rule; for the proportion of English words, now obsolete, in his lines is as great as in those of Orrmin.[1] Most different is another poem, written in a manuscript not later than 1250. The Maker may well have been a Franciscan; he pours out his wrath on priests' wives and on parsons; he handles the sins of Jankin and Malkin in most homely wise. He has some French words that he need not have employed, such as sire and dame instead of father and mother; his proportion of obsolete English is far less than that which we see in the lines of his brother-poet.[2] I suspect that the Ancren Riwle (it still exists in many copies) must have been a model most popular among the friars, who perhaps did much to bring into vogue the French words with which it swarms.
About the year 1290, we find Churchmen becoming more and more French in their speech. Hundreds of good Old English words were now lost for ever, and the terms that replaced them, having been for years in the mouths of men, were at length being set down in manuscripts. The Life of a Saint (many such are extant, written at this time) was called a Vie. In that version of the Harrowing of Hell which dates from the aforesaid year, the transcriber has gone out of his way to bring in the words delay, commandment (this comes twice over), and serve: all these are crowded into five lines.[3] Still more remarkable are the few and short Kentish sermons, translated from the French about the same time, 1290.[4] Never were the Old and the New
