The History of English Podcast

In this episode, we look at the movement of people and their money in the 13th century. This was a period when international trading networks carried goods and people to the far-flung corners of the k...

9 Feb 201855min

Even though English writing started to re-emerge in the early 1200s, government and legal documents remained the exclusive domain of Latin and French.  English finally found a voice in the English gov...

15 Jan 201849min

The 12th and 13th centuries saw the saw the transfer of book production from monasteries to professional bookmakers. In this episode, we look at the birth of the Medieval book trade. We also examine h...

31 Des 201757min

In this episode, we explore some of the suffixes that were in common use in the early 1200s at the time the Ancrene Wisse was composed. These include traditional Old English suffixes, as well as sever...

25 Des 201748min

During the early Middle English period, many loanwords from Latin and French were borrowed into English.  Very often, those loanwords came in with prefixes and suffixes that were new to the English la...

19 Des 201757min

The early 13th century saw the rise of a monastic movement in which men and women locked themselves away in secluded cells to practice their religion.  These monks were known as anchorites, and an ear...

2 Des 201757min

In this episode, we explore the notes and translations left behind by scribes in the margins of Medieval manuscripts.  Those marginal notes reveal numerous insights about the state of English in the e...

6 Nov 201759min

Advances in musical notation allowed the first English folk songs to be preserved in writing in the early 1200s. These songs include “Mirie It Is While Sumer Ilast”  and “Sumer Is Icumen In.” In this ...

12 Okt 20171h 2min