oyvre, veriteit, freire, peire, veor, conceut, ligniet'e, a&seis,
conuiz, truevei'r, chanteit, aimeir, etc. It is fair, then, to presume that there
was a like tendency to simplicity of pronunciation in the Norman, even when, partly
by influence from without, partly by an internal spirit of development, the
Norman forms became more complicated. With this preliminary observation, it
is proposed now to consider the phonetic value of the two most important digraphs,
with their variants, in the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries.
1 The above theory rcepooting atonic u will perhaps account for the origin of
French eu as well as for t - hat of English u it but. This notion is
confirmed by t - he identification of these 80unds by Wallia, (see quotation
in Ear. Eng. Pron. p 172). Bis words are, U vocalia
quando corripitur cffcrtur e:ono obscuro. Ut in ut
&ed1 cut acco, bur Jappa, hurlt raptus, cur8t maledictus, etc. Sonum hunc
Galli proferunt in ultima syllaba vocis •erciteur, i.e. eur = (ar). But this
theoretic identity sugges1 the remark that, as tonic eur = (uur) is to atonic
eur
= (or) so iB tome ure = (uur) to
atonfo ur11 = = (ar), and hence the present patois, but probably original, pronunciation
of nature, pUture, creature, t·enture, etc., (when tint made English) as
(na·ror or nec·tar, pic·t{tr1 eroo·tor, vcn·tar). Hence we can see that
naturel = (nooturel·) would become in English (nrot·t:rcl), a common
provincial utterance.
2 Both edited by Roux de Lincy in t.he ''Collection de Documents in&lits
eur l'hi&toire de France.
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(delwedd F6290) (tudalen 385)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ.
385
NORMAN AND ENGLISH ae, ea; ti, ie; ai, ia; oe, eo; WITH
THE VARIANTS ey, ye; ay, ya; AND NORMAN oi = (ee).
There seems reason to believe that both in Norman and English the
transposition of the vowels of a digraph made no dilference in the sense or
sound of the word. This theory may admit of some exceptions, but it appears
to be, at least, of general application. If correct, it may prove of
considerable importance in reference to the pronunciation and word - formation
of both languages, inasmuch as the determination of one form becomes helpful
in ascertaining the value of the other. Thus, if Norman oi sometimes = (uu), which
appears to be the case from the rhyming of fusoyn with corbeloun (De
Biblesworth), and the occurrence of genoil for genoul, etc., and, by theory, oi
= io, then Nor. riote
= roite = route (ruut), while the
Scottish forms 1·oyt and ryot, both theoretically = route, are reconciled, and
the equivalence of English riot (however now pronounced) to Nor. route
established.1 Now, we find in Norman texts ceil, ciel, eel; feil, fiel, feel;
feis, fies, Jes; neif, nief, nef; parleir, parlier, parler; mateire, matwre, matere;
puet, peut, put; doel, deol, dul; joe, jeo, ju; oevre, eavre, m>re; lui
(place), liu, lu; suir (to follow), siur, sure, etc. Hence we see diamant, and
its variant deamant, as theoretically = daimant or daemant, and recognize
aimant (a loadstone), as derived from it by loss of d. Similarly, diable
becomes by theory daible, with variants actually found, deable and deble; and
triacle becomes by theory traicle = traycle of South Lancashire patois. So
also Eng. carrion = Nor. caroine, and warrior = theoretical tl!erroir = werreor
= werrour = guerrour, Nor. for guerreur. Friar, too, from freere, fraire, frere;
and guardian from 9ard11, gardein, gardain, show the breaking of e into ai, ei,
ia, ie, and the phonetic equivalence of these combinations.
Further, as u is a variant of o, oe = ue = eu = (uu) (see
p. 50), and we see why estoet (for estout) rhyming with t·eut
(Rel. Ant. i. 236), and = (estuut·), determines veut as = (vuut.)
1 Forth thei ferden with beore roitf,
I( thousand ladiea of a awl•.
Eing ..dlissuntkr, p. 13 (Weber).
where roil• = roul• - {ruut). Bo {Ch. C.T., 91))1oytitlg'• = fiouti•ge = (fiuut·ing)
.
26
This vowel - transposition appears to be also a characteristic
of the Teutonic languages, though to a much smaller extent. Grimm shows in
various psssages of his first volume (3rd ed.)
uo, by theory, = ou = u, as e.g., M.II.D. ba1·u011 = O.Fr.
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(delwedd F6291) (tudalen 386)
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baroun, barun; and also refers to the transposition
(umsetzung) in Alt. &x. of ie, by theory, = ei into . Inre
ference to M.N.L. (Middle Netherlandi.sh ), he also speaks (i. 301, 3rd ed.)
of ue as answering to e11 in sense and sound (bedeutung und aussprache) and
proceeds thus: Dies M.N.L. eu and ue ist eine von den vocalumsetzungen, die
den laut nicht beeintriichtigen und deren das .A..S. ea and ae ein andres
beispiel ist. Ile then refers to the French deuz, peut, neuf, compared with
the older forms du$%, puet, nuef, as another illustration. .A.gain (i. 366, 3rd
ed.), while deriving
A.S. ea from Goth. au, which became ao, then ae, he adds,
so ergibt sich eine ungezwungue umstellung in ea.
In Early English we find the same phenomenon, but before the Norman element
was mingled with it its vowel digraphs were so few that they do not present
much variety in the texts. The Normans added ai, ei, au, eu, oi, ou, and ui, with
transpositions of some of them, to the English vowel store. Hence we find as
English words proeve , preove; poeple, people; languor, langour; tJertue, vertew;
pais, paea, peas, peis, pees; also sre, sea, 1e; rer, ear, er; hoe, heo, hoo
(S. Lan. patois); boe, beo; troe, treo; hoere, huere; guod, goud; preost, pruest;
kod, lued; trewe, ttue; reule, ruele, rewel, riwk; while doe/, deol, which
must have been (duul), suggests the sound of eo in cheose11, kosen (Layamon),
as well as that of oe in goed, roed, woed, toen (town), i - shoed (A.S. soeo},
as = (uu). The same principle explains the rhyme s1011, be11 (ReL Ant. i.
260),
where eo = oe = (uu) and ue also = (uu) (see p. 50). Many
other instances will occur in the following pages.
1. Norman and English ae, ea = (ee). - The old Norman forms paes, with pau
and pes, qure with que, fae with/eie and fee, also deable with lkbk l for
diabk, and deamant for diamant, with the variant aima11t, all show ae, ea = (ee);
but both
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(delwedd F6292) (tudalen 387)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ.
387
digraphs are uncommon in Norman, and generally indicate
the high antiquity of the text in which they are found.
In English, both these digraphs were common. Their equivalence has been
already referred to, and is further confirmed by Layamon's ter, ear, er; drel,
deal, de!; dretli, death, deth; rreden, readen, reden; etc., in which ae, ea,
and e, appear to be convertible symbols, and = (ee).
2. Norman and English ai, ei; ia, ie = (ee). The
position that Norman and English ai, ei = (ee) - which contravenes Mr.
Eilis's, so elaborately argued, that ai, ei
= (ai) - will be first considered from
the Norman point of view. It is generally acknowledged, and therefore need
not be shown, that ai, ei, both in Norman and English, had in the 13th
century the same sound, whatever that may have been. The favourite Norman
form, however, was ei, but ai frequently occurs, and was in the Anglo - Norman
of the 14th century (as in Langtoft's Chronicle, paBB im) almost constantly
substituted for it.
That the long tonic Norman e = (ee) hasbeen shown (p. 20). This e we find
repeatedly rhyming with ei, ie, or ai, as in -
1o lui semU tot temJul
De moi aura hon e<m1til. - Adam, p. 6.
Fon de sul un; cil m'eet tU/eru,
Colui ne tucherai de main1. - Id. p. 14. Quanque fust, quanque doit titre
Sui - jo trestut b1en, en sui maUtre. - Id. p. 28.
N'i avez ricn que cSslengier
Fora iaterez sen reCotJerer. - Id. p. 38. Or H avant, jo irrai apru
Le petit pas, a grant relai1. - ld. p. 60.
E de 1a flor que p<>rrn mitre
Nos te tendroru puis per mai1tre. - ld. p. 67. Cbantouent un
vers 11 cler be.I,
Sembloit Iiangle fuissent de! ciel. - Id . p.68.
Penitence convcndroit _fere
Celui qui a. Deu.x voldra plair t. - ld. 74. L'une gittera graignor hrait
Qui ore ne feroient dis e 1et. - Id. 15.
Mes Dermot, Ji gcntil rtil
Od scs guerreis gent englu. - C<n1que1t of lrtl and, p. 20.
A Dermod vindrent a. pu
Pur la dute des engleie. - Id. p. 27. De Li me (ne?) voil ici refrair1
Cum ilfu pri.i, ne en quele manere. - Id. p. 20. Les vachea mistrent &
cluutel
Par Reymund e aun ccm1eil. - Id. p. 69.
Co en trestut le plus Joren
Ke aeit a ICcle, montaino nepl#in. - ld. p. 79.
Ven Leynestere •'est turnez
Li reia engleis acele/ti::. - Id. p. 127. Dis e wit
simeins, plus ne rmin1, Solum le dist 118 ancietU. - Id. p. 127. Ore est
scu.rs, ore est a eiae ·
Assissee fait, par unc apeae
Let cunt - Oncuns de sa tenc. - Edward tlu Oonfeuor, p. 12.
Li seint rois lEdward apert
A un abbu, ki seinz humme tirt. - ld. p. 21.
Quant lireia Eldred co uit
N'est merveile si il Iigret. - Jd. p. 31. Scignun apre1 TUS •011Jere
N'ere ja a V11i contraire. - Id. p. 66.
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(delwedd F6293) (tudalen 388)
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These instances may suffice to show that ei, ai, were not
always meant to indicate the diphthongs (ei, ai) or the dissyllables (e, i)
and (a, i), and only occasionally employed for simple e (e). 1 The conclusion,
indeed, which seems forced on the investigator by examining ei and ai in pure
Norman texts, 2 such as Charlemagne, Adam, Life of Edward the Confessor, '' Conquest
of Ireland, etc., is, that they very rarely indicate the dissyllables (e, i)
and (a, i), and are very generally equivalent to simple e. This is shown not
only by rhymes, as above, but by the interchange, apparently impossible on
the (ai) hypothesis, of ai, ei, and c, and also oi. Without discussing the
pronunciation of oi in other dialects, it seems clear that in Norman texts it
generally answered to ei, ai; and therefore by hypothesis
to e = (ee) (see p. 10), as in the following instances: -
Tu aime lui, e ele ame Ui,
Si serez ben ambcdui de moi. - ..J.dam, p. 4 - . Escut, Adam, entent a moi,
Jo te conseillerai en/ti - d. p. 17. Evcsqucs
naveront bis ne roi1
0:.01(! - Id. p. SZ.
Eynez de trois; and dit, Parf ei.'' - Edward tlu Cottfeuor, p. 32. Sires e rois sui de Daneii,
E tu es rois des EngWi1 - ld.p. 34.
Mes mi sire Jon de Grar
Vint a Lundres, si ne sa.1qwi. - .Pol. 81mg1, p. 62.
There can then be little doubt that Norman oi was (ee),
1 The conclusion s to which I have been led by an examination of all the
rhymee in Wace's Romau du Rou, and se, eral other Norman poems, are that ei, ai,
when written ·ere always meant to indicate the diphthongs (ei, ai) or the
disgyllabl°' (e, i) and (a, i), but that they were occasionally employed, perhaps
by a
$Cribal error, for simple '(e).'' (Ear. Eng. Pron. p. 463.) Diez, however, says
(i. 4181 3rd. ed.) Es (i.e. m) in den lland.scbriften iiberaO auf offenea e
reimt.''
i Wnce's Rom1m de Rou, on which Mr. Ellis mainly relics, is not one.
Referring to it. Fallot says: - •1Le dialectc de Normandie y est melange en
bien des
partie11; iiy a de Joni!' fragments oil iin'en reste que fort peude trace., p.
467.
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(delwedd F6294) (tudalen 389)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ.
389
except in the case of a few words, as païs, aïde, traïson (which soon,
however, became tresoun), haine, reine (both interchangeable with haïne, reïne),
etc., and also in the case, very frequently occurring, as subsequently shown,
where oi = (uu).
Consistently with this usage, we find joye in Norman of the 15th century (Chansons
normandes. Ed. Gasté. Caen, 1866, p. 48), rhyming with donnée, and even spelt
as jay, rhyming with esgardai (Altfranzösische Romanzen and Pastourellen. Ed.
Bartsch, 1870, p. 196).
Hence we find, in the earliest times, a disposition, even now quite
characteristic of the patois of Normandy, to pronounce the words known in the
ordinary language as croire, soir, noir, avoine, toile, toit, soit, voile, voine,
roine, voir (true), etc., as (creer, seer, neer, aveen, teel, teet, deet,
seet, reen, veel, veen, veer, etc.), the pronunciation, in its turn,
generating the Norman forms crere, seir, sair, neir, nair, aveine, teile,
veile, seine, reine, veir, (1) etc. The Norman oi, ei, ai = (ee) is thus a
traditional sound, which appears to be traceable to the earliest times.
Though generally confined to Normandy, it invaded the central language, not
only in such instances as aveine, reine, veine, peine, etc., but subsequently
produced a remarkable change in the termination of the imperfect tense. In
the earlier times, the word rendoit, for example, was probably pronounced, in
Central France and Picardy, as (renduet·), while in Normandy, where it was
written rendeit, it was consistently pronounced (rendeet·). By degrees the
Norman sound superseded the other, while the graphic form remained the same;
until in the 17th century form and sound were harmonized by writing ait, and
sounding (ee). This revolution is, by general consent, attributed to Norman
influence, and is another direct evidence in favour of the tradition that the
Norman ai, ei, was, from the earliest days, (ee). Returning, then, to the
interchange of forms - which would appear to
1/ The grammarians of the 16th century (see Livet's "Les grammairiens au
xvie siècle"), recognize the Norman ei = e as representing the oi of the
standard language. Thus, Dubois says, "Les Normands prononcent tous ces
mots (i.e. moi, toi, etc.) et les semblables avec un e, et non en oi, e.g.
telè, estellè, séè, ser, teet, velè, ré, lé, améè, etc., pour, toile,
estoille, soie, soir, toict, voile, roi, loi, amoie. Beza, too, writes "Normanni
pro foi (fides) scribunt et pronunciant fai."
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(delwedd F6295) (tudalen 390)
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have been unlikely if oi, ai, ei = (ai), but quite
intelligible
if these combinations = (ee) - we notice ceil, ciel, eel; lois, leis, lees;
trait, treit, tret; maisun, meisun, mes1m; maistre, meistre, mestre; pair,
peir, per; palaia, paleis, pales; conrai, conrei, conre; Joi, fei, fai, fe;
debonait'e, deboneyre, debonere; laisset, lesser; relais, releea; plein,
plain, plene; /0 18, feis, Jes, jeez, feze, ' etc. It would be easy to quote
similar instances by the score, or by the hundred, to confirm the general
conclusion that the recognized sound of the undivided ai, ei, was (ee).We have
now to observe the behaviour of this Norman element when it became an
integral feature of the English language, and in order to do so
satisfactorily, it may be well at first to take a single word and trace its
variations under its new circumstances. The Norman word pais occurs in Waco's
“Brut”, in the 12th century. In the 13th we find it in Edward the Confessor, as
paes, paia, peia, pea, and pees. It first appears as an English word in the S
= on Ohro11icle under A.D. 1135 (Pais he makede men and dmr). ln the 13th
century we find it in Layamon aspais; in .&ncren Riwle as pei&; in
Genesis and Exodus as pais; in Owl and Nightingale as pes; in Robert of
Gwuceater as pays; and in Lyr icrtl Poetry as pees. Inthe 14th century it was
pese and payse in 1Ja11 Michel, and pees in Langland and Chaucer; pessse in
the T = nky Mysteries, and pees in the Prom11torium Parv1tlorum. It is
difficult to see what other sound than (pees) could have been given to all
these forms, Norman or
1 Without di.scussing at length Mr. Ellis's remarks (pp. 463 - 466) on
Norman· French ei, ai, which Dave been partly answered in i'lic kxt, we may
regret (1) that he did not work on a better text than W!lOO's Roman de Rou i
aod (2) that
.he has treated the e.1.ccptiom ae tbe rule. Many of the instances which
hoquotes.
as ale, Ssir, pa'i11 tra·ium, were undoubtodly, from the earliest times, specimens
of
·the reS?lution of the digraph, bat they were quite rare, and do no represent
the use m any way. In Wace's St. Nicholas, fii, n, are about one to fi fty of
divided ai, ei, even on the showing of the editor, Dr. Delius, who evidently did
not understand the rhythm. Jn his anxiety to make out the enct number of
1yllables, be unscrupulously breaks up the compactest combinations, often
efttirely destroying the accent of the verse in the proceu. He has no
conception,
to do the work or eight, and
Each f6r / madne, . / ruled the / hou - or,
instead of
Ehcb / for mid / neos r6led / the bo6r.
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(delwedd F6296) (tudalen 391)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ.
391
English. Of two hypotheses one must be true: either that
the English peel, pe8, must have been transferred exactly from the Norman pea,
pu, with the Norman pronunciation; or that ee was the proper phonetic
equivalent of the English ai. Both suppositions are harmonized by the theory
that the Norman and English sounds were precisely the same, and that both
systems equally admitted the identity of ai, ei, ee, and e. If, then, English
ai, ag, ti, ey = Norman ee, we see why the Norman contree, j()Nlee, tornei, charee,
noblee, became English contrag, contreg, jornay, jorney, tornay, charrey, noblag,
with ag, ey = (ee), as in Kyg
.AliJaunder (Weber's ed.1): -
Ac no womman of that txmtrey
Ne lyTOtb no leng<r. par ma fey. i.208.
And for his bestet, par ma/ey,
That drowen and ledden his charrey. i. 21 l.
The Kyng forth rideth bh1jo11rnay,
Now heretb oo g<at of gTOte mJblay. i.217.
Then, with rhymes between Norman and English words:
And foughtten with hem, par mafay,
For to it were almest day. i. 223.
The knigbttel loveth the lY
M.a.yden1 ao dauneen and thay play. i. 216.
The passage I have next to adduce isfrom the beginning of a poem published in
Political Songs (p. 253), which, if the assumption respecting Hs form is
correct, goes far of itself to settle the question under discussion. It is
printed here as published by Mr. Wright, with corrections supplied by Mr.
Eilis's readings, which are derived from a recent transcript of the MB. made
expressly for him.• ON THE KING'S (EDWARD THE SECOND;S) BREAKING HIS CONFIRMATION
OF MAGNA OHARTA.
Len puet fere et defere
ceo fait iltrop souent
It nis noutber wet no faire therfore engelond is 1bent
Noatre prince de engletere Atp:i:i:iU. :?.t \:0 eire
maden a gret parlemeot
I Tb.eee instancea are all taken from the portion of the text printed from
the
0;·/49'1!.)ien long linee, u in the original MS.,
10 that the linea apparently rhyme only at. their extrem.itie& - 10Uet1t,
1hn1t,
gent,
parkment; crty, awey, tripolay, wey; 1ormoim, a®un. The only liberty ta.ken
in tho abon copy it that of redividing the Tersea and treating the whole tu
three stanzas. Capitalo, stops, and eeparete letters (except the th for
)>) are u in the original, but the contractiom are not italicited.
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(delwedd F6297) (tudalen 392)
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La chartre fet de crre
ieo lcnteink et b1en le crcy
Itwas holde to neih the fire and ia molten al awey
Ore ne say mes que dire
tout iva atripolay (A Tripoli) hundred. cbapitle. court an 11hlre
al hit goth a deucl wey
des p!W1oges (plu.s sagee) de latere (la terro)
ore eacotcz vn Bartnoun
Of iiij. wise men that tbcr were, wlii engelonde is broubt adoun.
Then the opinions of the wise men are given in English alone. It is strongly
maintained that the above was intended to rhyme only as regards the words
souent, shent, ge, .t, pa1·lemet1t; crey, awey, atripolay, 1cey; sarmou, 11, adoun;
and that defere, faire, engletere, fe fre, do not and were not intended to
rhyme, though cyre, fire , dit·e, sMre, and also tere and were, do. The
eclecticism of the writer, on this theory, in refusing chances for
rhymesapparently so tempting as defere, faire, engletere, and feire, while he
made no scruple of cyre, fi re, dire, shire, as well as of tere and were, is
singular, and not easily explained. Leaving, however, possible solutions, let
us assume that the twenty opportunities for rhyming are systematically
arranged in four sets of four rhymes each, and two sets of two rhymes each.
We then have - (1) de/ere, faire, engletere, feire; (2) aouent, sh1mt, gent, parlement;
(3) cyre, fire, dire, shire; (4) crey, awey, tripolay, wey; (5) tere, were;
(6) sar11wu11, doun. In the first set, the only question is that concerning
faire (English) and feire (Norman); for it is clear that if pes could rhyme
with Engleis as we have seen (see p. 36), defare could rhyme with feire, which
is also frequently written/oirel and/ere. But if day can rhyme with
fay, and jay, fey, with co11trey, as we have also just seen, why should not
faire (English) rhyme with feire (Norman), and therefore with defere .i• Now,
it has been abundantly shown
(see p. 36), that Norman ei, ai = e, and the following rhymes
1 In Pol. Songs p. 65, we find ltigletin·e, yuert, foir1 , and conquerre
rhyming
together.
' It i! clear from the linca (Chaucer, C. T. 5803, 4)
To bringe me gaye t.bingcs fro thefaire,
They were ful glad whan I spa!.: to hem faire. -
that Norman /tire, fair e or Jere, must have had the same sound as Englisb/ai're;
but the Norman/eire = (foer) therefore, etc.
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(delwedd F6298) (tudalen 393)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ.
393
show that ei, ai, also = e in English, though the uuge was
not so common as in Norman.
For it is soth Alfred bit ui<U
And me bit mai in hoke r1dl. - Owl and Niglalingv. T1, 11. 3iQ1 60.
Ule thu neat me beo .eid.e
Jif ich con eni other dldt. - Id. 707, 8. Fonde iif thu miht cft mi.r«k
Bwethcr tbu wilt wif tbe maid1. - Id. 1063, f,
Ac aoth hit ia ich rioge and gred4
Thar lavedice: beoth and faire maid#. - Id. 1337, 8. Ne acbal non mon wimman
6ifr«hADd flesch, . 1..tes hire uplmuu. - ld. Hl3, 14.
or fairncsiJe and of muehcl 1'111#
Bute thu ert a man and boo a. tnaitk.1 - FtorUand Blanclujiur, E.E.T.S., p.
62. Amorwe, gif he come ther ageyn
Al away heacbal finde hit cletu. - K. ..A.li1aundre, i. 290.
There can be no reasonable doubt, then, that feire and faire could have
rhymed together, and that they did. The second and third sets of rhymes
require no comment, but the fourth brings back the question just discussed.
Orey is the true Norman form for which the other dialects used croi, and is
established still in the Norman patois, where cray is (cree), as it was in
the 13th century.•
Tripolay, under the forms Tyrpleand Triple (for Trip[o)le), occurs in
Joinville; and as the - ay normally represents e, Tripolay might well rhyme
with crey = (cree). Again, if fe fre (orJere) is a good rhyme for faire and
de/ere, and maide for grede, then wei = (wee) rhymes properly with crey and
Tripolay. The rhymes then of this poem, it is submitted, support the theory that
ei, ai = (ee).
A final instance, showing ei, ey = e, is furnished by a story in The Book ef
the Knight of La Tour - Landry (E.E. T. S. ed.,
p. 27), where we find a husband saying to his wife Wiff, sele sus table, (wife,
salt on table); an order which she construes as seyle sus table (leap on
table) and accordingly to show her prompt obedience, jumps at once upcn the
table and brings it with all its contents, in a crash, to the floor. Had
seyle been (sail) this accident could hardly have occurred.
1 Mr. Elli! believes that this pssage is corrupt, but it is quite
COD.lliatent with
th 'oi:o ii:fOu 'if
;:':be 01' of the imperfect 00118C obtained the
Nonnan pronunciation, the Normnn fagbion for a while influenced the aound of
other words containing oi, and t.be Parisinns used to wntc and pronounce Je
crni•, quoiqu'il (9ueiqu'il P) en ssit, qu'il fait /raid dans cet etuirait.11
-
Fournicr, u .Essai sur l'histoire de l'ortbograpbe, ·• quoted in Vunicr'1 n
Petit Dictionnaire du Patois normand, p. 10.
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(delwedd F6299) (tudalen 394)
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394 ON THE NORM.AN ELEMENT.
3. Norman and English ie, ye = ei, ey = (ee). That medial ie = ei = e, may be
seen in Norman feu, fies, Jes; ceil, ciel, eel; tiel, teil, tel; as well as
in the proper Norman forms rivere, manere, matere, bachekr, chevaler, danger,
mester, which we find continually interchangeable with rnaniert, matierc, bacltelier,
dangier, meatier, but which were probably pronounced as if they were maneire,
mateire, etc.1 That is,
maniere = theoretical maneire = rnanere = (mreneer·), and so
of the rest. Similarly infinitives, as partier, aidier, portier,
= theoretical parkir, aideir, etc., = parler
= (parleer·), etc. This is shown by the occurrence of aveir, aver; saveir
(rhyming with voter), saver; poeir, poor (our Eng. power); comenceir, rhyming
with cheveir (whence modem ache11er), as well as of b<>ntie, pitie = older
bm1teit, bontei, pieteit, piteit,
pitei = bonte, pite = (bantee· and pitee·).• Inthese instances
the i is merely accidental, or, as it has been called, parasitic; but when it
was a part of the original word, as in 1mvie from invidia, a8tucie from
astucia, estudie from studium, etc., the e was probably otiose, and the i
only was sounded, so that ie in this case would be = (ii). The cases, however,
in which i was parasitic, and those in which it was essential, would tend to
be confounded together, especially in English, whence probably we may account
for such accidental forms as majestie rhyming with dignyte, libertie with
degree, crueltie with pyte, etc., in a MS. of Chaucer's Court of Love, cited by
Mr. Ellis (Ear. Eng. Pron. p. 283), in which ie = ei = e = (ee) But if e is
written as ie, ie may be written as e, and hence Audelay's curious forms
cumpane, remede for compa11ie, remedie, and also hole, wordle, openk, lade, for
holie, 1corldlie, ope11lie, kulie. At last ie = (ee) began to be considered as
identical with ie = (io), and obtained in this one class of words the same
sound. Hence we find in the Townley Mysteries try11yty, as well as trinite, charitie,
as well as charite, bewty
1 This is also G6nin's opinion - Dans le corps des mot.81 ie ne faisait qu
•un e plus ouvert, '' (Variations, etc., p. 167), so that, he ea.ya, J11°lii
was pronounced piti and Rerre, Pere, etc.
Marie de Fro.nee (Fables, ed. Roquefort) very commonly writes veritei, Mril, i,
utei, tlortti, biautei, as well as the participles d1mandft, p, .11tei, a1ne11ei,
af1Mt'1 utti, parUi, etc., interchangeably with auch forms as v1rite, fOkmt,
, etc.1 and also tucliier, muciw, nungitr, for tueher, et<:.
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(delwedd F6300) (tudalen 395)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ.
395
for the earlier beute, etc., and probably from the end of the
15th century all the words originally ending in ts ended in tie or ty . These
considerations serve to show how, in modem English, y represents both the ie
of envis, curtesie, etc., and the t! of beutt!, adversitt!, etc., and justify
the theory
that ie, ye = ei, ey.1
4. Norman and English'ai, ay = ia, ya = (ee). That Norman ia might be = ai
has been suggested (see p. 35) in the case of diabk (theoretical daibk), deabk
and deble, though originally diable was a trisyllable, rhyming normally with
adjectives ending in - abk. Deamant (for diamant), however, is to be
accounted for in a different way. Adama ntem gave, by loss of the initial a, a
theoretical form, damant or demant
= (d11mssnt·). Resolving or breaking e
into ai, ia, we get
claimant and diamant, of which the first became, by loss of d, aimaxt (loadstone),
and the other diamant = theoretical
daimant or daemant = (d11mssnt·).1 Very early, however, it seems to have been
used as a trisyllable, though by its
formation only a d.issyllable. Triaculum, again, became normally triack = theoretical
traick, traecle = (treekl), of
S. Lancashire. Ina similar way &.ai.ovo became A.S.diacon or deacon = theoretical
daicon, and actual dmknn = (deek·en) of the Ormulum. The analogy suggested by
these examples will perhaps explain, without the assumption of any dialectic
peculiarity, Dan Michel's exceptional spelling (in the Ayenbite) of dyad, bryad,
byam, ltyap, for dead, bread, beam, heap. The first occurs in a passage from
Dan Michel quoted and notated in Ear. Eng. Pron., p. 412. The final words of
four consecutive lines are yzed, bread, red, dyad, which are considered by
Mr. Ellis as alternate rhymes, and notated by him (i - zed·, bressd, reed, dJssd);
but might they not be in -
1 It may be worth noticing that the Poitevin patois exhibits a oimilar phe·
nomenon. Herc wlontl, cOU, and beauti, appear as voltmti, couty, and beauty, (sic)
and the participles jiti , gardi , and quitU, as ietty, gardy and quWy.
GkJ11air1 di Poit&u, Introduction pp. Xii, uiii.
' Cf. (from Kyng Alisaunder, Weber, .17),
6}1e;b:0 , :nt; e \:uie.
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(delwedd F6301) (tudalen 396)
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396 ON THE NORMAN
ELEMENT.
tended for (i-zed·, breed, reed, deed)? This, at all events, would be consistent
with the theory that ya = ay = (ee). (1.)
5. English eo, oe = (ee). The analogy between Norman and English fails in
regard to this digraph. No instances have been found in Norman texts of
either eo or oe = (ee). Anglicised Norman words are, however, not
unfrequently found in Chaucer and other writers, as boef, poeple, people,
reproef, reproeve, etc., in which oe, eo = (ee), but as Norman words they
would have been (buuf, puple, repruuf·, repruuv·). Layamon's variants,
however, hoep, heap, hep, heop; neode, nede; roede, reade, rede, reode, rede,
red; saec, secke, seoc; beo, be; as well as Chaucer's usage, show that eo =
(ee), and this opinion appears to be Mr. Ellis's also (Ear. Eng. Pron. p.
262). Hence it is somewhat difficult to account for his notation of beo,
beoth, beon, heom, found in the Proclamation of Henry III. (Ear. Eng. Pron.
p. 501), as (beo, beoth, beon, heom). There can be little doubt that they
were (bee, beeth, been, heem), though it is possible, as will appear subsequently,
that they might sometimes have been (bun, buuth, buun, huum).
6. Norman oi = (ee). - This position has been sufficiently illustrated, but a
few instances showing the introduction of the element into English may be
cited. The usage was not uniform, and, on account, probably, of its frequent
confusion with oi = (uu), was soon discontinued. It perhaps explains the
anomalous rhymes poynte, queynte; also, in Kyng Alisaunder, y-said, anoyed;
taile, spoile ; pays (peace), noise; and in the Hunterian MS. of the Romaunt
of the Rose (quoted by Mr.
1/ A further examination of Dan Michel's orthography seems to confirm the
notice that his ia, ya, ie, ye, meant nothing more than ai, ay, ei, ey. He
employs, for instance, the usual form deade plural, as well as dyad, and
clene as well as cliene, clepeth as well as cliepeth, etc.; while in respect
to Norman words, of which we know the usual form and pronunciation, it is
scarcely credible that his sound for them could have been different from that
of all other writers. The words clerke and clierk he uses indifferently, but
could hardly have meant to vary the utterance. Then the word cler, cleir, he
changes into clier, clyer, but surely must have meant (cleer). So his chiere
= Norman chere, must have been meant for cheire = (tsheer). Much similar
evidence could be given, but two instances more must suffice. The French
piece was generally pece in Norman, and hence pyece (Allit. Poems, p. 6) was
probably (pees). In the Moral Ode (152, 3) teache (teetsh) rhymes with liache,
which is varied in another text by leche, and therefore could hardly have
been anything else but laiche = (leetsh).
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(delwedd F6302) (tudalen 397)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 397
Ellis, Early Eng. Pron., p. 269), joynt, queynt; annoy, away; joye, conveye. See
in p.38, joye = (dzhee).
7. Norman patois. - The Norman ai, ei, which was used for the oi of the other
dialect, and which was, as we have shown, = (ee), seems to have persisted from
age to age down to the present time. In the Chansons normandes du XV Siècle (Gasté's
ed., 1866), we find moy (the earlier mei) rhyming with May (the month).foy
(earlier fei) with trouvait, joye, with donnée, etc., and in Muse Normande
(date 1621) we have baire for boire, crottay for crotté, trais for trois, endrait
for endroit, faire for foire, pouaite for poète, veizen for voisin, etc. In
Jersey, too, vet is found for voir, freid for froid, deit for doit, bère for
boire, eteile for étoile, vechin for voici; and in the Poiteven patois, even
more markedly, cray, or cré, paye, for crois, pois, and vere, ser, dret, vesin,
det, fret , ner, tele, tet, fe, for Old Norman veir, seir, dreit, veisin, deit,
freid , neir, teile, teit, fei, now, in modern French, voir, soir, droit, etc.
8. English patois. - Here there are many traces of the same usage. The A.S. aetan,
or etan (to eat) = aetan = theoretic aitan, is (eet) in S.E. Lancashire; so foeder
is (feether), moete, mete, is (meet), woeter is (weet·er), toecan (teach) is
(teetsh), bread is (breed), spoecan is (speek), etc., in all of which oe = ae
= ea = ai = (ee). Here, too, as already remarked, triacle = traicle = (treekl).
The same usage may be traced in Devonshire, where raizn (reezn), fair (feer),
trait (treet), relaise (relees·) payce (pees), aize (eez), aizy (ee·zi), represent
the Old Norman raisun, resun; foire, feire, fere; traiter, treter; relais, relees;
pais, pees; aise, ese, aisé, etc.: and where zay (zee), ait (eet), mait
(meet), spaik (speek), ail (eel), waik (week) for modern sea, eat, meat, speak,
eel, weak, agree with the midland patois, and the probable Old English
pronunciation. The Northern word aigre, too, is the Norman aigre, eigre, egre,
and the Midland aistre (Boucher), easter (Ray), ester (Evans), the chimney-back
or fire-place, is, the Norman aistre, with the same signification. (1) The
Wiltshire featish
1 The word, as ester, with a a somewhat extendod meaning, is found in Chaucer,
De Brunne, and Lydgate.
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(delwedd F6303) (tudalen 398)
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398 ON THE NORMAN ELEMENT.
is the Norman faitis, fetis ("beau, bien fait, agréable," etc.,
Burguy). The Devonshire payze, and Gloucestershire pace, to raise with a
lever, or to poise in the hand, is the Norman peiser, peser. Maistre,
maistresse, we find in provincial speech maister and maistress. (1)
1/ Maister may, of course, be derived also from A.S. maester, but there is no
maistresse in A.S. to explain mistress.
Bever, too ( often pronounced bayver," Miss Baker) is the Norman baivre,
beivre, bevre, and means, strictly, drinking-time. All these patois examples,
then, whether in Normandy and England — and they are only a few out of many —
confirm the theory that the sound (ee) was, in the English of the 13th and
14th centuries, variously represented in writing by ae, ea; ai, ia; ei, ie,
and by the Norman digraph oi.
The main, and to me the only, difficulty in the way of this theory lies in
the undoubted fact that in some parts of the south-western district — certainly
in Dorset and Somerset though not in Devonshire — as also to some extent in
East Anglia, ai, ay is pronounced (ai). Barnes, in his charming Anglo-Doric
Songs — too little known and appreciated — gives us râin = (rain), plây = (plai),
tâil = (tail), nâil = (nail), fâir = (fair), as well as the Romance words âir,
vâil, pâil, Mây, gây = (air, vail, etc.), and, at the same time,
inconsistently, pair (peer), chair (tsheer). I am not competent to offer an
explanation of these apparent anomalies, but trust that in the
much-desiderated investigation of our English patois, which Mr. Ellis has
promised to supply, they will receive an adequate solution.
NORMAN AND ENGLISH au = (au) (ss) or (ss**).
It seems probable that au in Latin was (au), as in modern Italian; and there
is little doubt that this was also the early sound of the Norman au. The
digraph was, however, in the 12th century, uncommon. It represents, when met
with, two results — either the softening of l into u, as in autre from alter,
or a juxtaposition occasioned by the loss of a consonant that originally
separated a and u, as in auner from adunare.
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(delwedd F6304) (tudalen 399)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 399
In both cases the u, as being an organic feature of the word, probably
retained for some time its independent sound. The old form aoust, from augustus,
seems to show the same phenomenon. The Norman auner, therefore, was most
likely (auneer·), and autant (autssnt·). We are confirmed in this notion by
the information of Beza, who, writing in the 16th century (De Francicae linguae
rectâ pronunciatione. Berolini, 1868, p. 48), says: - “Normanni sic illa
sonore pronunciant, ut a et o, audiantur, ut qui dicant autant, perinde acsi
scriptum easet a-o-tant. He adds: - “Fitque fortasse antiqua et vera hujus
diphthongi tum prolatio tum scriptura.” This usage has been preserved in the Norman
patois, and caud for chaud, and some other words, are still heard as caou, etc.;
while in Poitou autre is aotre, chauffer, chaoffer, etc. That the English au
of the 13th century was, under similar circumstances, the same, is in the
highest degree probable; but instances of its use in purely English words are
seldom met with; almost every au is Norman. (1)
1/ The instances Awwstin for Austin, fawte for faute, haute for haute,
hawnteyne for haunteyne, pawtenere for pautonier (from paltonier), seem to
confirm the hypothesis, yet if aw means nothing more than au, which is
probable, they leave it as it is.
The fact that (au) became at last, by regular developent (SS), so that caudel
(kaudel·) of the 13th century was caudle (kSSdl) of the 17th, is an argument
in favour of this notion. There was, however, a third au in which the u was
not, as it was in the other cases, organic, but appears to have been merely
auxiliary to the pronunciation. This is the au which appears in the place of
simple a, especially before m or n, in the 14th century, and which governed
the form in which many Norman words ultimately took their place in our
language. Instead of being rare, like the au mentioned before, it is, in the
14th century, excessively common; but it does not appear to come under the
same category.
A few examples will illustrate this point. In the 12th century we find
persistently, and perhaps without exception, such forms as mander, avant,
grant, vaillant, contant (pres. part.), san, sans; in the 13th these are
occasionally interchanged with maunder, avaunt, grams, saunz; but in the 14th
(see
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(delwedd F6305) (tudalen 400)
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400
ON THE NORMAN ELEMENT.
Langtoft, passim), the exceptional form has become normal, and graunt,
parlaunce, chaunce, Fraunce, chaumbre, viaunde, gerlaunde, vaylaunt, etc.,
etc., occur in every page, with occasional introduction of the old an in
conquerant, grevance (rhyming with Fraunce, etc). The question is whether
this change in form involved a change in sound. The presumption certainly is
that it did not, and that the epenthetic u was a simple link or glide between
the lengthened sound of the a and the n which followed. This notion is
confirmed by an example from Langtoft (Pol. Songs, p. 292): —
Ferrez du braund
Northumberlaund.
Now, although the English land varied in form (as in lond), yet there seems
no reason to believe that it was ever pronounced (laund), and the presumption
is that it had, above, its usual sound (lssnd), and brand, which is
apparently both Norman and English, would therefore have been in both
languages (brssnd). The conclusion, then, is that au, when the u was organic,
was sounded (au), when inorganic (ss**), both in Norman and English, that
Chaucer's alliaunce and chaunce were therefore (aliss**ns· or alissns· and tshss**ns
or tshssns) (1),
1/ In Minot's poems we find as rhymes France, daunce (p. 18), France, dance
(p. 28), purviance, daunce (p. 32), distance, lance, daunce, mischance,
avance, Fraunce (p. 39),and in the Sevyn Sages (Weber); avenaunt, covenant
(p. 66).
and that those who in modern times pronounce jaunt, haunt, launch, haunch,
paunch, jaundice, as (dzhssnt, Hssnt, lssntsh), etc., retain very nearly the
old Norman pronunciation.
NORMAN AND ENGLISH ou, uo; ui, iu; ue, eu; oe, eo; oi, io; WITH THE VARIANTS
ow, owe, iw, iwe, ieu,iew, ew, ewe, eue, euwe, eou, eouwe, eow, eowe, we, uwe
= (uu).
Assuming the correctness of the theory of vowel-transposition stated in p.
34, I have to show its value in solving some of the difficult problems
presented in the above assertion; and in doing so I hope to be pardoned for
failing sometimes to produce proofs from Norman texts. They may still be
found, but I have not always been able to find them.
1. Norman and English ou = uo = (uu). — It is unnecessary to show that ou=
(uu), as this is generally acknowledged.
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(delwedd F6306) (tudalen 401)
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BY
JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 401
Instances, however, of uo = ou are rare, and can only be found in very early
French. In the Cantilène de Sainte Eulalie of the 9th century, the earliest
literary composition in the language, we find buona, suon, ruovet - which
forms afterwards became boun, (1) soun, and rouver (to beseech). Duol, too,
afterwards doul, and ultimately duel, is found, and may be presumed = (duul);
and languor (13th century), and its con-temporary, langur = (languur·),
interpret each other. (2) Luop for loup is also found (Pol. Songs, p. 138.)
Instances of uo = ou are also uncommon in English, but tuoche, from Norman
tucher, or toucher, in Early Eng. Poems, p. 75, and guode (the common form of
gode in Dan Michel) rhyming with blode, and presumptively showing the sound
of both words as (guud) and (bluud), may be cited. We also find goud in
Layamon, and tuo, the numeral, presumptively tou = (tuu) repeatedly in Robt.
of Gloucester.
2. Norman ui, iu, iw, yw = (uu). In the Prisoner's Prayer (Ear. Eng. Pron. p.
434) we find -
Sam decerte en prison sus
Car maydez trespuis shesu.
and in the Conquest of Ireland we have the following instances of ui = u.
Demorirent iloc la nuit,
A grant joe e a dedut, p. 39,
Remistrerent icele nuit
Od grant joie e od grant brut, p. 63.
E Morice de Prendergast jut
Od Mac Donked icele nuit, p. 102.
Vindrint al rei icele nuit
Sur is Barue u il i out, p. 38.
These instances not only show uit = ut, but the last proves that the sound
was (uut). In an Anglo-Norman drinking song, also, "written early in the
13th century " (Rel. Ant. ii. 168), occur the rhymes brut, deduit ; fut,
frut, nuit, as well as the form fute for fuite. Anut, destrure, nure, pusant,
rusel, pus, lusant, and numerous similar forms are found, moreover, in
various Norman texts for anuit (to night), destruire, noire, puisant,
ruissel, polo, luisant.
1/ It would not be difficult to show by many other instances that (buun), or
perhaps (bun), was the original sound of the modern French bon, written
variously in Old French as buen, boen, boin.
2/ The retention of this form in English, so long after its loss in French - where
it seems to have died almost as soon as it was born - is a curious fact.
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(delwedd F6307) (tudalen 402)
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But by the theory of vowel - transposition ui = iu = (uu),
accordingly we meet with suir, siur; estuide, estiude, estude, and we
conclude therefore that in the rhyme ririle, tiule, (Rutebeuf, 13th cent.,
Parisian French) iu = ui = (uu), and that suite, siute, 1mte, porsuite,
eschiu, had iu = Ui = (uu). Chaucer's• escMeu, esc!tew, esclme, eschiewe,
eschewe, rhyming respectively with coitu, due, deice, dwe, due, and
theoretically = (estchuu·), for Norman eschiu and his valie1< for Norman
value, show his appreciation of ieu = 11e = iu. Eng. f!ietc , or ve1ce as
originally written, moreover representa Norman f!eue, veu, or vue, and isby
theory = (vuu). The Norman triwe, truwe (whence our truce, originally a
plural word, friwes or trmces) and drywerie (Tote bounte e drywerie, '' Rel.
Ant. ii. 220), for the common forms dr11erie, drurie, also illustrate the
point in question, as does the rhyme newe, siwe (Rel. Ant. i. 263).
3. Norman ue, w; oe, eo = (uu). In Early Norman we have many instances of the
interchange of these combinations, as soer, siter, se11r (sister) = (suur);
puet, peut, put, pout = (puut); duel, deul, duil, doel, deol, dul = (duul);
boej, buej, bouf,
= (buuf), licheor, lechoer, leclwut·, leclntr
= (letshuur·). We find also ue rhyming with eu 1 and eu with u as in:
E li cnfcz qui dedenz/r•
Q.ui out le cor tendre e mu. - Wace'a St. Nichola1, p. 7. Li blez est a.
nostre seignHr
Au I gustin I Iitm I p.. - 11.r, ed. p. 12.
A la mcsuro l'ont rendu
Que Iprimes Il'curentI' id. p. 12.
The
rhymes estoet, vei<t (Rel. Ant. i. 236) where oe = eu = (uu) and peche1w, pour
(Grosseteste. Chnsteau d'Amour p.53), also illustrate the point.
1 Chnuccr•s so and so. is, of courso, only a comfcodious way of referring
to the extant texts of his worb. Which of them, i any, 'l\88 Chaucer's own, or
would have been authorised by him, it is clearly impossible to say. The
Chaucer Society's noble Six·Text Edition '·cs an opportunity, not before
enjoyed. of comparing varieties of form, which, in the absence of authority, rear
all be called '4 Chaucer's. In tho case of the word eachieu it is worth
not1co (1), th1tt the proper Norman form Wl\8 probably eschi1', eaclmi, or
tllcluu = (cst.shuu·); (2}, that tllthieu and cialieu for e11cl111$ nnd tmlue
are forms not found in Norman texts. )·ct possible, ina.smucb as lieu, lui, tu,
l<m (place), arc all interehangeble, and (3), that ew, etce, we, appear to
be distinctly intended a.s English phonetic ettuh, alent.s of the Norman iu, ui,
ue, ieu, and therefore = (uu). The theory assumed seems, therefore, to
explain all t.ho fa.eta.
2 4 '. 0n trouve trs souvent des mots en w et en' qui rim.ent ensemble. Bur
guy, I.9...5,
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(delwedd F6308) (tudalen 403)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 403
4. Norman oi, io = (uu). Norman noit, nuit, nut = (nuut) crois, cruis =
(cruus); poi, pou (mod. peu); angoisse, anguisse, angusse; orgoil, orguel;
conoistre, conuistre, conustre; poin, puin; roige = rouge (Roquefort); also
fusoyn rhyming with corbeloun (De Biblesworth, p. 158,), and point with mound
(Pol. Songs, p. 137), seem to prove oi = (uu). Then doil, diol, doul, dul =
(duul); riote = route = (ruut) (as before shown); mansion (from mansion-em)
mansiun, maisun, mesun, mesoun = (musuun·), seem also to show io = oi = ui =
iu = ue = u = ou = (uu).
5. English u, w, iw, iwe, ieu, iew = Norman u ui, iu, iw, yw; English w, eu,
eue, euwe, ew, ewe, eou, eow, eowe, eouwe, ue, we, uwe = Norman eU, ue;
English ou, ow, owe, owwe = Norman ou, u, and therefore all = (uu).
(It is here assumed that generally English parasitic e = Norman parasitic i,
that English w =-. Norman u or oU = (uu), and that e final is silent.)
That English u or w represented Norman ui is seen in these rhymes :
There is maner frute;
Al is soles and dedute. — Land of Cokaygne, ll. 49, 50.
That hadde bowes and frut;
Ther-under was all his dedwt.—Sevyn Sages, p. 23.
The usual Norman forms of frute and declute are fruit and deduit and we see
in these lines how the English pronounced them. Hence we may infer that bruit
or brute; fruit, frute or frute; suit or sute; pursuit, pursute, angusse,
anguis or angus, all early English forms, were pronounced with ui = u= (uu).
The varieties of the remaining combinations are seen below:
Eng. u = Nor. u = (uu), as in truthe (Lay. 2nd text, Horn, P. Pl.).
Eng. w = Nor. u = (uu) as in thorw (Cast. off Love).
Eng. to = Nor. ue = (uu) as in true (Sir Gawayne).
Eng. we = Nor. ue = (uu) as in trwe (E. E. Poems., Pr. Parv., sorwe (Gen. and
Ex.).
Eng. uwe = Nor. ue = (uu) as in truwe
(Oceleve) seoruwe (Anc. Riwle).
Eng. eu = Nor. eu = (uu) as in treuth (Chau.) reule (Chau.).
Eng. eue = Nor. eu = (uu) as in treue
(Chau., Audelay).
Eng. euwe = Nor. eu = (uu) as in treuwethe (Lay. 2nd text).
Eng. ew = Nor. eu = (uu) as in trewthe (Gen. and Ex., Horn, P. Pl.) rewle
(Chau. Lansd. MS.).
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(delwedd F6309) (tudalen 404)
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404 ON THE NORM.AN ELEM.ENT.
Eng. ewe
= Nor. eu = (uu), SA in trewe (Lay.
2ud text, Chau.) .., ...., (Rel.
Ant.).
'°
tow
, , towt
do.
do.
do.
do.
do.
do.
trroutlu (Layamon).
lreowtlu(Layamon).
tfeow1 (Layamon).
eouwe = do,
do.
tr uw11 {Layamon).
, , iw, yw = Nor.1'u = do. , ,
riwle(Anc. Riwle) Gyw, mod.Jew (Ly.Po.).
iwe = do.
ieu, itw = do.
do.
do.
triwe (Gen. and Ex., Allit. Po., R. of GI.).
••lieu, udieu, hittDe (.U Chau.).
ou = Nor.ou = do.
' do. do.
ow1 = do. do.
troutlu (Anc. Riwle, P. PI., Chau.).
/rowlh (Chau.).
'°'(Pr. Parv.).
= do.
do. 0 troww1 (Ormulum).
In view of these remarkable variations in the spelling it
must be constantly remembered that the word intended was, after all, only one,
and, therefore, presumably kept one sound throughout. It is not to be
imagined that the vagaries of the spelling represented corresponding vagaries
in the pronunciation. 1 The confusion which had begun to arise between the
Norman and English digraphs was no doubt one of the causes which led to these
orthographic eccentricities. Knowing, for instance, the word which is now
truth, (A.S. trewth, t1·ewt!ui, or treicthe), and hearing it pronounced as
(truuth·11) or perhaps (truuth), Layamon writes it sometimes as treouthe, then
as treot!ie, again as treowthe, and lastly 811 lre11wethe, being well aware
that the reader would understand what he meant and give the right sound. Then
the scribe of the later text, intending to represent the same sound, and
aware that the Normans around him wrote eu for the sound of u, simplified the
notation and gave us freuthe and truthe, but both scribes in common discourse
agreed no doubt in pronouncing the word as above. The clustering of vowel
upon vowel, as in treowthe and treuwetlie, was probably only intended to
leave no doubt as to the quantity and
1 It 1hould be remembered in connection with this subject that the spelling
eccentricities of all times present the same difficulty. Archbishop Trench
tells w that he had himself met with fifteen spellings of the word 1udd11i
(0.Fr. 1odain, audain = (sudccn·) or with English accent (sad·un), viz.:
aodain, IOdain, , 1odan,
1odayt1e, aodikn, aodein, aodeine, 1odtn, aotkgn, 11uidain, 1uddain1, 1uddf
in, 1uddeim, artddn1, 11uie1. 1n; yet all the time the English sound was most
probably nothing else but (s3Ch1u). So with regard to the thirty.four
spellingi1 of Shaksperc's name, giv - 0n by Halliwell in his Life of
Shak1pere, docs an7 one beli - 0vc in thirty - four different pronunciations?
Halliwell himself is of oprn.ion that the proper sound of the family name was
(Shrebpor).
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(delwedd F6310) (tudalen 405)
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quality
of the utterance required, and to make, as it were,
assurance doubly sure. It is quite impossible that eµwe in the latter
instance could have been meant to represent four articulations, e, u, w, e.
To assume, on the other hand, that the trut11e of the later scribe interprets
all the other forms is consistent with the theory here adopted, and with good
sense.
Time and space are wanting to show the details involved in the position that
so many dµferent combinations all =
(uu). The following rhymes are, however, le for consideration. Taken
altogether it is difficult to resist the conclusion to which they point. The
Norman words are in italics.
ui = oi = (uu) as in bruyl, doyl, Norman text, De Bibles - 1001·th, (Wright),
p.147; duyk, Belsabuk, King Alis., (Weber),
p. 114; anoied, destruyed, King Alis., p. 65; muis (for mouse), huis (for
house), Pol. Songs, p. 142; showing ui = oi
= (uu).
iue = iwe = yice = ewe = (uu) as in newe, siwe, Rel.
Ant., i. 263; nywe, trewe, Shoreham, p. 20.
ue = ewe = 11 = (uu) as in issue, vewe, Norman text, Pol. Songs, p. 142; fewe,
ihsu, trewe, new, E. E. Poems, p. 139; sewe, vertu, 1 E. E. Poems, p. 143; f
ygure, creature, e1umer, f eture, E. E. Poems, p. 141; enduer, cure, eiuer,
E. E. Poems, p. 145.
eo = <>?f = (uu) as in deol, 8JJOyl, King Alis., p. 109.
e11 = ew = (uu) as in crew, deceu, Norman text, see
E. E. Pron, p. 464; reuthe, trewthe, King Alis., p. 169.
ew = ou = ow = eow = (uu) as in trewthe, rowthe, E. E. Poems, p. 143; trewe, cnowe,
]J[dtsner, Alt. Prob., i. 107; schowe, thewe, Matsner, Alt.Prob., i.106;
Tholomew, threow, King Alis., p. 95; Tholomeus, erttious, King Alis., p. 101.
oe = ou = (uu) as in ooej (for oef), bouj, De Biblesw01·th,
t This is the proper and original form of the English word. Tbe final e i1
utterly idle, neither organic nor orthoepie. It WB8 seen that m = v = (uu), and
therefore it socmcd plausible enough to write the one for the other, and
hence erlue, and also t1ert1W, a recognition thBt ew = = w = (uu). The plural
of
vertut is of oourso ttertuea, but we hove t4e still further developed into uw,
and hence •trtuwu (Castell off Love, p.37) and wrtuwy1, all, at fust, = (vcrtuu·a
or vcrtuus·).
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(delwedd F6311) (tudalen 406)
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406 ON THE
NORMAN ELEMENT.
p. 152; oee, de•cue11re, quoted by Genin, Variations, etc., p. 179.
These views are confirmed by the rhymes trzoe, blwe, grewe, remwe, (Norman
remue) (Allit. Poems, p. 13), knewe, swe (Norman siu or sui), due, liwe, tmtrwe,
remwe (Allit. Poems,
p. 27), !1ewe, salue, remwe (Sir Gawayne, p. 47) escltuwe (Nor
man eschiu), duwe (Norman due), suwe (Norman siu or sui) untrewe, knPu:e, rewe
(E. E. Poems, p. 122.) On a due consideration of all these instances there
will appear much reason for demurring to Mr. Ellis's (y) for eu, etc., in
Norman words, and (eu) for eu, etc., in English ones, and a strong
presumption for the theory that the Norman and English pronunciations
coincided, and that in all Chaucer's words treated in Ear. Eng. Pron. pp. 302,
3, blewe, due, esc!Ulue,
/ ewe, gle10, lieToe, k11ewe, meroe, newe, remew, rewe, reule, reut!te, sche1ce,
slirewe, sewe, .;ftewe, stewe, t11re1oe, trewe, frettllt, valieu the sound of
ue, eu, ew, ewe, ieu, was (uu). The hypothesis then, that eu, etc., had one
sound in words of Norman origin, and another in those of native growth is
unnecessary, and indeed inconsistent with the fact that though Chaucer may
not have rhymed together words of different origin other writers do. The
rhymes ju st cited furnish a case in point where we find trwe {Eng.) grewe
(Eng.) 1·w1we (Nor.), swe (Nor.) due (Nor.) liwe (Eng. the lieou, lieowe, liowe,
lteu, liewe, Mwe of other texts}, untrwe (Eng.), all rhyming together, and
apparently interpretable only as (truu, gruu, remuu - , suu, duu, Huu, tmtruu·
or antruu). The Anglo - Saxon 11e01ce, 11iu·e (mod. new) confirms the theory.
It appears generally in early English as newe, but it is also neow (Orm.)
neowe, (Ancren Riwle) neuwe (Layamon, 2d. text) niwe, niew, (Rob. of GI.)
no1oe (Owl and Night .) and all these forms seem to he interpreted by nwe, and
mo = (nuu) in Allit. Poems, (pp. 33 and 16). On the whole, then, there is
some cause for believing that our common pronunciation of rue, true, blue, blew,
grew, rule, bruit, fruit, as well as the vulgar dooty, 11oosance, nooz, noo, doose,
and even voo (view), and bootijul, as well as D<>u for Dieu in Guernsey
patois, are all traditions of the old Norman speech.
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(delwedd F6312) (tudalen 407)
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BY
JOSEPH PAYliE, ESQ. 407
NORMAN AND ENGLISH oi, oe = (uu) AND (ee).
It has already been shown (pp. 30 and 67) that Norman oi represents (uu), as
in 1wit, nuit, nut; poi, pou; angoisse, angu;1se; foisoyn, .fusu11, etc., and
also (ee) as in moi, roi, jl'Oid, roid, etc. As the digraph oi was unknown in
early English its introduction with a double sound would of course occasion
much difficulty to the English scribes. This difficulty would be increased by
the fact that Norman oe was also = (uu), as in poeple, puple; soen, soun;
liclwer, liclwur; doet, doul; bof, bouf; oef, 011/, though it might perhaps
be difficult to prove that Norman eo, which was also, us has been shown (p.
50) = (uu) was ever = (ee). On the other hand English eo seems to have been
both, as we see in the forms
lieorte, herte, huerte, hurte; de<>p, dep, dup; dem·e, dere, dttere;
heore, here, liuere; leod, Zelle, ltted; leof, lef, luef; beon, ben, bue11;
beoth, beth, bueth, buth; preon, preen, proin, prune; lieo, he, hoe, hue.
English oe seems to have been rare, though we find goed with goud, gode; roed,
rode; toen, tottn; and some others. He is used for heo by Rob. of Glo., while
!toe and hue = (Huu) remain in the modern patois, !too, of S. Lancashire. In
view of these perplexing varieties of form and sound, we see how anoy might
be either (anuu·) as where (Chaucer, C. T., 11187) anoyeth rhymes with
destroyetlt, i.e., (anuu·eth with destruu·eth), or (anee·), as where it
rhymes with
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(delwedd F6313) (tudalen 408)
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away
= (awee·), in the Romaunt of the Rose, as quoted by
Mr. Ellis (Ear. Eng. Pron., p. 269). In the other rhymes quoted in the same page,
joye, monoie (also written moneie); Troie, monoie; joy11t, queynt; joye, co11e11e;
the Norman influence is vory perceptible. It seems then pretty clear that oi
was either (uu) or (ee). Loi and coi, rhyming together in Chaucer's Prologue,
were probably (Luu, cuu), while boi, boy, originally (buu), appears also from
King Alisaunder (11. 4376, 7), where it is written bai and rhymes with bewrye
(which we may correct into bezoraye), and from bei (Prompt. Parvul.), where
it is given as a variant of boy, to have been occasionally (bee). OrU8ade
(earlier croisade) shews u for oi, but cresset from croisette indicates the
tendency to appreciate oi also as e. The Norman pr()1)8, pruve , proeve = (pruuv)
408 ON THE NORMAN ELEMENT.
appears (see p. 22) in English as preove (Ancren Riwle) and
reproeve (Ch) both, by theory, = (pruuv) but as English eo (see p. 45)
generally = (ee), oe would tend to become (ee) also and hence Chaucer's
reproeve and repre ve may both = (repreev·). Yet there is every reason to
believe that Norman mueve, muve, move, which similarly became meve (meev) in
English, was also frequently (muuv). Norman puple, pueple , po eple, was no doubt
originally (puupl), but when people became a frequent variant in English
texts (though not found in Norman ones) and was appreciated as an English
word, it began to be generally (peepl), though pup le (see William of
Palerne) was also often met with. On the other hand, it seems probable that
the appreciation of Norman eo, oe as (uu) may have had its effect in producing
some of the changes above enumerated as taking place in English words. If
A.S. leod, for instance, in Alfred's time was (leod or le6d) ns Grimm, Rapp, and
Ellis would mark the sound (see Ear. Eng.Pron., p.534), and in Orrmin's time
was (leod or leed) how could it have become lued (luud), as it did in the
14th century (Pol. Songs, p. 1155), unless the English appreciation of eo had
become, at least in some cases, the same as the Norman? The connection
between Layamon's beorn, a warrior, and burn, the form in Wm. of Palerne and
in
P. Pl., as well as between cl!eose, chese, and choose; leqf, !eve,
and luve, love; lease, Iese, and loose, ete; mayprobably betraced
to the confusion between the Norman oi = (uu) or (ee), Norman eo, oe = (uu)
but not (ee), and English eo, oe = (ee)but not originally (?) = (uu). It may
be further remarked, that
though the Norman oi = (ee), as in roi = (ree), and also oi
= (uu) as in boi8te = (buust), fusoin
= (f11suun·), were probably well understood and never confounded, inasmuch as
their different origin, the one from e or i(as roi from reg - em, fo u from
vie - em, etc.), the other from u or o = u (as crou from cruc - em, etc.), was
appreciated, yet the distinction would not be at once seen by the English
scribes, especially as there was a further source of confusion in the
simultaneous use of English eo, oe, as sometimes (ee), and sometimes (uu), as
we have pointed out. Io, as the transposition of oi = (uu), has
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(delwedd F6314) (tudalen 409)
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BY
JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 409
been treated (p. 34) and not, shown to be = roit = (ruut), but no instance
has been found in which io also = (ee).
NORMAN Ai>'D ENGLISH ATONIC oi, ou, ei, eu = (11 or a).
In cases where the above diphthongs, with their variants, are atonic, the
rules of accentuation already laid down (p. 29) come into force, and, therefore,
as curt = (kuurt)
became curteis = (kllrtees·), so beu = (buu) would become, when atonic, (b11)
as in beute = (butee·) or (batee). We
are confirmed in this conclusion by the fact that the word bemond, found in Mr.
Furnivall's edition of Hymns to the Virgin and OhriBt (E. E. T. S.), (and be to
bemond a good squyer ) has been shown by Mr. Aldis Wright (Notes and Queries,
Dec. 4, 1869) to be the same as Beumond, or Beaumont, and was probably
pronounced nearly as our English word bemoaned, or perhaps as bemou11d = (bumuund·).
If so, the words fewte and leute rhyming together in an English poem of the
14th century (Rel. Ant. ii, 120) would most likely be (futee·) and 111tee·). The
modern Beachy · (Head), Beaver (Castle), and Beachamp (Chapel), seem to point
in the same direction. The Norman forms would be Beuchef, Beuveer, and Beuchamp,
pronounced (Buchee - , Buveer - , and B11tshssm·), which by change of
accentuation and modernisation of the first e into ea or ee would become
Beachy, Beaver, and Beecham, as they are now pronounced.'
It may be remarked further that, on the same principle, the tonic oi, ou, eu,
being = (uu), and this becoming when atonic = (11), as shown in the notes to
pp. 30 and 33, any combination which when tonic = (uu) would become when
atonic = (11). Hence courage, which if the syllables formed separate words
would be (kuur) (ssdzh), becomes, under the dominant power of the tonic, (kurssdzh·).
So fo1 on and beute become (fusuun·) and (butee·). Similarly meisun, mais1m, becomes
(musuun·). If these observations are correct, then Mr. Eilis's notation of
curtey&ie, vileynie, companye, reverence,
1 It may also be not:ied that BtlW, (hoi We = - Drinkwater, or perbaJl8 bek.
twt', fine water), Carew (carue = cha:rrue), MoA<m, and Bokun, presene the
tonic (uu) of the Norman times. See Note& and Queries, '' fourth 11erice,
No. 3i,
p.186.
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(delwedd F6315) (tudalen 410)
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410
ON THE l'IORlllAN ELEMENT.
t·esoun, bocler, as (kurtaisii·e, vii'lainii·e, kum·panii·e, rev·
erens·e, ree·suun·, buk'leer·), must be declined. It will be seen that the
tonic syllables curt, eys, ie, are here pronounced exactly as if no
subordinating accent existed. Our theory, however, requires that the first
syllable shall be (kart), the second (11), and the third, the tonic, (ii).
The (a), which as taking a secondary accent defines the obscure (u), appears
to be just the sound naturally adopted when such a word as curteis = (kurtees)
becomes English not only in form but also in accent, as in kurtcs of William
of Palerne, or as curtesse, in Minot's poems, both = (kar·tes). It is assumed
then that curteysie is (kar·tesii·), and both the subsequent spelling as
curtesie and the contraction into curtsy, are considered as justifying the
assumption. A reference to vileynie, which also appears in both Norman and
English texts, as rilainie, t:elonie, - ilonie, vilanie, t·elani, and
t:ilenie, shows the uncertainty of the atonic vowels under the influence of
the tonic. Inconsistency, the;n, with this theory, I should suggest a• the
·probable Norman sound of the above words, (kar·ttisii - , vz1·unii · or vehmii·,
kam·punii·, rev·11rens·, nsuun - , bukleer·). In giving the three - syllable
words the English accent, the vowel sound of the first and second syllables
would probably remain nearly unaltered, while that of the third, as being atonic,
would tend to become (11), though a modification of the original sound is
always possible. ·when resoun and bocler got the English accent they would probably
become, as adopted English words, (re·san or ree·san, and bek'lar), and
curteysie, vileynie, and reverence would = (kar - t11si, vil·1!lli, and
rev·11rt1ns). One or two additional illustrations of the same principle may
be found in English patois. The Norman word foison (from Latin fusion - inn),
also written .fuison, jo eson, and fu so11, abundance, was probably
pronounced (li!suan•) or with the English accent (fas·en). In Yorkshire and Cumberland
it is fim en (Brockett and Dickinson's Glossaries), showing the changed
quality of the vowels of both syllables under the change of accent. Poi$on
(from Lat. potum - em) also written puison, puis ion, and puson (Langtoft), was
probably pronounced (pusuun·), and by adoption of the
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(delwedd F6316) (tudalen 411)
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BY
JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ, 411
English accent (pas·en). In the patois of Yorkshire and
Cumberland generally it is puszen (Brockett and Dickin son, ) in the Craven
district it is puzz um, and in the Cleveland (Atkinson) pusz.Qm.
NORMAN AND ENGLISH CONSONANTS,
The general principle of the near approximation, if not identity, of the main
elements of Norman and English pronunciation in the 13th and 14th centuries, will
be further illustrated by showing that some of the characteristic features of
modern French - its nasal m and n, its liquid gn and ll, and its mute medial
and final consonants - were then unknown. In these particulars Norman and
English seem to have agreed - as they did generally in their vowel
articulations. These points will be taken up separately.
NASAL m AND n UNKNOWN IN NoRllAN AND ENGLISH.
It is remarkable that none of the investigators into the nasality of am, an, em,
en, ain, in old French, seem to have thought of illustrating the point by
reference to old English of the same period - which, as will be seen, throws
a direct light on the subject. Diez, the most illustrious of them - Rapp, and
Natalia de Wailly, in his interesting Memoire sur la languede Joinville, (Paris,
1868), maintain the nasality of am, an, ain, etc., the first and last mainly
on the ground of the interchange of en and an in such examples as endroit, andrQit.1
Mr. Ellis has shown (Ear. Eng. Pron.
1 Since the above was in type, M. Paul Meyer has contributed to the 11
Journal
de la Socil'!te Linguistiqno - Paris•' (3rd fll.llcicule)t an elaborate and
very interesting dissertation on ''.An et ' toniques, in which he argues that
when an and e11, which at tl.rst represented different sounds, began to be
confounded in usage, by sxmboliaing the same sound, nasality became a feRture
of the French language. Heremark&, however, thatEn Normandic, et selon
toute probabiliW, dans le$ pays.romans situ sous la mCmc latitude, m !tait
encore distinct de an au moment de la. conquete de l'Angletcrre (1066), mais
l'assimilation t!tait com
pltc environ un sit)cle plus tard. This ''assimilation, ho asserta, never
took place in the French of England. His words are 0 En o.nglo - normand en
et ati sont toujoura resUs diatincta, et ils le sont encore aujourd'bui dans
les mots romans qui ont psse(!a dan.s l'anglais. The argument drawn from
assimilation •1 doe1 not, however, appear very concltl!ive when we consider
that the dialectic changes in th Norman, as seen in 1ambler, ancantur, antremettre,
pandre, pami, f, vandr1, janti1 (for gentils), a.nd which gave to the Engliah
imamoure, ancAmtt«w, an.haun.te, an1aumple, pa'!', Jautaty, amperour, ampery,
etc., and to the standard French arranger, a•aembler (for ensemblcr), etc., do
not appear to have involved nssality. (See pp. 13 - 16 of !hill paper.)
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(delwedd F6317) (tudalen 412)
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412 ON TH.E NORMAN ELEMENT.
p. 316, note 1) the irrelevancy of Diez's arguments, and a
reference to p. 13 of this paper, will show that a111 and an were generally
only dialectic variations of em and en, and cannot therefore settle the
question. With regard to English, Mr. Ellis maintains, in various parts of
his treatise, ·that this nasal did not exist in early English - and I propose
to show that therefore it did not exist in early French - at least not in the
Norman dialect.
In a passage quoted (p. 19) it was seen that Norman Normant, and Latin
formant rhymed together, and this from the same poem, -
Druma tandem revertente
Tost untsur la ch:tpe ente (i e. ent) - Pol. Songa. p. 63.
as well as that quoted (p. 40) in which the rhymes are parlement, gent, and
sh1mt, show that unless both Latin and English contained the nasal, it could
not have been heard in the Norman. .Again, if Kent was pronounced then as it
is now, of which there is no doubt, the fact that in Langtoft (Wright's ed.
ii., 254) twenty - nine consecutive Norman words, as gent, repre11t, serment,
prC11teme11t , par ent, etc., rhyme with Kent, and that in an English poem
(Ear. Eng. Poems, p. 138) Ke1it also rhymes with swt, 1oent, and fer vent, goes
far towards settling the question. Still further, if the Norman terminations
ayn, eyn, in, yn, were nasal, how could the rhymes cliamberlayn, fayn; vayn, mayn;
chev1mteyn, s1oeyn; sioyn, fin (end), in which the assumed nasal echoes to
the unnssal English syllables, have been admitted? Let us examine, however, more
closely, one of these cases as a sample of the rest. In Lyrical Poetry (p.
58) occurs the couplet - -
Undo mm herte ant libt thffljn
And wiki me from fendcs·n1gin.
Engin was soon shortened into gin and written gimie, and is thus found
rhyming with therinne: -
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(delwedd F6318) (tudalen 413)
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He
ne hounderstod nout of the ginm
Ac nom that boket and lop thmnne, &l..dnt.ii. 273.
In Pol. Songs (p. 212), we also see gynne rhyming with bigynne, blynne, and
ynne. .Afterwards ·the word being fully established as gyn or gin is found
rhyming with wyn (wine)
BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 413
yn and pyn in Chaucer's Squire's Tale. Then medecyn,
wyn, 1Jy1Jely11 (Dublin) fy11 (fine) rhyme together (Lyrical Poetry, p. 89), also
wine with pine, fyne with schryne, and gardyne (gardin in Norman) Kateryne, myne,
and pyne (Ear. Eng. Poems, p. 141), crune with motune tNorman motun or muton),
etc. The only possible inference from these instances is that no nasal n was
heard in uttering any of these words, whether Norman or English. The
supposition that the Norman nasal was forced to echo with the English unnasal
will hardly be entertained.
LIQUID gn AND ll UNKNOWN IN NORMAN AND ENGLISH.
1. Liquid g11. - There are two classes of Norman words which contain gn - one
in which the g is radical, and the other in which it is apparently only
graphic or intrusive. Seig11er (from signare) enseigner, signifier, deigner, puign
(frompugnu s), are instances of the former class, and champaigne (from Lat.
campania, eampanus), 111011taig11e, compaignon (from Low Lat. cumpanium), seignur
(from senior) of the latter. It does not, however, appear to have been more
persistent in the one ease than in the other. The words cited above are found
as seiner, enseiner, senejier, 1 pui11, champainc, montaine, compainun, senor,
continually interchangeable in the same poem with the other forms. In these
latter instances there can of course be no question about the liquid sound.
We find, moreover, words containing simple n, rhyming with others containing
g11, as: -
Quar chanoyng..• pur grant P'Y'
Mongenl en Jo 1ymeygne. - Po/. Song•, p. 140.
And in the same work, p. 184: -
A quy remeindra cele kyne,
Que Ja n'anra roy ne reygu.
Then the variants baraim1e, emeinne, soinne, moinne, occur at the same time with
baraigne, enseigne, soigne, moigne. It is also noticeable that the proper name
Charlemagne
1 It i.s worth notice that 1enef11 or 1inijy is the received pronunciation
among the peasants of the North of England. See Craven Glary.
2 Two lines before, eSsnoVnuis found -
De Chanaynd 1 ont un point pria,
qu'en l'ordre ert bien asoi.s.
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(delwedd F6319) (tudalen 414)
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414
ON THE NORMAN ELEMENT.
occurs in the Norman poem so entitled only once with
g, and thirty - two times, at least, without it. In English there seems even
less reason, as is shown by Mr. Eilis's discussion of the point (Ear. Eng.
Pron. p. 308, 9) to suspect a liquid gn. The Norman seiner appears thoroughly
Anglicised in iseined (signed) in the Proclamation of Henry III. (See Ear.
Eng. Pron. p. 503), and meets us again in Syr Perceval (Wcber v. 28). So
criste mote me sayne, i.e. here, bless, a common meaning of the Norman
compound enseiner. In Chaucer too we find Bretaigne rhymin g with Seine
(11533) and (quoted by Mr. Ellis also) unconstnigned with yfeyne d. Seine, a
banner (Layamon's 2nd text), for Norman seigne; dedeyn (Robt. Gl.) and dayned,
dayneth (Dan Michel) from Norman rleigner, da•g11er, also illustrate the same
point. Theargument, moreover, from the traditional pronunciation of proper
names applies to this case. The noble family of d'Auvergne of France claim
always to be called as of old (oveern) and Racine's name was fancifully
referred by himself to the rat and the cine (cygne) which he found or feigned
in the escutcheon of his family. We remember too the adventures of the
Olievalier au cyne. On the whole then there seems no reason to believe in a
liquid gn in the Norman and English of the 13th and 14th centuries.
2. Liquid ll. The simplicity of the Norman dialect was seen in its 11voidance
of double letters as a general rule. Such forms therefore as abatre, apeler, comencer,
comamier, feme, f ame, home, om, bele, etc., for abattre, appeler, commencer,
etc., may be considered as characteri tic. It is important then to ascertain
whether the ti, which not unfrequently occurs, was an exception from this
general rule, and if so whether it indicated the liquid sound, which in
modern French modifies the diphthong preceding it. It has indeed been assumed
that it did, and therefore supposed (Ear. Eng. Pron., p. 264) that citaille, faile
, and mervaille, which rhyme together in Chaucer (4919, etc.), had ai = {ai).
There seems, however, no reason to believe that a·ille WWI sounded differently
from aile (eel). In fact, the simple
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(delwedd F6320) (tudalen 415)
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BY
10SEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 415
char!Wter of the Norman dialect is seen in the interchange
of It and /, in vitaile and citaille, bele and belle, entailer and entailler,
merf!eile and merveille, fa ile and faille, 'Dile and ville, f!ailant and
vaillant, etc., so that in the whole poem of Charlemagne, there appear to be
only three instancesin which ll would be liquid if the words were modem. In
the next place these words with tt generally rhymed with English words having
l, and again when the former became English words, they usually dropped the
double, and adopted the single letter. Thus we see
By thrco, by foure, with bis tail
To the ground be smut, 1aun faik, - King .tl..ly1. I. 649.
He saidc, Sire Kying, saun faile
Here is y.falle a gret men:ail1, - id. 1. 590.
and in Early EnglUih Poems, p. 137, we find /ayle, assayle, counsayle, batayle,
and elsewhere vayle, f ayle, etc., rhyming together and preserving throughout
single l, while in the English words battel, counsel, marveil, vittle, apparel,
etc., no trace of the liquid ll is found. It is fair then to conclude that
the liquid ll existed neither in the Norman nor the English of the 13th and
14th centuries, and this conclusion is confirmed by the fact that the Rouchi
patois of Hainault, which is akin to Norman in many respects, is distinctly
characterised both by its rejection of double consonants generally, and of
the liquid ll especially.I
CoNSONANTI! GENERALLY PRONOUNCED BOTH IN NORMAN AND
ENGLISH.
It is truly surprising that the French writers on the history of their own
language should apparently never have sought information on the above point -
any more than on the phonetic value of their ancient vowels - from the English
verse writers of the 13th and 14th centuries.
Adopting still the method hitherto pursued I shall bring the Norman and
English consonantal sounds into contact, and show that what was true of the
one was also true of the other. And here we may, of course, take the English
as the test, for
. 1 _u Le Ronchi, rhpugnant P!esque absolument Jes doubles consonnes la {the
hqmd ll) change en un l tumplc. - Schnakenburg. 'l'be Hainhaulten ssy botflle,
paU, 6oulir for bateailk, paillf, l>oNillir, p. 66.
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(delwedd F6321) (tudalen 416)
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416 ON THE NORMAN ELEMENT.
it is scarcely, if at all, doubtful that as a rule the consonants, throughout
its entire history, have preserved what we call their alphabetic sound, though
there are some exceptional instances of silent letters. It will be
unnecessary to quote proofs for each consonant. A few only of the principal
will be adduced, reserving ch, g, j, and s, x, z, for more detailed
consideration.
The instances found in the extract (p. 40), sovent, parlement, and shent, which
are typical, not exceptional, prove that ent was sounded alike in both languages.
There is little doubt then that in the Norman words presént, pleint, grant, erránt,
batánt, erránt, comant (command), sunt, funt, vendrent, mount, mond, mound, etc.,
the nt, nd, were distinctly enunciated. It may also be noticed in this
connection that the Norman verbal termination of the present tense -ent, and
of the preterite, -erent were sounded and accounted for in the verse, as in
these examples: -
Pur co deferent les Engleis
La gent yresche a cele feiz,
Que els lur curusent sure
San delai, a cel hore — Conquest of Ireland, p. 32.
Que pur la pees, si loynz apres,
se lesserent detrere. - Pol. Songs, p. 125.
Tres malement, y ferirent, de le espie forbie. — Id.
Pres de son cors, le bon tresors, une heyre troverent
Les fans ribaus, tant furent maus, e ceux qe le tuerent, — Id. p. 126.
But it may be questioned whether the final single t
was sounded in Norman. If, however, it was sounded in the Irish name Dermot —
and no doubt it was — the point is settled by the continual occurrence in the
Conquest of Ireland of such rhymes as Dermot, menout; Dermot, pout; Dermot,
apelout; Dermot, vout; with the variations Derma amout, Dermot volt, where
volt = vout (vuut). The force of these examples, which appears tolerably
conclusive, is, however, much confirmed by reference to the remarkable song
usually called La pais aux Englois, and printed in Pol. Songs, pp. 63-68. (1)
We here find the following stanza :
"Qoi dites vous, Symon? pona Rogier Bigot;
Bien tenez-vous la rai por binart et por sot?
Fout iusi hardouin que vous sone plus mot,
Ne te pot besoner per vostre mileur cot."
1/ This singular composition (attributed to A.D. 1263), in which ordinary
spelling, grammar, and decency are alike set at defiance, is nevertheless
extremely interesting in reference to the positions maintained in this paper
respecting
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(delwedd F6322) (tudalen 417)
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BY
JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 417
Bigot pronounced here (Bigot·) is the key to the other Norman words. If,
however, there were any doubt on this point, it is dissipated by the
occurrence of Bigot rhyming in the next poem, which is English, with scot
(share, quota) and pot (to tramp). It is noticeable too that in Poitevin, the
final t is always sounded, and esprit and petit are written espritt, petitt.
These critical instances, it is submitted, prove the point at issue in a
general way. There is, however, evidence — but it would take too long to
adduce it in full — that the tendency to drop certain letters in speaking had
already begun. The combination ns was evidently distasteful — and therefore
enfans became emfes and transpasser trespasser, and later still trepasser,
and even when written, n was evidently sometimes not pronounced, as we see in
the rhyme pas, juanz (Conquest of Ireland), reis, meins ; tramis, mechins. Fs
too was accounted displeasing, and the f was evidently silent in the rhyme
arives, nefs; as well as in covercheis, the plural of coverchef, a form
employed by Chaucer (C.T. 453, Cam. MS.). The l in Is also followed the same
fate in the rhyme pris, gentils (Conquest of Ireland). Mortels morteus = (mo·rtuus·),
therefore, makes a good rhyme with Jesus in the Prisoner's Prayer. Rs, too,
in some words lost the r, as in the rhyme desconfiz, pirz, a tendency which
is also seen in English patois in boss or oss, fust, wust, etc. The s in st
also showed symptoms of yielding in some cases. The early forms fist (fecit),
dist (dixit), were interchanged with fit and dit, and Jesu Crist, perhaps
only in vulgar mouths, was heard as Jesoucriet, thus written in Le Chartre de
la pais aux Englois, a prose composition of the same date and character
Norman pronunciation, especially as the spelling was probably intended to be
phonetic rather than orthographic. Thus vaelant (velssnt·) is written for
vaillant, showing the absence of liquid ll, merdael (merdeel·) for merdaille,
showing ae = oi = (ee), rai (ree) for rei, showing ai = ee = (ee), sinor (s**nuur·)
for signor, anel (anal·) for agnel, showing the absence of liquid gn, ros,
(ro·s) for rose, chos (tsho·s) for chose, showing s = se = (s), rozinol (ro·sinol·)
for rossignol, showing z = as = (s) fout (fuut) for fut, dourrement (duhr**ment·)
for durement, while test (for teste), best (for beste), and honest (for
honeste) rhyme together. The writer in his unbridled licence calls the
English "la glaise gent," uses gondre for contre, Cloustre for
Gloucester, and travesties English God Almihtig into Godelamit, showing the
absence of the guttural. These phonetic vagaries — more instructive in some
respects than regular forms — confirm an ingenious remark made by Professor
Mussafia, that "Pathologische Gebilde sind oft eben so interessant
gesunde Organismen."
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(delwedd F6323) (tudalen 418)
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418
ON THE NORMAN ELEMENT.
as the poem before referred to (Notes to Pol. Songs, p. 360). Final f and 1
in some words, it may be remarked, had probably only a faint sound, if any,
which accounts for Beachy from beauchef, for kerche or kercher in our English
patois,' and also for the existence of genue and genti as variants of genoul,
(mod. genou) and gentil. In general, however, the rule of distinct
articulation, no doubt, prevailed—and we are borne out in the position that
the consonants in Norman and English were almost universally sounded.
NORMAN AND ENGLISH FINAL -8, -88, -88e, -ce =(s). NORMAN X = (s). NORMAN
FINAL S = (8) AND SOMETIMES (t.43). 1. Norman and English -8, -88, -88e, -ce
= (s). In a stanza already quoted (p. 21), we have Latin tabulis, Norman
Paris, and English is or ys rhyming together. The 8 in these rhymes probably
had the same quality. By fixing the sound of one, therefore, we determine the
rest. That Paris was in the 14th century (Paris•) or perhaps (Pariis•), seemi
probable from this line in Minot's poems (p. 9). At Parise take thai theirs
counsaile and that our is, now (iz), was (is or us), is shown by a couplet in
p. 38 of Ritson's Ancient Songs (date 1308). A thousand yer hit isse, Thre
hundred ful iwiese. If then Paris was Pariss the rhyme (Pol. Songs, p. 190)
Paris, flour de Us, interprets lis as Ha = lice=(lis or and accordingly we
find this last form in Minot, (p. 91.) Than the riche floure de lice, Wan
there ful litill prise. Prise, then, (which has become modern price and prize)
or pris, which is the more usual form, must apparently have been (priis); and
therefore when it rhymes, as it frequently does in Chaucer, with such forms
as Ssr-de-do, surplys, anys, and with 1 This word, already referred to (p.
31), may be further illustrated here. In the patois Muse Normande of the 17th
century we see that the original euvrechif = (kev-ratshe• or :karratshe•),
has become quevreche = kevreche = Chaucer a keverchef (C. T. 453, Had. 7334)
= Eng. patois kerche or kercher. By the theory here maintained (p. 68) the
atonic u of cuvre, covre, couvre (probably the imperative mood) ought to
become (a) or (a), and hence we have in English—with changed
accentuation—both kever (ke•ar) and cover (kav-ar) ; kiver is simply a
variant of kever, corresponding with senefy, sinefy, etc. Severe rhymes with
evere in Shoreham's Poems, p. 32.
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(delwedd F6324) (tudalen 419)
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BY
JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 419
the English rys (a hedge) and wys (mod. ume), it establishes
the similarity of Norman and English usage. It is obvious, then, that the
Norman words seNJice, ser1JUe, device, devise, ended also inthe same sharp
sound, which was therefore that of English arys, rhyming with devyse, and
also with servyse
in Chaucer's Prologue. But is = isse and blis generally =
blisse show s = sse, so that is = W, isse, ice. It ishardly necessary to go
through the same reasoning for final as, but it may be stated briefly that
the contemporary use of cas, case; pas, pace; so/as, 10/ace; trespas, trespass,
as English words in Ear. Eng. Poems and elsewhere, proves exactly the same
analogy as
that between devise, device, etc., and therefore shows, generally, final s = 88
= sse = ce = (s). Itappears then doubtful
whether the a sound of s between two vowels, which is heard illmodem French, and
was evidently known by Palsgrave, Meigret, and Beza, in the 16th century, was
in use in the 13th and 14th. Diez indeed asserts that this usage was ancient,
but he gives no proof. We are so accustomed to rose and chose, with the a
sound, that to pronounce them as r/Jss and chi'>s8, with the o short and
the e silent seems rather startling. There is, however, little doubt of the
fact. The words occur as ros and clws in the slang Norman poem mentioned
before, and might therefore be (ros) and (tshos), and this is the sound they
still bear in the Picard and Rouchi patois, where they are written ross and
cliO&B.' It is noticeable, also, that in a Norman poem of the 13th
century (Archreologia, xxii., 315), Ross, the town, rhymes with clos, and the
occurrence of nosse (Ear. Eng. Poems,
p. 1) for nose, renders it probable that Chaucer pronounced rose and nose
(ros) and (nos).• But I must for a moment refer to the medial s, which was, with
the exceptions already
1 The Latin original hrui the o short, - - - - rO&a.
' Nou occurs in Chaucer, in the Prologue (152). All the Sir Texts (ed. Chau.
Soc.) give no.re as a monosylla.ble, the Harleian MS. 7334, makes it a dis - 1yllable;
Hire nose strcight, which is notated by Mr. Ellis (Hiir noor 1traikbt). The
reading of three of the Six Texts is ., Hire noec trctU 'which may have been
pronounced (Dor n36 tntiis·) Treti1, well.made, well·turned, is used by
Chaucer's contemporary, Eustache Descbo.mpa, ina 0Virelai, ''illwblch be
introduc..a girl 1inging -
J'ay vairs yeu1x, petit sourcis,
Le cbitif blont, le nn traiti1.
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(delwedd F6325) (tudalen 420)
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420 ON THE NORMAN ELBMENT.
noted, almost certainly eounded. It ie not so easy to show
thie from Norman usage as it might at 6.rst sight appear. When, for instance,
in Norman poems, fenestre rhymes with e&tre, and fest, teat, but, and
Jioneat, 1 together, it may of course be said that the silence of the s would
have made no difference in the rhyme. Theee passages, however, from English
poems, show that the B must have been sounded: -
Wel feor ioome bi NU
For to tissen at tbi f e1t1. - King Hrwn.1136, 6.
And said, ilc man that makos fut 1
Gifea fint fortbe the win 1tra1fg11t. - .Met. Bom., 47. For C&dace was a
fcrly ht1t,
Tbrie1 aet tetb wu in bia tuu.• - E..A.U..under, 7111, 2.
The sound of the medial s is also distinctly proved by our English words of
the same period - now written tester, custom, waste! (gateau), •·oast, hostelry,
master, coast, eputle, as also esquire, eacttkheon, escape, uchal, ot
(shalot), escrit - Oire, espouse, e1py, estate, acarlet, acour, acarce, scum,
acroll, scaffold, acli, ool, study, stuff, scald, scar, stencil, etc., in all
of which we have retained the a which the French have lost, but which was
sounded in the 13th and 14th centuries.
2. Norman ' = s = (s).• In early French, a; was not as, apparently, in Latin
= cs or gs, except perhaps in a very few words. Thus pss; became in Norman
paix = pail, peUi, f>t$, etc., which latter forms are found in English
texts, rhyming with words which had the sharp English s. So vox and cruz
became in Norman wix, voi8; cruix, croia, croU&e, and in English voi8, crois,
crois, croice, and then voice and crosa. In like manner, we 6.nd interchanged
10/ss; and aobu, poizance and poissance, auxi and aussi, tex and teus (such),
rorinol and rossignol, exemple and easemple, exampla ire and essamplaire
(whence English 1ample and sampler); and hence, too, we eee why doua;, dous, faux
, fau1, become douce = douae, faune = faus e inthe feminine.
1 Pasquier, who died in 1616, at the Bg - 4 of eighty - senn, tells UJ that
the• in lonut1 was sounded jn French when he wu a young man, but bad
gradually become 1ilent.
2 We al>o find in Pol. Songs (p. 322}, the Norman rhyme gut•, ''• which ia
inter.., ting u •howing two word. equally treated, one of wbich hu llinoe
lool, while the other has retained, tho original'·
3 X quinlait (in the 13th and 14th centurice), l un • prononc6 avec un
sifH.ement fort et egal a UD double •·Bwrguy, i. 240.
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(delwedd F6326) (tudalen 421)
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BY
10SEPH P4YNE, ESQ. 421
3. Norman s = • = (e), and occssionally (ts). That the Norman s was generally
sounded as 8, is clear from the innumerable instances in which they are
¥iterchanged, or rhymed with each other. Th\!$ we find -
M.. Meiler le flg HMWi•
Le jor enport• le pria. - Omgwd of Ir.land, p. 96.
lies quant O'Ria.n esteit O«U,
Leo Yrrei.s oe auntpa•lis. - (ih.),
A Chastel - Knoc, a oole/m
De Counoth iout li ricbe rN. - p. 84.
while the participles ending in es are written with es, and the adjectives
ending in us with 1a. The numeral duse, duue, douse, in which the e is
constant in Norman, to distinguish it from dou:e, doua (two), wM converted in
English into doum, as we see (Pol. &ngs, p. 190).
Tho the Kyng of Fn.unoo y - herde this, 11Don Amblede he is dousu pen
eYeruchon.
In Robert of Gloucester (ed. Hearne, i. 188), we find the word changed into
dosse, written dusse in the .Arundel MS.
Lygger of Colonye and al eo the 'pen
Of - France were there eehon, that 90 noble were and fen.
The two words dOIJ&e per& are frequently found in the compound form
doMiper3, apparently showing that s, ss, were considered as = BB (a), and that
the final e in duze was sounded.
Buts, also, occasionally ts = (ts) in Norman. The peculiar word fit• forjiu, which
is nearly as difficult to explain as the English wat1 for tDIZ8, is founded
apparently on a false analogy.
In very early French it had become usual in forming, by addition of 8, the
subject - case of nouns whose last radical letter WM t, to leave out the t, and
to write s in the place of ts; so that, for instance, from mot (a word) WM
formed mots, written mos. Thie nsage extended itself by an erroneous analogy
to other cases, and even to that of ls, so that jiu (a eon) was written fiz, Bii
well Bii jiu. As fi• was interpreted, in the 13th century by fits (see Lyr.
Po. p. 5/i) le fitz Marie, le fitz Dieu Jhesu, it is not impoeeible that in
mos and other words of similar formation the z = (ts); a conjecture
which is confirmed by our finding gents, frounts, and the abnormal sau11ts, for
gens, frouns and &aun1.
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(delwedd F6327) (tudalen 422)
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422 ON THE NORMAN ELEMENT.
NORMAN AND ENGLISH ch = (tab).
There is much reason to believe that the Norman ch, unlike the modern French
ch, was (tsh) like the English ch of the so.me do.te (Ear. Eng. Pron., pp.
314, 5). This appears to be also the opinion of Diez (i. 448), though Rapp
(quoted in Ear. Eng. Pron., p. 509) dissents. Proofs from ancient texta are
very rare. Ve have, however, in Life of Edward the Conf1J1Jsor, p. 29, the
following -
Une fille avoit mut bole, Ben mtetclue damaiaele.
varying with enteechez in another place. But there are marked traces inthe
Norman patois. Inthe department of La Manche, it is so common to pronounce ch
as tch, that Le Hericher (i. 20) tells us that the district might be called
le Pays de Cbenna, from the tendency to pronounce chenna (that) as tchenna, and
he also cites tchien (for chien), Tchidbourg {for Cberhourg), etchinew: (for
echineux), as ordinary pronunciations (i. 32). In Jersey, too, depatchi
(depecher), tchean (cbean, that), etchelle (echelle), tclterrue (charrue), tchique
(chaque), point in the so.me direction, as well as tckiel (ciel), itchi (ici),
tckeu (cela), in Poitou. There is then the strongest probability that in this
respect also the Norman and English pronunciation was the so.me.
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(delwedd F6328) (tudalen 423)
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NORMAN
AND ENGLISH j = {dzh).
The authority of Diez (i. 400, 402) and Mr. Ellis (Ear. Eng. Pron., p. 314) 1
supporta the above hypothesis as regards Norman, though Rapp dissenta. The
present Norman patois (Le Hericher, i. 30) testifies to the so.me conclusion.
Gerce (brebis), gipoutrer ( folAtrer), jangler (mentir), jost er (plaisanter),
are heard among the peasantry as dgerce, dgipoutrer, 4J'angler, qjoster. On these
authorities and evidences, then, we claim the right here, too, once more, and
lastly, to identify Norman and English pronunoiation .
1 Dr. Weymouth, too, in his excellent edition of TAe Ca1Wl off Love(p. 87)1
in referring to the rhymes tugge and jugg e, remarks, 0 that the French soft
g ( = j)
was not io the middle ages sounded as at present, but rather as we sound it, and
like the gg in Italian, ia shown by the Greek form of Mt.agium - it.elf only
the Lalin form of a French word - 6, ...T(<o> - Montfaucon Pal. Gr., p.
42t. Cf, al.to f English jelly and jenn et with g1U1 and gtnll.
BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 423
ENGLISH MEDIAL i, h, gh. - Without attempting to contest
the strong body of evidence adduced by Mr. Ellis (Ear. Eng. Pron., pp. 209 - 214),
to show that gh in the 16th century had a decided guttural sound, or his
natural conclusion that this sound was a tradition of that of !or h of the
13th and 14th centuries, we are led by a careful examination of the actual
usage of those centuries to doubt whether the guttural wasthen generally
heard as the representative of the J, h, or gh, in the South of England.
Inthe North it most probably was. This doubt arises from the fact that words
theoretically containing the guttural frequently rhyme with others in which
it is certainly absent, and that the same word is frequently written by the
same author either with or without it. Now, we find in early texts, as in the
Debate of the Body and Soul, of the 13th century (Matzner Alteng.
Sprachproben, i., pp. 92 - 103), these rhymes - nyt, syt, knyit, ly1t; seyie,
leye, weyie, ey1e; out, wrouit, 11ou1t, thou1t; schro1td, pro1td , clou1t, 01t1t;
enviJe (i.e., envie), spie, c1tmpanije, folye; criie (i.e., crie), M arie, cumpainye,
abye; in which, and especially in the Norman forms, it is difficult to
believe that any guttural could have been heard. The same mixture of Norman
and English rhymes is seen in A/lit. Poems - ply1t, delyt; byie, cortaysye;
q1tyt, tyit; alow, innogh; and in Sir Gawayne, ducrye, sy1e; 111e, att•die;
ky1e, corteyaye, wy1e; also in King Alisa1mder maistri6, Asyghe; spye, difyghe;
cryghe (i.e., crie), Darie; eyghe, contreye. In Vox and Wolf (Miitzner, i., pp.132
- 136), we find the same ignoring of the guttural in the rhymes hey, ney
(mod. high, nigh); bi - thout, i - brout (written also bro hute, rhyming
with sohute); no1tt, i - brout; i - nou, loll (i.e., !01 or logh, laughed).
In Rob. of Gloucester, too, we have ynow, drow; yno1t, drou; ynowe, slowe;
ney, hey; as well as ne1, sle1; withdro1, yno1. Finally, we have in Chaucer
ynotoe, rowe (mod. rough); ynough, avow; yno1tgh, now; you, y·nOtD; also
reten1te, Huglie; melodie, yhe. In the presence of ynough, avow (inuu - , avuu·),
who shall say that where y11<t11gh rhymed with lougli (which we have just
seen isfound as lou) and with many other words in·<mgh, it had not
thesamesound, and if so, where shall we stop? It is clear that when out
rhymes with
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(delwedd F6329) (tudalen 424)
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424 ON
THB NORMAN ELEMENT.
IWUJt, this latter word must be (nuut), and that when rklit,
which we know was (duliit·), rhymes with plgit, this must have been (pliit). Against
these facts, and it would be easy to multiply them, there is nothing but
later usage to be opposed. The theory is plausible, certainly, but hardly
sufficient to induce us to believe that doghter, which we find in IJam Siri•
(Miitzner, i. 112), of the 13th century, as douter (just as we find in the
same poem be - thoute, 11out, 1urout, thout, 6out, i - brout, etc.), was
anything else than (duu·tar) in Chaucer's mouth, though it might be
(daukh·ter) in Gill's; or that the nou1t, noit, nout of the 13th century, and
the nouht of Chaucer, was (nooukht), as Gill has it (Ear. Eng. Pron.,
p. 313), in those earlier timee. Isit possible that the inlluence of the
Norman, in which no suspicion even of a guttural, scarcely even of an
aspirate, was, as far as we can judge, known, may have had an inlluence in
silencing, in the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, the original English 1, h, or
gh, which the Normans would have found it particularly difficult to
pronounce? It seems impossible to imagine them pronouncing crie and rklit
(criikh and deliikht), as they must have done if the !or gh in cr4e or cryghe
was intended to be sounded. Hugh they certainly pronounced Hue = (Huu), as we
see in Sire Hue de Bigot (Pol. Songs, p. 70).
ENGLISH th. This oombination was probably both graphically and phonetically
unknown in Old Norman, though the sound may still be heard (see p. 18) within
a very limited area in Jersey, in a few instances. It is also found in the
Poitevin of La Rochelle, and Schnukenburg tells us that in Courtisols, a
village of Champagne, chapeau is pronounced thapt! and chaud, thau, un son
tout semblable au th anglais. It is curious to see how the Norman poets shirk
the th when it occurs in proper names. Benoit, in his Ohr011ique rk Norma11du,
generally quotes Northampton as Norllamtune, Southampton as S11hamtune or
Stdhantune, and Marie de France spells South Wales as Suhtwale8. Benoit, has
also the forms but more rarely, Northamt111& and Suthamtun, as well as
Norfouke, Northfolke and Sufolk.
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(delwedd F6330) (tudalen 425)
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BY
108EPH PAYNE, ESQ. 425
8PBC1AL WORDS PROBABLY DERIVlNG TREIB PRONUNCIATION
FROM NORMAN INFLUENCE.
Sperrit, merracle, squerret, sumtp. These provincial utterances 1 are
probably echoee, or nearly such, of the original Norman sound, and have a
plausible explanation in the doctrine of accents, expounded p. 29. The Latin
spirtt - us became, by exceptional displacement of the accent, and addition
of e, espirit, esperit, both, probably, by vitiation of the atonic syllables
(es·pm - iit·). Hence, by throwing off the intrusive initial, and accenting
in the English fashion, we get spert - it, or spurrit, the word constantly
employed in the South Lancashire patois. So miracul - um became French (marsscl·),
then English merracle or murracle. Low Lat. aquirel - us, French esquerel
(es·qwerel·), became in English squerret or aqtourrel, and low Lat. airupp - us,
first, French ysserop (is·uruup·), and then English serrup or surup (sar ep).
Sir. Thie common word, one of the oldest in the language, was probably pronounced
in the 13th century very nearly or quite as it is now. The Norman sinor, seni>r,
is in the subject - case sire, and sir. It is found several times in a sort
of slang poem published by Jubinal in hie Jongleur11 et Troveres, and entitled
Le privilege aux Bretone, as Biaus Sir, also Sir Hariot, etc. It also occurs
under the form of ser (sar) with seres and serys (sar·'88 or ears) in
the plural, inthe Coventry Mysteries.
Butcher, pudden, cushion. - By the theory here adopted, these words, coming
from Norman bottcher (lrstsheer·), boudin (lrsdiin·), couasin (kuaiin·), would
be, after English change of accentuation (batsh·er, pad·w, kas·un or kash·w),
and thus the patois of the North, where these sounds occur, would be
accounted for.
Querester, quiriater. Thie now obsolete word was well known as late as the
17th century, and its history aptly illustrates the general theory. The
Norman primitive was que<>r (from Lat. c!wr - us), which is found
literatim in Ear.
1 Thete were once the received eoundt. 11 Spirit and miracU were once
pronounced r.rit and ml'r.racle. Sir.up, e:tilf pronounced tur·rup, may be
oounded regularly without pedantry. Smart'a Dictionary, lntrod., p.:uil.
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(delwedd F6331) (tudalen 426)
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426 ON
THE NORMAN ELEMENT.
Eng. Poems, p. 82 (alle the canouns of the queor ), and
again (p. 124) as q1oer (kweer), rhyming with neer ( alle the querietres in
that qwer.) The Norman form of the derivative is quereatere (kwen1steer·) or
(kwerusteer·), and hence its English pronunciation with changed accent
(kwer·estur) or (kwar - istur).
Oownel = curnel (Smart). This word, of which various fantastic derivations
have been given by Wedgewood and others, is deduced, on the authority of
Scheler and Littre, 1 from co/()llelle, the leading column of the regiment. Oolonelle
= (kehnel·) becomes by a dialectic
interchange of l and r, ooronel· = (ker·unel·). Oor()llel is the form
exhibited in the Rouchi patois, and also, when it first appeared as an
English word, in Holinshed. By loss of the short atonic it then became cornel
= (kernel'), and with English accentuation (kar.n11l).
Numerala. The Norman cine (mod. cinque) is also written tink (Kelham's Norman
Diet.), just as we find it in Shakspere's sink pace (siqk psss), the dance so
called, and as we now pro nounce it in Cinque Ports. Other Norman numerals as
(sss) now (eee) for un, deus (duus), trei (tree), quater (ka·ter), ai8 (siis),
set (set), oit, wit (uut), noef (nuuf), di8{diis), unse (uuns), duase (duus
or duus·u), are found in English literature or in common speech, as card - playing
terms, though the vowels have in some instances changed with the times.
0 yes I 0 yea ! Lastly, we notice that the 0 yea ! 0 yea ! of modern times, is
probably a traditional echo of the oles = (01es·) hear ye! of the old crier
of the Court in the days of the Conqueror.
Though it is no part of my plan to trace the connection between Norman and
English pronunciation further, yet a brief reference must be made to the
pronunciation, both French and English, of the 16th century, which Mr. Ellis
has so ably and ingeniously treated, and which he considers as a normal
development or continuation of the old pronunciation. However this may have
been (and the subject is too wide to open), it would appear that in the 16th
century the
• MimMu derives the word in t.he same way.
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(delwedd F6332) (tudalen 427)
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BY
JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 427
French u = (yy), ai = (ai), eu = (eu) sometimes, at others = (y),
the liquid ll and gn, thenasal m and n, the silence of numerous consonants, and
the sounding of final 8 - - ilharacteriatics which we failed to detect in the
14th century - were all known at Paris. InEngland atthesame time there were
prevalent, if not universal, a = (a or ss), ai, ei = (ai) and also (ee), eu =
(eu) and perhaps (yy}, u long = (yy), oi = (ui), the sound of gh as (kh), and
e final mute. Some of these points are doubtful, but Mr. Eilis's arguments
for most of them are certainly very strong, though, especially in the case of
long a and long u, not altogether conclusive. It is, however, no part of my
programme to discuss them, except in reference to a general principle which
it is important to state and illustrate, especially in the case of French.
The French language of the 16th century seems to have differed from that of
the 14th mainly in this respect - that the phenomena of the latter were the
results of an instinctive internal impulse, uncontrolled by any dictation
from without, occupied in the work of creating a language, while those of the
16th century were the results of the native, spontaneous development, working
under the interference and control of the spirit of criticism. The language
was, indeed, virtually complete in the 14th century, but now critics, both
grammatical and orthoepical, had arisen who thought that they could mend it.
Hence, not satisfied with observing and recording what was, they assumed the
function of ordaining what ought to be. Spontaneity and natural impulse had, for
instance, made Lat. fact - um, diet - um, alt - us, deb - ere, debit - um, regalim
- en, into fait or jet, dit, haut, dever, dete, r<>yaume, but the
critical purists condemned these forms as not indicating the etymology, and, therefore,
they did the work over again by writing
fa ict, diet, hault, debvair, debte, rayaulme.
On the same principle the orthoepists seem to have acted. They, too, aimed at
setting things right. To them, as purists, it was intolerable that ai, or eu,
or ai, should represent a single sound. Was not a = (a), and i = (ii)? Then, of
course, together they ought to be (ai), and so with the other diphthongs, which,
according to Mr. Ellie's analysis of the
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(delwedd F6333) (tudalen 428)
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428 ON
THE NOR.LAN BLEMBNT.
French 16th - century sounds, were au = (au), tu = (eu), etc. Then there was
final e. Ifit was there, why should it not be sounded, especially as it had
always been wiual to sound it, whenever necessary, inverse P Accordingly, e
final was at this time commonly articulated, 1and though inthe 17th century
it fell away inprose and common speech, itbecame thenceforward de rigueur to
sound it in verse. The French long u, also, arising probably from a
refinement in the pronunciation of
long eu or iu - both, by theory, in I.he 14th century = (uu)
as e, u, or i, u, had become established in the 16th century a.s
(yy). All these modifications (and more which could be adduced) bear upon
them the stamp of the critical purist - the artificial improver of nature.
In some such way we may, perhaps, account for certain of the special
pronunciations of English in the 16th century. The critical spirit of the
Renaissance united with the imitative instinct inbringing in, for a time, the
French u = (yy), the ai
= (ai), the eu = (eu), etc.; as well
as in restoring the ancient
articulation of gh, so that we may assume, inaccordance with Mr. Ellie's
views, that /air in Shakspere's mouth was (fair), flute (fiyyt), few (feu), and
night (nikht); though some people still said (feer, fluut, niit). Whether age
was then generally (ssdzh·e), is another question, which can hardly be
considered
as definitively settled by Mr. Ellie's investigations.
THE FINAL e IN CHAUCER.
No perfectly satisfactory conclusion with regard to the final e in Chaucer
can be arrived at until we know more accurately than we do at present what
the original text of Chaucer was. The texts, 88 we have them, though
displaying on the whole a remarkable agreement in the spirit, present an
·equally noticeable diversity in the letter; and 88 this question is
altogether one of the letter rather than of the spirit, it cannot be set at
rest until we are able to say, with some show of authority, what Chaucer
actually wrote. One
1 A curious pwage in a fragment on French pronunciation, found in Lambeth
Palaco Library, and quoted by Mr. Ellio, ahowa very clearly the diJl'erenco
between French and Engliali usage at tho date (1628) of the MS. La 'Y' the
writer, u ou lcngloia Wt, goode breadc, le francoi1 iliroit go o de, iii.
sillebes, et breade, iii.ailleb91.
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(delwedd F6334) (tudalen 429)
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BY lOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 429
thing is sufficiently obvious on the most cusory examinationof the six texts,
so admirably set before us at one view in the Chaucer Society's edition; and
that is, that the Lansdowne MS., which contains at least twice as many instances
of final e as the Harleian 7334, could not have represented the original text,
if this latter does. (1) If the one is “Chaucer,'' the other, apparently, is
not. No authoritative canon, then, for the pronunciation of final e, can be
laid down until some approach has been made to the determination of the true
original text. Without, however, waiting for this decision, speculation on
the point in question is both allowable and desirable. Two theories at least
are admissible. The one is that apparently entertained by the majority of the
authorities, - Tyrwhitt, Guest, Gesenius, Child, Ellis, Morris, etc., - namely,
that in the English of Chaucer's time the final e was as a rule pronounced, and
that its quiescence in verse under certain circumstances was due to poetical
licence. The second, supported by Nott, Price, and others, is, that as a
general rule, and in common parlance, the final e was silent, but in verse
composition might be sounded whenever the metre required it. According to the
former theory, such words as swete, veyne, eke, name, place, were
dissyllables; manere, vertue, corage, envie, hethene, trisyllables; and
melodie, curtesie, aventure, hethenesse, nightingale, words of four syllables;
and any curtailment was an accommodation, licence, or corruption, as the case
might be. According to the latter, the words in question were generally
pronounced, as far as the final e is
1 The fact would seem to be that the Lansdowne scribe tries to be very correct,
and hence his conscientious addition of the e in cases where it was needed by
grammar. though not by orthoepy. He even goes to extremes. Not content with
uniformly appending the e to the dative case of nouns, he adds it, as if by
analogy, to which and such also. The writer of the Harleian, 7334, on the other
hand, very often omits the dative e, as unneceuary. A few instances will illustrate
the difl'erence between tho two –
Lansdown, 851.
in suche lycoure - is the floure
of whiche vertue -
with swete bretbe - holte and hethe
in the Ramme
of Ingelonde
Harleian, 7334.
in swich licour - is the flour.
of whiche vertue
with swete breeth - holte and heeth
in the Ram
of Engelond
It is probable that the former scribe never intended tbe e in these cases to
be sounded (except. perhaps, in swete) and that the latter by his spelling intended
to indicate that it was not.
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(delwedd F6335) (tudalen 430)
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430 ON THE NORMAN ELEMENT.
concerned, very nearly as they are at present - though the utterance of the
final e was perfectly allowable in verse whenever required by the exigencies
of the composition. In the one case, the utterance of final e was the rule, or
law; in the other, the exception, or licence. Each of these theories is
consistent with itself, and each of them covers the whole of the question at
issue.
In supporting - though not without hesitation - the latter hypothesis, mainly
on the ground of the apparent usage of both Norman and English writers of the
end of the 13th and throughout the 14th century, it may be as well to give, in
the first place, a brief account of Dr. Nott's and Mr. Richard Price's views
on the subject.
Dr. Nott's theory, as expounded in the Introduction to his edition of
Surrey's works, is that neither Chaucer's verses nor those of the authors who
preceded him were intended to be read with metrical precision, but with what
he calls a cesural, rhythmical cadence. This theory he maintains, - and very
ingeniously, - on the ground that each verse was divided into sections (such
as we see indicated by bars in the Ellesmere and other MSS.), and that these
sections were severally complete in themselves and were to be read as such;
the second hemistich being, he asserts, often begun with a capital letter, as
if to indicate its independence of the first. On this hypothesis the first
verse of the Prologue would read thus (as marked by himself ):
Whiin tMt Aprll n with his scMwrs IsooU!.
And the eighth:
Hiith In th Rm H his half oonrs lronne.
He further remarks, It remains yet to be proved that the use of the feminine
e, such as is here (i.e., by Tyrwhitt) contended for, was then established in
French poetry. Itseems to me that it was not; and in concluding his
discussion, asserts that, with a single exception (in Occleve), he had
nowhere met with a single rhyme to justify the notion that the final e (which
we properly call e mute) was ever pronounced. These last assertions are
somewhat daring, no doubt, but nevertheless there is much that is ingenious and
probably
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(delwedd F6336) (tudalen 431)
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'BY
JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 431
true in his general theory - the result of which would be to
dispose of a large number of the cases in which the e is sounded by Tyrwhitt,
etc. Mr. Richard Price (Preface to Warton) also opposes Tyrwhitt by assuming
a totally different theory. He contends that when the accent which, in A.S.
words, denoted the long vowel, was disused, the Norman scribes, or, at least,
the disciples of the Norman school of writing, added an e, which was not intended
to be pronounced, to denote the original sound of the word, or, to use hie
own expression, attached, as it were, an accent, instead of superscribing it.
From hence, he adds, has - emanated an extensive list of terms having final
e's and duplicate consonants, which were no more the representatives of
additional syllables than the acute or grave accent in the Greek language is
a mark of metrical quantity. In these words he indicates hie conviction that
generally the formative e WWI mute both in Norman and English. He illustrates
his position by showing that A.S.har, sar, Mt, stdn, etc. (in which he con
siders the a = (oo)), became hore, sore, bole, stone, etc; that, similarly, rec,
lif, g6d, scur, became reke, life, gode, sllure, (mod.
shower), and hence the majority of the e's mute on which Mr. Tyrwhitt has
expended so much unfounded speculation. This ingenious hypothesis, it is at
once seen, while it may account for the e in words which in A.S. had the
radical vowel long, does not explain those in which it was short, as grafe or
grave from A.S. gr<ef, dael from d<el, blade from bl<ed, etc.; still
it covers a large number of cases.1 The eminent Hickes, it may be added, and
Rssk after him, had no clear notion how or when the feminine e was sounded in
A.S. words. Dr. Weymouth, too, in the Foreword to his edition of the 0(1, IJtet/
off L01Je, says, I have nowhere, either
1Some light may perhaps be thrown on this subject by investigations into
Platt Deut5Ch dialect8, ae for instance into that of Mecklenburg. of which an
account giveu in Oramma.tik des mecklenburgiscben Diall'ktes ii.lterer und
neuercr Zeit, by Karl Nerger, Leipzig, 1869. Jn another book (Versuch einer
platt·deut, schcn Sprachlehre mit besonderer VerUcbicbtigung der
mecklenburgischen Mundart) on the same Platt l>eut.ecb dialect, by J, Mussreus,
the following passage occurs, showing a remarkable analobetween Meeklenburgi
sh and English,
_.. Da das Platte wenigsylbige WOrter hebt, und dahcr nie . verliingcrt
sondcrn
gewohnlich vcrkllr.zet so winl das e gernc ausgcstoBSen: Hase (i.e. in High
Dutch) = Has (in Platt Deutsch), so auch allemal du .sr• dea Particip.;
getrunken
= drunken. p. 8.
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(delwedd F6337) (tudalen 432)
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432 ON THE
NORXAN ELEMENT.
added or cut off a final e: or even by any kind of accent
marked such an e as necessary. My theory is, that wherever the final e
represents a final syllable in .A..S., it may - not mmt - - be sounded.
On a review of the whole 11Ubject, as so learnedly and elaborately disc1188ed
by Professor Child and Mr. Ellis, it may, perhaps, be thought that they have
treated what is assumed to be Chaucer's usage too much as if he were the
inventor of his own method of writing, and without sufficient regard to what
was established by the example of previous writers. We must, however, presume
his thorough acquaintance with the literature of his ago - both French and
English, and adoption, for the most part, of established usages. The iambic
measure in which he wrote was that commonly employed by all the writers of
the age in both languages. Their rules and their licenses were his also. .A.
brief examination, then, into the treatment of final e, both by Norman and
English poets who preceded Chaucer, may help to throw some light upon this
difficult subject, and possibly lead to the inference that neither in Norman
nor in English of the 14th century, was it nece.ssary or perhaps even
customary to pronounce it, though it may be allowed that previous to the
reign of Edward I. the practice of both was tolerably uniform in requiring it
to be sounded.
It appears to have been rather too hastily assumed by
Professor Child, 1 that the unaccented final e of nouns of French origin is
sounded in Chaucer as it is in French verse; though he adds, exceptions are, however,
frequent. Inthese words he evidently intends it to be understood that the
laws of French versification in the 13th and 14th centuries were the same as
those of our own time;8 yet the reference to frequent exceptions destroys the
value of his rule: for the modem French versification admits of no
' Quoted iu Early English Pronuneiatloo, p. 348.
' )Ir. Ellit and Dr. lforrit al, . consider the argument from modern French
versification valid; and the former further maintainl 0 that as the French. '
final, lt'hich h.oa now disappeared, wu: prouounet'd io general convenation
as late a.a the 16th century, it must have formed put of the rhythm of
the French vmeo with wbicb be [Chaucer] wea well aoquaiuted. - .&.r. Eng.
Pron.• p. 329. See, however, p. 76 of thil paper.
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(delwedd F6338) (tudalen 433)
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BY
JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 433
exceptions, as may be seen below, 1 but those which it has in
common with the ancient. That the Norman poet, while at perfect liberty to
sound the final e whenever his verse required, had the alternative of not
sounding it, may be seen from the following examples, taken from The Conquest
of Ireland, and from Lyrical Poetry, both of the end of the 13th century: -
(1) La da, ., I loroood sei Imenoo Conq. of Ireland. (p. 6.)
(2) En ..U Imanere \ Dermot I Iireis
La da Ime priot a ce I le feis. - ib. (p. 6).
(3) Par Ley I''Itute I oa genl. - ib. (p. 4.) (4) E f la dam• Imande Iaveit.
- ib. (p. 6.)
La hu Ique cil I ftrenl Ijadis. - ib. (p. 6.) (6 Pur Isa fem'' Ique per f du
out. - ib. (p. 6.) (7 Cum IIi reis Ide I, , , y I''
Sur lui Ivint eu Itele f , , , ..., ., , - ib. (p. 7.)
(8) Vero En f gleler• I ....t f la mer. - ib. (p. 16.)
(9) De Ii I me (ne I) voil Iici Iretraire
Com el I fu pris I no en gueh Imanere. - ib. (p. 20.) Quy a \ la da... I de
pa I rays. - Lyr. F0<try. (p. 1.)
(11 Certeo que/ma.., Ideceit. - ib.
(12 Qe/.m'' Ime6preyse Ien ult. Imanere. - ih. (p. 3.)
18 De tie \ le' Itenir Igrant pris. - ib. De oar teyllie Isoit for I ban7'
- - ib.
16 Qy •i I/, ynu Ide fom Ime diat. - ib.(p. 4.)
16 Avant Icfuroi Iou p<> Iro4 eweve. - ih. (p. 6.)
To these instances, a few from Langtoft's Chronicle, of the 14th century, may
here be added, with the remark that the versification of this author is of
the same type as Chaucer's, though each verse contains two syllables more
than those of the Canterbury Tales.
(17) Deus le tot pwioannt, ke ceel e, , , ., ., erea. - (Wright'a ed., 2.)
Kc homme de '' vcnuz en Urre revertirn. - ib.
(19 La nccc damo Lavine enchaunta larccnus. - (p. 4.)
(20 Enaint
est EogullN'• ko aYannt fu Drott.anye. - (p. 233.)
Inall these instances we have a mute final e, which would be inadmissible in
modern French poetry, where the recognition of the final e is a law of the
metre. No modern French poet, I believe, could have written, En cele manere
Dermot li reis, (2) as an iambic verse of four accents, making en cele the
first foot, and manere the second; nor have employed quele (9) as a
monosyllable. Com -
t Toute syllnbe compte dans le corpa du. 11cra, mCme r' muct final, A moina
qu'il no oit 1uivi.c imml!diatement d'une voyelle ou d'une h non BSpiree.
Quicberat, u Trciitl de tieraificati<Ht fra iu, p. 3. The only word that I
have been able to find in which final ' is 1ilent in modem French vcrae is
etlCOrt and thii i1 sometimes written mcor.
29
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(delwedd F6339) (tudalen 434)
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434 ON THE NORMAN ELEMENT
pare, for instance, the usage of La Fontaine (La Maison
de Socrate ): -
QtHlU maieon pour lui ! l'on y tournait A peine. PlO.t au ciel que de na.is
am.is
Telk qu'elle est, dit - il, elk put etrcpleine.
where quelle, telle, and elle, are dissyllables. There is little doubt, indeed,
that the exactness and formality of modem French verse is not a tradition of
the middle ages (though the sounding of final e is a characteristic of the
oldest French verse), and, therefore, that no deduction respecting Chaucer's
versificat ion can be safely grounded on such an assumption.
':Ve rather conclude that Chaucer worked after the Norman, or rather Anglo - Norman,
pattern of his day, which, however, was much less strict than that of the
French of Paris, and accordingly we recognize in his verses the same kind and
degree of freedom which we find in theirs. The instances given above, and
they are by no means exceptional, show that there was no fixed and positive rule
for sounding final e in Norman verse. Dame, for example, which in E la dame (4),
and generally throughout this poem, is a monosyllable, in (2) is evidently a
dissyllable. Oele, also, as appears from the instances in (2, ) is .one
syllable or two, at the 'vill of the writer. Without, however, discussing
minutely every significant word in the above passages, let us select, for
more especial illustration, dame and manere, both of which are frequently
found in Chaucer. As has been already said, dame appears generally in Norman verse
as one syllable; and we are therefore prepared to expect that Chaucer uses it
in the same way. And such is the case, e.g.
Of themperoures doughter dam• Custaunce (C. T., 4671).
.Mada, ., , quod he, ye may be glad and blithe (C. T., 6162).
For, madanu, wel ye woot what ye han hight (C. T., 11636).
These are only a few out of many instances which in their tum confirm the
Norman usage, and warrant us therefore in assuming that the final e in dame
was only very exceptionally sounded, and under stress. We are warranted
therefore in assuming that it would be silent at the end of a line both in
Norman and English; and, consequently, in pronouncing the Norman words entame,
blame, and fame , which rhyme with it (in Lyric. Poetry, p. 2), 1 as (entssm',
blssm, fssm),
1 Sec the text in Appendix, p. 97.
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(delwedd F6340) (tudalen 435)
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BY
JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ, 435
and the English words blame, same, and shame, which rhyme
with madame (in C. T. 377, 3953, and 16377), as (blssm, sssm, shssm).1 One
step more leads us to the conclusion that in common speech, and independently
of the exigencies of the verse, these words were pronounced as monosyllables.
If this conclusion be once admitted, it is difficult to say where we are to
stop, and why all other words in - me, as well as those in - be, - ce, - le,
- ne, - pe, etc., should not be comprehended in the usage. Without, however, for
the present, pressing this conclusion, let us proceed to some illustrations
of the use of the second word, manere. This word in (2) is evidently a
dissyllable, and therefore may be such in (7), where it rhymes with Leynestere,
a word of the same form as Engletere, which nearly always appears as a
trisyllable, while the simple word tere is scarcely, if ever, anything but
(teer). In (3), Leynestere has most probably the final e silent, through the
cresural pause; if, however, this is sounded, then tute must be a
monosyllable. Utvesl&re ( i.e. Ulster), also, it may be remarked by the
way, rhymes (p. 105 of the poem), with f rere, which is sometimes a
monosyllable in Chaucer. The extreme probability then is, that ma11ere in
(7) was a dissyllable, and also that Jere (or fair e), guerre, banere, with
which Leynestere rhymes in this poem, were (feer, geer, baneer·). The
probability that mmiere was (maneer·), is almost increased to certainty, when
we further observe its behaviour as an English word, which may be seen in the
following instances: -
.(1) Ther iB mani maner frute
Al is sol., and dedute. - Land of Cokayg, , ., M. p. 149.'
(2) And of ur• meatere
So is the ma.nere. - King Horn, M. p. 217.
(3) Four manere joycn by hadde hero
Qf byre eone so lef an derc. - Shcreham' .r poema, M. p. 261.
(4) Al oncknowinge thaJ by were
Hy makedc joyc in hare mantre. - Shortham, 'M. p. 263.
(5) 'fharfor a clerk made on this ma'
This vers of metre that is writen here. - Ha, npole, M. p. 289.
In all·these ·instances, there can then be little doubt that
1 SlunM appears 88 dam in Havelok, J. 56:
In gode burwes, and p er:frai
Ne funden be non pat dede hem dam.
2 This reference and the otben marked M . are to Matzner's Altenglischc
Sprachprobon.
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(delwedd F6341) (tudalen 436)
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manere
was (maneer) in two syllables. In (1) the spelling
decides the question. In (2) 1ne8tere is only another spelling for mester
(the proper Norman form), which we find in Chaucer (610), and therefore
allows manere to be (maneer·). In (3) the metre excludes a third syllable. In
(4) and (5), as 1Dere and here were generally monosyllables (see Chaucer,
passim), manere probably was a dissyllable. We cannot, therefore, but infer
that in (138, 139) -
And peyned hire to counterrete eluw1
Of court, 11nd beo estatlich of maner1,
manere was (maneer·), and cllere (tsheer). On the whole, it is doubtful
whether a single instanee can be found in any English verse (there is not,
apparently, one in Chaucer, ) in which ma;11 re is required to be a
trisyllable. Itmay be questioned, then, whether Mr. Child's emphatic
assertion (quoted in Ear. Eng. Pron., p. 365), that the final e of cheere was
most distinctly pronounced (that is, ingeneral), can be maintained. The Anglo
- Norman words, especially, with which it rhymes in Chaucer, as /rere, matere,
cleere, repeire, almost certauily had the final e silent. This argument, if valid,
must also be decisive against the similar case of the English deere, on which
Mr. Child also relies as a test word, but which rhymes with/rere, manere, matiere,
ch, eere, cleere, appeere, and is therefore most probably (deer). As a
subsidiary argument, it may be noted that manere, matere, together with
banere, rivere, as well as the English words mellere, lovere, etc., were very
early spelt without the e, showing that it had not been generally considered
necessary to express the sound. Space will not allow of the examination of
the cases in which other vowels precede the termination - re, but it would
not be difficult to show that they were included in the same categqry; and
the general conclusion therefore seems to be the opposite of
Mr. Child's, and, that e final was generally (not) pronounced after r.
It will be impossible to go through all the letters of the alphabet that
preceded the final e, but one special instance of
- de must be mentioned. The word erede,
as an unaltered Latin word, changed from a verb into a noun, might cer –
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(delwedd F6342) (tudalen 437)
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tainly have been expected to retain ita dissyllabio pronun
ciation. Itoccurs in St.Dunstan (Ear. Eng. Poetry, p. 35):
To t.eche him eke his bileve, pat.er noeter and cr1tlt,
}'e child wax and wel i}e}, for hit moete HttU;
and seemed at first a decisive instance, settling also the pronunciation of
nede as a dissyllable. In Audelny's Poems, however (p. 70), it is found
distinctly rhyming with dred, showing that the conclusion was hasty, and that
it was used as a monosyllable, as also, not unfrequently, was nede, even in
the form ned.
The final e preceded by a vowel or diphthong requires a brief discussion -
and the more because the question of bad or false rhymes in Chaucer, as
referred to by Mr. Furnivall (Temporary Preface to tbe Six - Text Edition, p.
108 - 9), is very much connected with it. Mr. Furnivall, in stating the
difficulty hypothetic11lly, wishes to know, if in Chaucer's undoubted works
mal - a - dy - e or cur
tei - si - e is four syllables, how y - e or i - e, proved by derivation to
be 11 two - syllable termination, can rhyme with y or the pronoun I? All here
depends on the if, and the question admits of being put in another way. If ye
or ie are monosyllabic terminations, why should they not rhyme with - y or
the pronoun I? Consistently with the argument adopted above, it will now be
assumed that thelatter hypothesis is the true one, and an attempt, at least,
made to prove it. On the question of false rhymes generally, a:remark may not
be inappropriate in this place. A rhyme is addressed essentially to the ear,
not to the eye, and cannot with propriety be called false, because the
symbols which represent it to the eye are not literally identical. If the
rhyming combinations clearly echo to each other, we get a proper ear - rhyme,
even if, through ignorance, bad taste, or carelessness on the part of the
scribe, there is no satisfactory eye - rhyme. If the ear - rhyme is good, he
means right at all events, and the rest resolves itself into the vexed
question of spelling. The essential point, however, is the sound, not the
spelling. The general position, then, here assumed, is, that a final e
preceded by a long vowel or diphthong is absorbed and
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(delwedd F6343) (tudalen 438)
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not
sounded, though whenever the metre is stringent, it may
be sounded.1 This rule will be illustrated first by Norman, and then by
English usage.
(I) Do cor I t'!l•i• I soit for I banys - ( Lgrical Poetry, p. 1).
(2) Desous Ila joi< Ide pa Irajs - (p. 4).
3) Douce I ami<, Iseiez Icerte1gne' - (p. 11).
4) Quar Iele est Ide jo i• I fonteyn - (p. 12).
.5) Mult le I 1alu1 I curteis I ement - ( tlmquelt of Ireland, p. 14).
6) Le duk Ide Nor Imendye, I William I le Con Iquerour - (Langloft, i. 410).
7) Col hourc Ien Nor Immdye Idu •• lclo quant I partayt, .. - (oa. p. 434).
These instances, the number of which it would be easy to increase, will serve
to illustrate the usage;3 and the argument is, that if the final e was not
sounded in the middle of the verse, where it might be needed, much less
likely is it that it would be sounded at the end, where it would be
superfluous. We may conclude, then, that in Langtoft (i. 434), the rhymes
Normendye, abbye, meabrye, cle1·gye, mye, 1J!fe, navye, baroimye, etc., would
have - ye = (ii).
This Norman usage was also current in English. The instances in which, for
example, Marie was = (llforii) are numerous in our early poetry. The 13th
century rhymes cri, Ma>'i ( Fifteen .Signs before Judgment, '' Miitzner,
p. 29), 111aistri, Mari (Fall and Passion, M. p. 126), accredit the usage,
and show the probability that Marie was two syllables in
Seintc Mari<, levedi briht, ( Five Gaudia, ' M. p. 61)
and
Seinte Mari1, moder milde, (ib.)
which is further confirmed by our finding cri, merci, and crie,
mercie, indifferently employed as rhymes in Fifteen Signs, '' etc., M.p.124
and 121. We also find joye as one syllable in St. Margarete (ed. Cockayne, p.
27), tkotie as two (p. 29),
1 This assertion hns been previomly made in the note to p. 21, and the
opinion ef Professor Mussafi.a cited in eonfirmation.
i In this and other similar cases, it may of course be objocted that the
division
in conformity with the tn>e or the verse, ought to be
Douce a I mie l seiez I oerteigne,
but it must be remembered that such an arrangement would completely disturb
the accentuation, making for instance mi a short and ' a long syllable. The
first syllable, too, of amil = (aroii) would be forced to bear a stress which
does
not belong to it.
' On the other hand, in the following instonces, the e appears to have been
pronounced. -
En voe I tre ga 1 ranti I 'wet - .( Edw. thd Otmfem>r, p. 26).
En Nor J mandi I • par I sa guere - ( Cimqu#8t of Ireland, '' p. 13).
though in the last instance the CiDsural paw;o would warrant our treating
Nor· mandie as three syllables.
-
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(delwedd F6344) (tudalen 439)
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and en1Jtle as two (p. 30); and many other such cases may be
found in Ear. Eng. Poetm. Similarly, crie, thi, by; thi, Ermonie, by, are
found respectively rhyming in Tristrem (M. pp. 235, 236), merci, inward/ye,
licheri, g<J11telye, in Metrical Homilies (M. pp. 281, 283), and Barbarie,
hardy, in Alisaunder (M. p. 244).
The numerous instances of words ending in - we, as 1110r10e, aorwe, fa/ toe,
arwe, galwe, halwe, which also appear as morowe, morewe, sorowe, 3ore1oe,
halowe, halewe, etc., are probably to be brought under the same category, and
pronounced accordingly, with we = w = (uu). Professor Child speaks (Ear.
Eng. Pron., p. 344) of the final e having been absorbed by y or w in play ,
lady, herberw, 1/lidow, widto; and thus indirectly testifies to the validity
of the principle here maintained.
But we now turn to Chaucer - and on an examination of the Prologue and Knight's
Tale in the Six - text Edition, I have not been able to find six instances
which fairly contradict the position assumed. The following certainly confirm
it.
To feme Sslwu (Corp., Pet., Lano., 4/cwu) kowtbe in aondry londes - Ellu.,
14. To take owre woi• (other .MSS. W'JI) ]>are ..I JOWe derioe -
Lan•down•, 34.
And eke in whatte aroia (other MSS.Y) ]>at ]>ei were inne - -
LaOldo..., , 41. He ne•ere yet no •i/eyny• (Cam. and Lam., •4•y) no oayde -
E/lu'' 70.
A &beef of pecok arwu (Pet. / bright and kene - Ellumn1, 104.
In CNrtuge wu aett.e ful moche hire e&tc - , 132.
!for ]>ougb atoidltD1(Elleo. IDJdlDI, Laos....a.w.)haddo nought a 1ebc>
- Clnp., 263. Hi> 1tN<li1(Lam., ltody) wu but lite!on the llible -
Ellu., 438.
To eeeken him ll eSsuntwi1 for soules - Harlftan, 610.
A whit eote and [a] bkw• (Ellea. and Cam., bilto) hood wered be - Harkian,
664. And he began w1tb right a meril (Cam. and Lan1., rv) chere - Dc:irleion,
857 . And in hi> hooet of oMvalria the ftour - ' Ell'''• 982.
That Emelt'1, that fairer was to sccno - - Jlarlt ian, 1036.
Bot in priaon ho most dwol alw1il {other MSS. alwa11) - Lon1doume, 1350.
Of ma/4di1the which he bath endured - Harlliao, 1406.
An egle tame, u eny lyl;.ll'hyt - HarUian, 2178.
These instances fairly represent the case. In no one of them is the e after a
vowel or diphthong phonetically significant. We may then safely conclude that
mel0<lie, hostelrie, companye, chyvalrie, curtesie, were all words of
three, not of four syllables. Ourtesie, for instance, appears to have been
= (kar·tusii·), and was probably the
same (46) where it closes
the verse as it is (132)•.
1 The reading of (132) in the Six Text. uss follow&: -
Jn urt1i1ia wa. eet ful mucbel hir liat - Ellum1re.
In curttily1 was 1et ful mucbel hir list - Hengwrt.
In ourllf•ia wu •et ful meche here lyat - 0..mhridge.
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(delwedd F6345) (tudalen 440)
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440 ON THE NORMAN ELEMENT.
If, however, these conclusions are admitted, it seems difficult to see the
force of some of the arguments which have been adduced on the score of false
rhymes against the authen - ticity of the Romaunt of the Rose. The instances
quoted as such are reducible to four typical classes: (1), worthy, curtesie;
(2) be, nycetie; (3) joye, convey; (4) appere, debonaire; (5) menace, csss.
The first case has just been disposed of; the second has been referred to by
Mr. Ellis (Early Eng. Pron., p. 262), and in this paper it has been shown, by
the application of the rule of the equivalence of transposed diphthongs (p
52), that ie may, if required, be treated as equal to ei ee); the third is
accounted for by the fact that the Norman of = (ee); the fourth by assuming
Norman ai = (ee); and the fifth by the constant interchange, as has been
shown (p. 67), of s, sse, ce, and se, all = (s). The scribe of the Romaunt
then had reason as well as rhyme on his side, though it might be proved, perhaps,
that he was not an adept in spelling — a fault with which all the scribes of
the existing texts of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, are, if not equally, at all
events considerably, chargeable. It should, however, be remembered that
canons of good spelling for the 14th century have not yet even been
formulated. The case of s, - sse, se, ce = (s) requires to be further con - sidered
and generalized. It has been shown (p. 20) that grace and space were written,
not unfrequently, grsss, gran, grasse, spsss. Was, too, and gras, appear as
wasse, wace, grasse, while we also find busines interchanged with besynesse, goodnes
with goodnesse, goddes with goddesse, blis with blisse, t In eurtespe was
sette ful moche hire leste — Corpus. In curteaye was set ful mochel hire
leste — Petworth. In curtesie was sette ful muchel her leste — Lansdowne.
while the Harleian 7334 alone has In eartesie was sett al hire lest where the
final e requires to be sounded, with the effect of improperly empha - sizing
was. 1 Blt:s and blisse are constantly interchangeable. Such cases as the
following, from a poem in dneedota Literaria, p. 90, are by no moans
uncommon: On worldes Slime, that nout ne last; and four lines after, On
worldes Ms. Blis occurs also once besides in the poem as the ace. case, and
bliss, four times more as the nom.; and in all five instances the s is mute.
In dllit. Poems, p. 2, we have wyth - outen spotte rhyming with not, and a
dozen lines onward, wyth - outen spot rhyming with floc.
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(delwedd F6346) (tudalen 441)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 441
itois with iwisse, etc., showing s = ease. The - sse then of hethenesse and
worthinesse, as well as that of presse and geese, etc., may be taken as = (s).
But observing further a similar interchange of spot, spotte; in, inne; gin, ginne;
pyn, pynne; it, itt, itte; wit, wilt, Witte; sat, satte; wil, wille; wel, were,
wel e; chyn, chynne; blin, blinne; than, thanne; whan, whanne, etc.; also
ramme rhyming with cam (Lansdowne MS., v. 548); we may venture to enlarge the
observation, and to assume that, in general, when a double consonant is
followed by e, the e may be mute, and hence that werre, sonn, e, ironne, 1
nonne, cappe, telle, hackle, bledde, fedde, may be often sounded as if
written wer, son, iron, non, cap, tel, had, bled, fed. Many exceptions may, no
doubt, be found, but the rule seems to be very extensively applicable. In
farther illustration of some of the points of this argu - ment the following
rhymes deserve consideration. They are mostly derived from Southern writers
antecedent to Chaucer: — His, iwisse ( Sarmun, Metzner, p. 117); his, blisse
(ib.); a - auntie, (ib.); beste, lest ( 15 Signs, etc., M. p. 122); tak, quake
(ib.); none, ston (p. 123); riche, flack (ib.); speck, wreche (p. 124);
Austin, fine (ib.); rise, agris (ib.); was, grace ( Fall and Passion, M. p.
125); snowe, ithrow (ib.); Lucifer, were (ib.); hore, ilor (ib.); forbede, red
(ib); appil, wille (p. 126); Arimathie, honuri (p. 127); face, was (ib.);
none, Jon (p. 128); i - wisse, blis (ib.); over - cam, name (ib.); preche, tech
(ib.); clere, copper ( Land of Cokaygne, M. p. 148); gote, wot (p. 149);
flure, odur (p. 150); therbi, nunnerie (p. 152); river, stere (ib.); danger, yere
(ib.); vote, abbot (ib.); milke, silk (ib.); kynedom, come (Robt. of
Gloucester, M. p. 162); com, nome (p. 163); lend, understoncle (p. 168); lond,
honde (ib.); here, power ( Shoreham's Poems, M. p. 260); bost, poste (ib.);
londe, fond (p. 261); manyour, creature (p. 263); seet, ete 1 The cases of
sonne, Tonne, are perhaps the most doubtful of these instances. Come in
Chaucer is generally a dissyllable, but in A Carmen (v. 198), we find
Hevesith is briitir than the sun; where it is an assonance, not a rhyme, with
corn. Ironne may be paralleled by iswore (Knight's Tale, 274), Iswore ful
deepe and ech of us to other; where the inflexional e is silent. We also find
in Fall and Passion, vv. 89, 91, y - cor and for - lor for ycoren and
forloren. Cf. also from above, hore, ilor.
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(delwedd F6347) (tudalen 442)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 441
itois with iwisse, etc., showing s = ease. The - sse then of hethenesse and
worthinesse, as well as that of presse and geese, etc., may be taken as = (s).
But observing further a similar interchange of spot, spotte; in, inne; gin, ginne;
pyn, pynne; it, itt, itte; wit, wilt, Witte; sat, satte; wil, wille; wel, were,
wel e; chyn, chynne; blin, blinne; than, thanne; whan, whanne, etc.; also
ramme rhyming with cam (Lansdowne MS., v. 548); we may venture to enlarge the
observation, and to assume that, in general, when a double consonant is
followed by e, the e may be mute, and hence that werre, sonn, e, ironne, 1
nonne, cappe, telle, hackle, bledde, fedde, may be often sounded as if written
wer, son, iron, non, cap, tel, had, bled, fed. Many exceptions may, no doubt,
be found, but the rule seems to be very extensively applicable. In farther
illustration of some of the points of this argu - ment the following rhymes
deserve consideration. They are mostly derived from Southern writers
antecedent to Chaucer: — His, iwisse ( Sarmun, Metzner, p. 117); his, blisse
(ib.); a - auntie, (ib.); beste, lest ( 15 Signs, etc., M. p. 122); tak, quake
(ib.); none, ston (p. 123); riche, flack (ib.); speck, wreche (p. 124);
Austin, fine (ib.); rise, agris (ib.); was, grace ( Fall and Passion, M. p.
125); snowe, ithrow (ib.); Lucifer, were (ib.); hore, ilor (ib.); forbede, red
(ib); appil, wille (p. 126); Arimathie, honuri (p. 127); face, was (ib.);
none, Jon (p. 128); i - wisse, blis (ib.); over - cam, name (ib.); preche, tech
(ib.); clere, copper ( Land of Cokaygne, M. p. 148); gote, wot (p. 149);
flure, odur (p. 150); therbi, nunnerie (p. 152); river, stere (ib.); danger, yere
(ib.); vote, abbot (ib.); milke, silk (ib.); kynedom, come (Robt. of
Gloucester, M. p. 162); com, nome (p. 163); lend, understoncle (p. 168); lond,
honde (ib.); here, power ( Shoreham's Poems, M. p. 260); bost, poste (ib.);
londe, fond (p. 261); manyour, creature (p. 263); seet, ete 1 The cases of
sonne, Tonne, are perhaps the most doubtful of these instances. Come in
Chaucer is generally a dissyllable, but in A Carmen (v. 198), we find
Hevesith is briitir than the sun; where it is an assonance, not a rhyme, with
corn. Ironne may be paralleled by iswore (Knight's Tale, 274), Iswore ful
deepe and ech of us to other; where the inflexional e is silent. We also find
in Fall and Passion, vv. 89, 91, y - cor and for - lor for ycoren and
forloren. Cf. also from above, hore, ilor.
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(delwedd F6348) (tudalen 443)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 443
iflumm, o boo, off stan, as the usage,
and withth worde, o boke, etc., as exceptions. We assume, there - fore, that
the dative e in these words was often neglected, and therefore that, grammatically,
word = worde and boc = boke. Without dwelling on these or numerous other in -
stances in the Ormulum, Gen. and Ex., etc, we take A Sarmun (Ear. Eng. Poems,
pp. 1, etc.), a poem desig - nated by Dr. Sturzen - Becker (on English
dialects) as pure southern, though, he adds, exhibiting some orthographi - cal
singularities, as a specimen of the later part of the 13th century. In vv.
165, 7, we find the rhymes he sal wend, to 3ur end, in which, by rule, wend
should have the e of the infinitive mood and end the e of the dative case.
Compare these verses, however, with vv. 10, 12 — ther commith ende, we
schulleth wende. Ende is here the nom. case, and the e is formative, not
inflexional; therefore, ende may = end and wende = wend, as in the former
example; which is the more probable, inasmuch as wend is twice found as
infinitive in other parts of the poem. Again, in vv. 6, 8, we have in boke — to
loke. But if Orrmin's boke = boc, the probability is that conversely boke = bok,
and loke = - . lok in this place. Then there is that nis no3t his — lif in
blisse, showing that if blisse was meant for a dative case, (though it is
often used as a nominative) the e was mute, and that sse = a, as before made
out. Then as to the plural e of adjectives, we have (vv. 41, 43) saltou (shalt
thou) se thar — we at be ware, which last word is the plural of war, but the
rhyme shows us that it was = war. In v. 8, we see The dede beth so Mich to
loke; where the inflexional e is evidently silent in dede and wanting in
lolich. The inflexional e, therefore, was not neces - sarily sounded, though,
of course, it might be, on occasion. In the northern writers it was almost
uniformly neglected. An instance or two may here be quoted from one of them.
Mr. Ellis, in his quotation from Hampole (Ear. Eng. Pron. p. 415), thus marks
the notation of the passages cited; — than a beste — es sene leste, (dhan a
beest, es seen leest), stand ne crepe (infm.) — cry and wepe (infin.), (stand
ne kreep,
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(delwedd F6349) (tudalen 444)
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444 ON THE NORMAN ELEMENT
krii and weep), on this manere — is writen here (on dhis maneer• is rwee.ten
Heer), of oure birthe — and na mirthe, (of uur birth, and nss mirth), naked
and bare — sal we hethen fare (nssk•ed and bssr, sal wee Hedh - en fssr). As
this question of the inflexional e is the most important point of the
argument, it may be well to supply a few ad - ditional instances, in which it
does not appear to have been sounded. Plural adj. The dede beth so lolich to
loke. — Sarmun, v. 8. Def. adj. Throl prier of are mete levedi. — Rfteen
Signs, etc., 2. Margarete his lunge domter. — St. Margarete, 6. Comparative.
An laeiere name ie nom. — Id. 70. Superlative. He was Jacobea gunkeste sane.
— Gen. and Ex., 1909. Dat. case. In to the Mine that was on hei. — Sarmun, 92.
)7 Of al the time fram icr to }ere. — Id. 100. Quane he was in to Egipte
sold. — Gen. and Ex., 1908. Inf. mood. Sal crie, tak wrech of sinful man. — Sarmun,
124. And belle sal terse, thou salt ise. — Id. 134. Gerund. Inf. To Kane that
was ihudded here. — Id. 48. Pres. Tense. For as i segge, as hit sal be. — Id.
168. Past Tense. He gret and saide that wilds der. — Gen. and Ex., 1975. And
on the made the kinges bred. — Id. 2048. He makede for hire deol ynom. St.
Margarete, 16. P. Part. That ibore were of Marm — Id. 62. As the omission, as
well as the insertion, of the inflexional e is a part of the argument, the
following instances deserve notice. Plural adj. Tho wea her hertes nithful
and bold. — Gen. and Ex., 1917. The dede beth so lolich to loke. — Sarmun, 8.
Def. De4. The talked wede that was abnte. — Id. 49. Dat. sing. The Jacob
hadde mad im in prod. — Gen. and Ex., 1966. At here drink and at here mel. — Id.
2052. Taketh gode hede, men, to iur end. — Sarmun, 167. Inf.;lood. And to the
devil he sal wend. — Id. 84. )7 Ther nis no tunge that hit mai tel. — Id.
191. These instances from poets of the 13th and earlier part of the 14th
century will suffice to show — .may we not say con - clusively? — that
neither the stringent rules of modern French versification, nor the assumed
necessity of sounding the in - flexional - e, apply, as a fixed rule, to ante
- Chaucerian English poetry. Unless, then, it can be shown — which has not
been shown — that Chaucer departed from established usage, and adopted a
scheme of his own, there seems every reason to believe that he would work on
the pattern supplied him. A brief examination of the first eighteen lines of
the Prologue will illustrate the general argument. Employing then the tests
afforded by — (1) the usage of
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(delwedd F6350) (tudalen 445)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 445
Norman poets in the 14th century, — (2) the rhyming in English poetry between
words with, and others without final e, — (3) the interchange of forms of the
same word with or without the e, — (4) the c, sural or rhythmical cadence, we
may endeavour to interpret the usage of one of the Chaucerian scribes, without,
of course, identifying him with Chaucer himself. The text employed, as easily
accessible, is that given by Dr. Morris, from the Harleian MS., 7334, in his
edition of the Prologue, etc., in the Clarendon Press Series. (See the text
in Appendix, p. 98.) (1) — .Aprille. By the theory in p. 90, ille = II, and
therefore Aprille is = (Aprii1•, or we may read, Whin. that 4prille as an
independent hemistich. (2) — Swoote, roots. Ignoring the inflexional e, whether
plural or dative, smote, roote = (swoot, root). (3) — Harche, veyne, vertue, Nolte,
nature, kouthe. The e by general usage is elided before a vowel, and before
hath. (4) — Swete. This must either be admitted as an exception and read
(sweet•u) or the whole verse read by Nott's theory, Whin ZaphYrts eak — with
his swate breath (5) — Breeth[e], heeth[e]. The bracketed letters are not in
the text and we may read therefore (breeth, 'meth). (6) — Tendre. As - re and
- er are frequently interchanged in Norman poetry, where we find for instance
Octobre and October, we may read tendre as tender. (7) - 3onge. This must be
read (Juq - e) as an exception. (8) — Sonne, ironne. By theory (p. 90) these
words may be = son, iron = (sun, iron'). (9) — Halfe. The e, though probably
inflexional here, may be sounded or silent at pleasure. It is found neither
in the Ellesmere nor Lansdowne MSS. We may read it without the e thus — Hath
Yn tha Ram I his half cane Tranne. (10) — Smale. The e is probably, but not
necessarily, to be sounded here. The word is mai in the Lansdowne MS., •usually
so profuse in e's. If the e is neglected it may be read thus — And — smale
foTvlas I Wan maladle.
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(delwedd F6351) (tudalen 446)
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446 ON THE NORMAN ELEMENT.
(11) — Drelodie, yhe. By the theory stated (p. 86) the e is absorbed in the
long accented i of ie. The first word then would be = (mel•rdii•) or
(mel•odii•) and the second, (ignoring the h) = (12) — Here. This word is by
general consent a monosyllable in Chaucer. (13) — Thanne. By theory (p. 90)
this word = than = (dhan.) (14) — Straunge. This word seems to be exceptional
and to be read (strssundzh•13). The Lansdowne MS. has straungere with the
final a silent. (15) — Ferne. An exceptional instance. Norman usage would, however,
allow of its being read with the e elided before h, but Dr. Morris's
conjecture that ferne = ferrene (cf. of ferrene londe, Lay. 5328), enables us
to read the line thus: — (To fe•en or fern naluu•es• kuuth in sun•dri
lond•es). (16) — Ende, wende. See p. 92, for the reason why ende, wende, may
= (end, wend). (17) — Seeke, seeke. Neither word is entitled to exceptional
treatment. Each may therefore be = (seek). (18) — Were. This word, like here
(No. 12), is scarcely ever a dissyllable in Chaucer. We have here in all 26
instances, excluding those in brackets, of final e, of which six are silent
by elision before a vowel, or path; and of the remaining 20 all except swete,
3onge, smale, straunge, and perhaps ferne, are accounted for, more or less
satisfactorily, by applying the tests adopted. It would hence appear that, taking
these 18 lines as a sample of the whole of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, a
large majority of the final e's were not necessarily sounded by the readers of
the Harleian MS. 7334. This conclusion, founded on ex - ternal arguments, might,
however, be modified when tested further by Chaucer's own practice, should we
ever be able to distinguish it from that of the various Chaucerian scribes.
There seems then some reason to believe that the utterance of final e was in
Chaucer's verse the exception, its silence
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(delwedd F6352) (tudalen 447)
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BY JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 447
the rule, and that orthoepical superseded, when thought ne - cessary or
advisable, even grammatical considerations. On the whole, then, it appears
that, unless when required by the exigencies of the composition — and then
exceptional usage was freely allowed — the evidence before us fails to show
that the final e was ordinarily pronounced in English verse of the 14th
century, while on the other hand there is a strong presumption that in the
majority of instances it may have been silent. Finally, it may be observed, that
the uniformity of Nor - man pronunciation all over England in the 14th
century, as attested by Trevisa, ' and the growing tendency at that time
among Anglo - Norman writers to treat their final e as phonetically
insignificant, may have had a considerable in - fluence (as Mr. Skeat2 has
suggested) in reducing the English final e to silence. The principle which it
was intended to maintain through - out this paper, namely, that the Norman
and English pro - nunciation of the 13th and 14th centuries was substantially
the same, and that they illustrate each other, has now, it is submitted, been
in a general way made good. The apologies which I owe my fellow members for
the numerous errors which I am afraid may be found in the details of this
long dissertation, I beg, in conclusion, to present in the words of an old
Anglo - Norman poet: — Ore pri chescun qui lit e of Ciste treite, sen aucun
not Mesprein, kil lamender voile; liar nest horn ki ne sumoile.
Hyt semej a gret wondur how Englysch pat ys Pe burp - tongs of Englyschemen, and
here oune longage and tonge ys so dyvers of soon (sound) in pis ylond, and pe
longage of Normandy ys comlying (a stranger) of anoper lond and hap on manure
soon among all men pat spoke), byt aryit in Bngelond. Treviso. (Morris's Specimens,
p. 339). 2 See his interesting. Essay on Chaucer's versification (prefixed to
the Aldine edition of Chaucer, Vol. I.), in which he confirms Price's theory
respecting the orthoepic character of the final e in such words as bore, bone,
Eyre, etc., and also contends for the quiescence of the finale in a majority
of the words derived from the Norman.
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(delwedd F6353) (tudalen 448)
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448 ON THE NORMAN ELEMENT.
APPENDIX.
SPECIMENS OF CONJECTURED PRONUNCIATION OF NORMAN AND ENGLISH IN THE 13TH AND
14TH CENTURIES.
I. NORMAN - FRENCH OF THE 13TH CENTURY.
From Specimens of Lyric Poetry, ' Amour de femme moun cuer entame, de fere un
poy enveysure, Pur sauver femme de tote blame, chescun devereit mettre cure;
Pur lamour de une dame, que tot le mound en terre honure, Que femme
esclaundre e met en fame ne Tint unqe de bone nature; a veyr dyre, Qui de
femme dit vileynie, certes sa bouche empyre. Beaute de femme passe rose, qi
Is vodera bien iuger En mounde n'i a si donee chose, en leaute pur bien amer.
Mes je certes bien dire le ose, e si mestier soit prover,
Qe maveste qe en taus repose, fot sovent femme des oils lermer, a tort, Qy
femme dampne par tresoun certes sa noreture dort.
' collated with Harleian MS. 2253. amuu• de feem muun kuur entssnr do feer
uun puu en•vusuu• puur sauver feem do tuut•tt blssm tsheskun• devreet• metro
kuur puur lamuu• duut•u dssm ke tuut le muund en teer onuur ke feem esklsst•dre
met en fssm no viint uunk•u do bun neotnu• a veer diir Id do feem diit
vilenii - sertes - as buutah empii• butee• do feettro paws roe ki ie vudra•
ben dzhudzhee• en muund ni a si dutts•it Mhos on lutes' puur ben amee• mess
dzhu seerte• ben diir o las e si mustee• sect prevee• ke manatee - keen faus
repos - feet sovent• feem dees uuls lermee• a tort Id feen•u dssm•u par
trosuun - sertes - sa nartu• dart.
II. NORMAN - FRENCH OF THE 14TH CENTURY. (The beginning of
Pierre de Langtoft's Chronicle, ' from Cottonian MS., Julius A. v.) Dens le
tot pussaunt, duns lit tuut pusssunt - ke ceel e terre crca, ke seel e teer
crew Adam nostre pere edam - nost•u peer homme de terre fourma, om de teer
farina - Naturaument purvyst nate•aument• parviist• quant ii ord. = kssunt iil o•dina - Ke homme de terre venuz kom do teer
vunuu• en terre revertira, en teer reve•tirs - Cil Deu ly beneye ciii duu lii
bum - ke ben escotera ke ben esku•tera - Cotnent Engleterre kom•ent En•gluMe•
primes comenza, prii•es Immense - E pur quai primes e puur kee primes - Bretaygne
homme lapela. Bruteen• om lapela••
The original text is in long lines of eleven or twelve syllables. It is here
divided at the pause for convenience of printing.
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(delwedd F6354) (tudalen 449)
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BY
JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ. 449
III. ENGLISH OF THE 13TH CENTURY. SOUTHERN DIALECT. (The beginning of the Owl
and the Nightingale, from Cottonian MS. Calig. A. ix.)
Ich was in one sumere dale In one suthe din3le hale Iherde ich holde grete
tale An hule and one niitingale That plait was stif and stare and strong Sum
wile softe and lud a mong And aither glen other swal And let that wale mod ut
al And either wide of otheres custe That alre worste that hi waste And hure
and hure of othere songe Hi holde plaiding suthe stronge. The niitingale
bigon the speche, etc.
iitsh was in noire suum•or dssl in oon•o suudh•o diirel sisal iherd iitsh
hold•o greet•o tssl ssn uul and oon•o niitingssl - dhat pleet was stif and
stark and stroq. sum wii•u soft and laud amoq and ee•dher a•Jen uu•dher swal
and let dhat wuu•e muud uut ssl and ee•dher seed of uu•dlires knnst dhat
al•ro warst•o dhat hii wuust and Huur and Huur of uu•dher soq ii Hoold•o
pleed•lq suu•dhe stroq Dhe nii.tingssl• bigoir dho speetsh, &c
IV. ENGLISH OF THE 14TH CENTURY. STANDARD ENGLISH. (The beginning of the
Prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, from Harleian MS. 7334.)
Whan that Aprille with his schowres swoote The drought of Marche hath perced
to the roote. And bathud every veyne in swich licour, Of which vertue
engendred is the flour; Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth[e] Enspirud
hath in every holte and heeth[e] The ten re croppes, and the Jonge sonne Hath
in the Ram his halfe tours i - ronne, And smale fowles maken melodic, That
slepen al the night with open yhe, So priketh hem nature in here corages:
Thanne longen folk to gon on pilgri - mages, And palmers for to seeken
straunge strondes, To ferne halwes, kouthe in sondry londes; And specially, from
every schires ende Of Engelond, to Canterbury they wende, The holy blisful
martir for to seeke, That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.
whan dhat apriil I with - is shuu•es swoot • dhu druut of martsh I Hath
pers•ed to dhu root and hssdh•od erri veen I in switch likuu• of whitsh
vertuu• I endzhen•dred is dhu fluu• whan Zeflruus• eek with - is sweet•u
breeth enspii•od Bath I in evri Holt and H eeth dhu tender krop.os I and dhe
Juq - e sun Hath in din Ram I - is Half kuurs irun• and smss•g fuu•es I mssk•on
me•odii• dhat sleep - on al dhu niit I with oop•on ii soo prik•oth - em
inetuur• I in har korssdsl•os dhan lo Ton folk I to goon on pilgri - mssdzh•us.
and pal•mers I for to seek•en str.undzI•t strond•o8 to fern Halu•os I kuuth
in sun•dri lond•us and spes•alii• I from e•rishii•us end of En•golond• I to
Kan•torbo•i I dhce wend dho itoo•i blis•ful ma•t = I for to seek dhat Hem
Hath Holp•on whan dhat dhee war seek.
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