How English changed

Big question: How did English change between King Alfred's time and Shakespeare's?

A unit from Hearth Learning, built on The Story of English in Hearth Library. Every source page has the original beside a plain English translation, notes on who made it and how far to trust it, and page images where they exist. Sources marked “Early version” have not yet been checked by a separate review.

Lesson plan

Day 1: Alfred's English (45 minutes)

  1. Open A voyage to the north: Ohthere and Wulfstan tell King Alfred and read the History tab. Ohthere told his story to King Alfred in the later ninth century, and it was written down in Old English.
  2. Show the original of O01 beside our English, then switch to Close English. Students point out words they recognize and words that look strange.
  3. Students copy three short sentences, such as O01, O23 and O36, writing the Old English above our English.
  4. They draw a line from each Old English word to the modern word that matches it, and circle any word with no match.
  5. Discuss what changed most between Alfred's English and ours: the spelling, the words themselves, or the order of words.

Day 2: Three hundred years of the Chronicle (45 minutes)

  1. Read the History tab of A year in a sentence: entries from the Chronicle. It was first put together about 890, its entries run from 802 to 1154, and its last entries were written at Peterborough in the 1150s.
  2. Show the original of the entry for 891, from Alfred's reign, beside our English. Then show the entry for 1154.
  3. In pairs, students find three words that appear in both entries, such as the words for king and was, and copy how each is written in each year.
  4. Pairs report their words. Point out þe in 1154 where the older entries have se, and the French word curt, court.
  5. Students write two sentences on what their examples suggest about how English changed between those years.

Day 3: The king's cooks (45 minutes)

  1. Open Recipes from the king's kitchen: recipes written for Richard II about 1390, in Middle English.
  2. Students read the original of the salad (76) or the herb fritters (151) aloud and write down every word they can guess before looking at our English.
  3. They check their guesses and sort the words into three lists: the same today, spelled differently, and no longer used.
  4. Groups compare lists and decide which kinds of words, such as food names or cooking verbs, changed least.
  5. 15 minutes: Students answer the big question with evidence from at least two sources: how English changed from Alfred's time onward. Our sources here end about 1390; for the later part, show the original of one point from What to do on the farm each month, printed in 1580, in the same collection.

Sources

A year in a sentence: entries from the Chronicle

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, entries for 802–1154; the Peterborough copy written about 1121–1155. Moderate.

  1. Comprehension. According to the entry for 1131, what went wrong that year? List the events in the order the chronicler tells them.
  2. Analysis. Look at the original of the entry for 891, from King Alfred's reign, and of the entry for 1154, beside our English. Find three words that appear in both entries, such as the word for king, and compare how each is written. What do your examples suggest about how English changed between those years?
  3. Analysis (reliability). Up to 1121 the Peterborough copy follows earlier chronicles; after that, Earle judged, the monks wrote close to the events. How might this change how far you trust the entry for 1005 compared with the entry for 1131? The notes also show that some dates are a year out. What can a modern scholar check in these entries, and what can't be checked?
  4. Connection. Read What to do on the farm each month (Tusser), from the 1580 edition of his book. Both texts time farm work and farm news by church feasts: Tusser starts his year at Michaelmas; the Chronicle dates news by Michaelmas, Martinmas and Candlemas. Compare the entry for 1089 or 1116 with Tusser's points. What can a yearly record tell us about farm life that a book of advice can't, and the other way round?

Key terms: consecrated (made a king or a bishop, or set a church apart for God's service, in a religious ceremony); minster (a monastery or its church; later, any large and important church); famine (a time when food is so scarce that many people go hungry or starve); comet (an icy body that travels around the sun and, when near it, shines with a long tail of light; the chroniclers called it the long-haired star); mast (the acorns and beechnuts on which pigs were fattened in the woods); Lent (the forty days before Easter, a Christian season of fasting and prayer); eve (the day or evening before a church feast)

Activity: In small groups, students sort the entries into kinds of news, such as rulers and the church, signs in the sky, weather and harvests, prices and money, and fires and floods. Each group marks its entries on a timeline from 802 to 1154 and notes which ones come from the Peterborough copy (E) after 1121. The class then discusses which kinds of news become more common in the later entries, and what that might show about who was writing and where.

Recipes from the king's kitchen

Richard II's cooks, about 1390, as Pegge dated the roll. Moderate.

  1. Comprehension. According to the opening of the roll, who put the book together, who advised them, and what two kinds of dishes does it teach?
  2. Analysis. The cooks often say how a dish should look, for example its color, how thick it is, or what goes on top. Find three examples. Why might the look of a dish have mattered at the king's table?
  3. Analysis (reliability). The opening calls King Richard the best lover of fine food of all Christian kings. Who wrote that, and why might they say it? What would you want to know before using these recipes as evidence of what most people in England ate?
  4. Connection. Read What to do on the farm each month (Tusser, 1580), where peas, leeks and honey come from the farm. Compare the German peas (71), the salad (76) or the honey sweet (67) with Tusser. What do the texts show about a farm household and a royal kitchen, and what do they share?

Key terms: almond milk (a thick white milk made by grinding almonds and mixing them with broth or water); saffron (a costly spice made from the dried threads of a crocus flower, used to color food yellow); clarify (to make a liquid such as honey clean and clear, for example by boiling it and taking off what rises to the top); capon (a young male chicken that has been castrated, raised to be eaten); fish days (days when the Church forbade eating meat, including the weeks of Lent; fish, oil or almond milk took the place of meat, lard or cow's milk); subtleties (showpieces for great feasts, made of pastry, wax or sweets); mortar (a heavy bowl in which food is pounded or ground with a club-shaped tool called a pestle)

Activity: Students read the original of one short recipe aloud, such as the salad (76) or the herb fritters (151), and write down every word they can guess before looking at our English. They check their guesses against the modern English and sort the words into three lists, the same today, spelled differently, and no longer used. Groups compare their lists and decide which kinds of words, such as food names or cooking verbs, changed least.

A voyage to the north: Ohthere and Wulfstan tell King Alfred

Ohthere and Wulfstan, later ninth century, in King Alfred’s reign. Moderate.

  1. Comprehension. What animals did Ohthere own, and where did most of his income come from?
  2. Analysis. Ohthere and Wulfstan describe where places are and how far away they lie. What do they use to measure and to give directions? Why might sailors describe a voyage this way?
  3. Analysis (reliability). This account is what Ohthere told King Alfred, written down in the Old English version of Orosius and known to us from copies. Whose words are we reading? Which parts rest on what Ohthere saw himself, and which on what others told him?
  4. Connection. In A year in a sentence: entries from the Chronicle, the entry for 891 tells of three Irishmen who came to King Alfred in a boat with no one to row or steer it. Compare it with Ohthere's report. What does each tell us about the travelers and how they traveled? How is a short entry in a yearly record different from a traveler's account told at length?

Key terms: Norseman (a man of the Norse peoples of Scandinavia; here, someone from Norway); starboard (the right-hand side of a ship, for someone facing the front); port (the left-hand side of a ship, for someone facing the front; also a harbor town); walrus (a large Arctic sea mammal with long tusks, related to seals); tribute (goods or money that one people must pay to another as a sign of being under its power); ell (an old measure of length; the text does not say how long); mead (an alcoholic drink made from honey and water)

Activity: Students choose three short sentences, such as "He said that no one lived north of him" (O36), and copy the Old English above our English. They draw a line from each Old English word to the modern word that matches it, and circle any word with no match. The class then discusses what changed most between Alfred's English and ours, the spelling, the words themselves, or the order of words.

Standards

Printable worksheet for any source: https://hearthinteractive.com/learning/worksheet.html

Translations drafted by Claude (Anthropic). Free to use in class. Hearth Learning, https://hearthinteractive.com/learning/