Middle English Period

A crucial time in the history of the English language and literature. Middle English was the language in a variety of different dialect forms which resulted from the modification of Anglo Saxons after the norman conquest in 1066, and which was spoken and used as a vehical for literature until about 1500 when the London dialect(used by Chaucer) became the standard literary language, and therefore recognisably the basis for 'modren English'. An Anglo Norman period, in which French dialect dominated non Latin literature, lasted until about 1350. After that date, especially during the reign of Richard II (1377-1399), Middle English literature burgeoned.

Chaucer was the leading poet. His Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde rank amongst the greatest works in English literature.

His contemporaries include John Gower, who wrote the Confessio Amantis, Willain Langland, author of the religious dream satire Piers Plowman, and the anonymous poet who wrote Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl.

In the fifteenth century several Middle Scots poets, sometimes called the SCOTTISH CHAUSERIANS, including King James I of Scotland, Robert Henryson, Gavin Douglas and William Dunbar, represented a flowering of poetic talent in Scotland.

The fifteeth century was also the age of medieval drama, the MIRACLE and MORALITY PLAYS, of popular lyrics and BALLADS, and of Sir Thomas Malory's great Authurian prose ROMANCE Le Morte d' Arthur.