Our store of homespun terms was being more and more narrowed. Compare Layamon's Brut with Robert of Gloucester's poem; we are at once astounded at the loss in 1300 of crowds of English words, though both writers were translating the same French lines. It is much the same in the language of religion, as we see by comparing the Ancren Riwle with the Kentish sermons of 1290, published by Dr. Morris.[1] Now comes the question, what was the cause of the havock wrought in our store of good old English at this particular time? One-seventh of the Teutonic words used here in 1200 seems to have altogether dropped out of written composition by the year 1290: about this fact there can be no dispute. In the lifetime of Henry III., far more harm was done to our speech than in the six hundred years that have followed his death. I shall now try to answer the question just asked; I write with some diffidence, since I believe that I am the first to bring forward the forthcoming explanation. I draw my bow; it is for others to say if I hit the mark.
Few of us have an idea of the wonderful change brought about in Latin Christendom by the teaching of St. Francis. Two Minorite friars of his Century, the one living in Italy, the other in England, give us a fair notion of the work done by the new Brotherhood, when it first began to run its race. Thomas of Eccleston and Salimbene[2] throw a stronger light upon its
