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'''Middle English''' is a version of the [[English]] [[language]] used in [[medieval]] times, roughly between the [[Norman Conquest]] of 1066 and the late 15th Century A.D. Many famous works were written in Middle English, such as ''The [[Canterbury Tales]]'', ''[[Le Morte d'Arthur]]'', ''[[Piers Plowman]]'', and ''[[Sir Gawain and the Green Knight]]''.
'''Middle English''' is a version of the [[English]] [[language]] used in [[medieval]] times, roughly between the [[Norman Conquest]] of 1066 and the late 15th Century A.D. Many famous works were written in Middle English, such as ''The [[Canterbury Tales]]'', ''[[Le Morte d'Arthur]]'', ''[[Piers Plowman]]'', and ''[[Sir Gawain and the Green Knight]]''.
The best-known example of Middle English is the opening of [[Geoffrey Chaucer]]'s ''The Canterbury Tales'':
<blockquote>
Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote<br />
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote<br />
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,<br />
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;<br />
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth<br />
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth<br />
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne<br />
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,<br />
And smale foweles maken melodye,<br />
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-<br />
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);<br />
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages<br />
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes<br />
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;<br />
And specially from every shires ende<br />
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,<br />
The hooly blisful martir for to seke<br />
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.<br />
</blockquote>
''Rough prose translation'': When April's sweet showers have pierced the droughts of March to the root and bathed every vein in the liquor by which force flowers are brought forth; also, when Zephirus [the Spring wind] with his sweet breath has inspired the tender crops in every holt [small woods] and heath, and the young sun has run half its course in the Ram [the constellation Aries], and small fowls, which sleep all night with open eyes, make melody (as Nature spurs them in their hearts); then folk long to go on pilgrimages and palmers [pilgrims who have visited the Holy Land] to seek foreign shores for distant shrines, well-known in many lands; and especially, from the ends of every shire [county] of England they wend their way to Canterbury to seek the holy blessed martyr [Saint Thomas Becket] who helped them when they were sick.
[[Category:English language]]
[[Category:English language]]