A Hearth Library collection
The Story of English
Everyday English from the Old English schoolroom to Shakespeare's farm
Remedies, recipes, chronicles, farming verse and school dialogues in Old, Middle and Early Modern English, each with a modern simplified version. The same everyday words in every stage of the language, for reading and for the History of Language games on Hearth Games, where these passages are the evidence behind Word Passport and Then or Now?
Teach this collection
Classroom units on Hearth Learning. Each asks one big question and gathers its sources, teacher notes, a worksheet for each source and a download for your LMS.
- Unit 1How English changedHow did English change between King Alfred's time and Shakespeare's?3 sources
- Unit 2Everyday writingWhat can ordinary texts, such as yearly records, recipes, farm verses and travelers' reports, tell us about daily life?4 sources
Sources
Annals
A year in a sentence: entries from the Chronicle
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, entries for 802–1154; the Peterborough copy written about 1121–1155, Peterborough
Old EnglishChecked
How languages changeFood, farming and hungerWords and names
Manual
What to do on the farm each month
Tusser, 1580 edition; first printed, as a hundred points, in 1557, Cattiwade, Suffolk
Early Modern EnglishChecked
Food, farming and hungerCalendars and keeping timePoetry
Recipes
Recipes from the king's kitchen
Richard II's cooks, about 1390, as Pegge dated the roll, London
Middle EnglishChecked
Cooking and recipesFood, farming and hungerHow languages change
Travel account
A voyage to the north: Ohthere and Wulfstan tell King Alfred
Ohthere and Wulfstan, later ninth century, in King Alfred’s reign, Wessex (King Alfred’s court)
Old EnglishChecked
Voyages and sea travelHow languages changeFood, farming and hunger
No sources match all of these filters.