How Did the Black Death Change the English Language?

When the Black Death hit London, England in 1348 CE, it began to affect the English language. Due to the class struggle imposed on England by the Norman Conquest in 1066 CE, the linguistic makeup of the country in the early 14th century festered tensions between the Anglo-Saxon English and the Norman French. Politically restricted by the Norman feudal system, the Saxons were taken for granted. But during the staggering death toll of the Black Plague, the Saxons became more valuable as their labor became more valuable. Thus the English language shifted in power as well.

From about 410 to 1066 CE, the Anglo-Saxons ruled (or fought over) England. Having driven out the Romano-Celts, the Anglo-Saxons dominated the country. Enter William I of Normandy who brought the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Having disputed King Harold Godwinson’s claim to the throne of England, William invaded England. In the ensuing battle, Harold died and William conquered the Saxons, as did the French Norman language.

To maintain power, William I implemented the Norman feudal system, wherein he took over all English land, and then for all intents and purposes, rented out the land to his noblemen and clergy. They, in turn, managed agriculture, livestock, and commerce through keeping control of the peasants, or serfs. The catch was that William only gave Normans the right to be in charge of the land.

Between the Battle of Hastings and the start of the Black Death, England had seen such historical and political upheavals as the signing of the Magna Carta, famine, and the on-again off-again stirrings of the Hundred Years’ War. England had already gone through a lot in the 1300s even before the Black Death struck.

Setting the Scene: Linguistic Context

As mentioned above, before William sailed over to take over England, the people predominantly spoke and wrote in Anglo-Saxon. More syntactically flexible, Anglo-Saxon (or Old English) mixed Germanic tribal languages. Far from being a crude, savage tongue, King Alfred’s Renaissance helped it flourish, monks helped preserve and document it, and Anglo-Saxon became a well-developed language of art and culture.

However, the influx of Norman French instigated the linguistic shift from Anglo-Saxon to Middle English. Stemming from the Romantic language family (closely connected to Latin), Norman French caused Anglo-Saxon to lose many of its Germanic attributes. A couple of centuries later, it all mixed together to become Middle English, which is more recognizable to us today as Modern English readers.

Even though Anglo-Saxon became obsolete as it changed etymologically into Middle English, pure French remained the language of the upper class. People spoke French, wrote in French, and prayed in French. In fact, historians have commented on this linguistic injustice:

“Children in school, contrary to the usage and custom of other nations, are compelled to drop their own language and to construe their lessons and other tasks in French and have done so since the Normans first came to England. Also, gentlemen’s children are taught to speak French from the time that they are rocked in their cradles and can talk and play with a child’s toy; and provincial men want to liken themselves to gentlemen, and try with great effort to speak French, so as to be more thought of” (Lumby, 1965).

The lower class people, the Saxon serfs under the feudal system, used Middle English. If people could not afford to learn French, they stayed ignorant and could not be perceived as higher class, nor were they as able to change their circumstances to reach a higher class.

Although the French language irrevocably changed English, and Anglo-Saxon became Middle English due to the French influence, the class struggles between Normans and Saxons persisted. Even if war was not brewing, the Saxons were still a conquered people who were bound to work the land, without as much agency or ability to build a better life for themselves, even though some circumstances had improved their conditions.

Starting in or around 1347, the Black Death (also known as the Black Plague or bubonic plague) ravaged the known world. Spreading through cargo ports and travelers, because of rats, flies, bacteria, and the less than pristine hygiene of many people at the time, the Black Death thrived in cramped conditions where people could readily transmit it to each other.

Sending between 25 and 50 million people living in England to their graves, the Black Death upset the apple cart of the English social and political system. Because one-third of England’s population was now dead, and since it was the English who were the lower classes—and the lower classes were the labor classes—there was now a huge shortage of laborers. With so many vacant job openings after the pandemic, the people realized they could charge more for their labor because their labor was more valuable.

The Aftermath of the Black Death: The Peasants Revolt

Because their labor was more valuable, the Saxons as people became more valuable. Slowly realizing this and also fed up with the over-taxation that  Richard II was inflicting on them, they finally made a stand. Known as the Peasants’ Revolt, peasants argued with the authorities to reduce the poll tax, and they partially got their way.

Because of the labor shortage caused by the sheer amount of deaths in the previous decades, the leaders of England were forced to give the people more money. Furthermore, because the people were more valuable, the language they spoke became more prevalent.

Once French subsided in England, the English language itself was able to take its place as the predominant spoken language. To peek ahead into further implications of this waterfall chain of events, let’s look at London in the late 15th century – to William Claxton and the printing press.

Although the more famous inventor of the printing press, Johannes Gutenberg, was German, Claxton was instrumental in bringing the printing press to England. He “imported and set up England’s first printing press in 1476. However, the major impact of printing on the language was to be felt in the following centuries” (Millward, 2011). This was a critical moment in the history of the English language and it affected the rest of the development of Early Modern English, as well as other literary and political movements. This critical moment in the history of the English language affected the rest of the development of Early Modern English, as well as other literary and political movements.

The Black Death and English

The inhabitants of England spoke Anglo-Saxon English until the conquest of 1066, when William the Conqueror from Normandy invaded England and sparked the morphological changes that created Middle English. William and his people spoke French. Since they were now the ruling class, English was relegated mostly to the laboring classes.

However, during the Black Death, millions of English (and Norman French) people died. This meant that the lower laboring classes could demand more for their labor. During the political and economic tensions that caused the Peasants’ Revolt, the poorer people attempted to earn more rights. This in turn led to their predominant language, English, becoming more popular and widely used.

Because English now had more social clout, by the time printing presses were being developed, Londoners were speaking English and printing in English, which contributed to the English language’s continued prominence.

If the Black Death hadn’t wiped out so much of the laboring class, then they might not have been able to bargain for higher wages. If they hadn’t been successful in reestablishing themselves as important to the functioning of the British Isles, their language, English, might not have been what Claxton used in London when printing presses were being invented. So really, this stage of linguistic development should really be called “The Life the Black Death Gave English.”

Bibliography

Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden monachi Cestrensis . . . ed. Rev. Joseph Rawson Lumby, [Liechtenstein] Krause Reprint, 1965 [Widener: Br 98.86.1].)

Millward, C. M, Mary Hayes, Biography of the English Language, 3rd edition, Cengage Learning, 2011.

“Middle English,” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 4th edition, W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1962.