Replies

You wrote:

“Actually, I read a while back of a man condemned to death because his family could say the Lord’s Prayer in the common English.”

Everyone was taught the Lord’s Prayer. The book I mentioned shows it was the practice of the day. In Maitland’s deservedly famous Dark Ages, on page 139, he posted a large chunk of a sermon from the Middle Ages in which the listeners were admonished:

“He, I say, is a good Christian who washes the feet of strangers, and loves them as most dear relations; who, according to his means, gives alms to the poor; who comes frequently to church: who presents the oblation which is offered to God upon the altar ; who doth not taste of his fruits before he hath offered somewhat to God; who has not a false balance or deceitful measures ; who hath not given his money to usury; who both lives chastely himself, and teaches his sons and his neighbours to live chastely and in the fear of God; and, as often as the holy festivals occur, lives continently even with his own wife for some days previously, that he may, with safe conscience, draw near to the altar of God; finally, who can repeat the Creed or the Lord’s Prayer, and teaches the same to his sons and servants.”

Already around the year 1000, canons were written in England to this effect:

“The mass-priest shall, on Sundays and on mass-days, explain the Gospel in English to the people; and, by the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed, he shall, as often as he can, stir them up to faith and the maintenance of Christianity.”
Maitland, page 53.

In a sermon, St. Eloy exhorted his listeners:

“But, whether you are setting out on a journey, or beginning any other work, cross yourself in the name of Christ, and say the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer with faith and devotion, and then the enemy can do you no harm.” Maitland, page 178.

Cardinal Francis Aidan Gasquet, who was an excellent historian, wrote The old English Bible, and other essays. In it we see:

“When writers talk of people being taught their Pater, something very different is meant from the mere repetition of the words. A large number of systematic instructions during the middle ages were based upon the explanation of the Our Father. Anyone who may care to pursue this subject cannot but be amazed at the ingenious way the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer are made the pegs on which to hang a definite course of teaching on the whole of Christian doctrine.”

Here’s the footnote attached to that:

“Besides the volumes named in the text there are a considerable number of works of much the same kind. One such iathe Flos Florum, a copy of which is among the Burney MSS. (No. 356) in the British Museum. It is divided into five-and-twenty books, the first being occupied with an explanation of the Lord’s Prayer; the second with a tract on the virtues and vices ; the third with an account of the priest’s personal duties ; the fifth with notes on the teaching which parish priests are bound to give to their people. Another book is called Cilium Oculi Sacerdotis, and is divided into two parts. The first treats about clerical duties, and especially of the duties of a confessor; the second part is a tract upon the Ten Commandments. Here, as in so many similar works, some interesting points of practice in Catholic England are touched upon. For example, we read that every rector of a parish should have a cleric to assist him at the public Mass, and to read the Epistle. This cleric may be vested in an alb, and besides Church duty should teach the children their creed, “ id est, their faith,” and their “ letters,” besides “teaching the singing.” (Harl. MS. 4968.)” (pages 201-202)

On page 211, Gasquet mentions:

“The Liber Festivalis, printed by Caxton in A.d. 1483, although by no means identical with John Myrk’s, is practically founded upon it. It has sermons for nineteen Sundays and ferias, commencing with the first Sunday of Advent and ending with Corpus Christi day. These are followed by discourses for forty-three of the chief holidays and saints’ days of the year, and one sermon, suited for the anniversary of the dedication of a parish church. Then come somewhat detailed explanations of the Lord’s Prayer, Creed, and Commandments, &c. At the close of the fifteenth century the general popularity of the Liber Festivalis’ may be gauged by the fact that it was printed twice by Caxton, twice by Wynkyn de Worde, twice by Pynson, once by an English printer whose name is unknown, in A.D. 1486, and thrice abroad before the close of the century.”

“It is too late for me to try to find the reference tonight.”

No one was executed as you say. First of all, why would a man be executed for what his family could do rather than himself? People were executed for what they did not for what others could do. Second, as we here knowing the Pater Noster in the vernacular was common and quite frankly considered mandatory in Christian society. Everyone was taught it. Thus, there is something missing from what you’re saying.

“Incorrect.”

No. Not incorrect. If you go to England today there are still huge differences in regional dialects - including some remaining vocularly.

“The differences were far greater, and could make it impossible at times for travelers to communicate. To some extent Wycliffe, but far more Tyndale, had to choose which words to use - and their words BECAME the common words in England.”

Not in Wycliffe’s case certainly. It is more true of Tyndale’s - for both better and worse. He introduced erroneous versions into printed English that became standard: such as once instead of ones (which is actually the proper form to go along with twice and thrice).

As Thomas Laurence Kington-Oliphant notes in, The sources of standard English:

“Tyndale, a man well known alike at Oxford, Cambridge, and London, may be said to have fixed our tongue once for all; a few words were now changing for the worse. He it was who brought in the corrupt Yorkshire those (isti) instead of the old iha or tlw, .though the latter also may be found now and then in his Testament. He thus established a vicious form, which had been used almost three hundred years earlier in the Northern Psalter. He speaks of twyse and thryse, but has unluckily the corrupt once instead of ones. Fadir and modir now become father and mother. We see almost the moment of their change, when we find in Tyndale’s New Testament the three forms hidder, hydihcr, and hctherto ; we also find gadther. Against and amongst appear with their last consonant, which they were never to lose. We have both the old coude (potui) and also the corruption into cottlde from a false analogy; there is the good old Teutonic rightcwcs and also the new Latinized righteous: pity it was that Tyndale had no share in Leland’s knowledge of Old English. The upstart kill comes as often as slay. Pecock’s jo« silf is corrupted into youre selves, as if self was a substantive. The symle (semper) of 1000, and the ever of 1380, now become all wayes. We find some old forms almost for the last time, as, do on hym a garment, anhongred, hedling, unethe, he lough (risit). There are some forms which seem to be relics of the writer’s native Gloucestershire : honde * (manus), avine (proprius), axe (rogare), mooare (plus), laicears (juris periti), visicion (medicus). Tyndale sometimes goes much nearer to the Old English of the year 1000 than Wicklifle does ; thus geve replaces yeve; he has one loofe instead of o loof; feawe, not/ewe; ImjdegromK, not spouse; lende, not yjve borwynge; lett the deed bury, not suffre that deede men hurie; in the middes, not in the middil. Tyndale brought in some words hitherto unused in Scriptural translations; such as, at all, nor, lyke wyse, ado, God forbid: tliis last replaces WicklifFe’s lfer be it.’ Whole (sanus) takes the hideous interloping letter that begins the word; the Salopian won is used for unus. The word abroad had been used earlier in a sense like the Latin late,: since 1525 we have used it to express also the Latin forts. This last meaning comes, not from the Old English brad, but from the Norse braut, a way.1 We see a few new terms; thus, the word already was beginning to come in, and was employed twice in the Gospels. WicklifFe’s wawes (fluctns) are now turned into waves. The adjective sad had hitherto meant nothing more than f/ravis; it now began to take its new meaning, tristis. What was called unriJie in the year 1000, and sorwful in 1380, is here called sadde; but this new sense comes only twice in the Four Gospels. Wickliffe had translated volvcre by walew (wallow) ; but Tyndale uses this English verb in an intransitive sense only; he writes roll for volvere. The verb icerian (induere) had been of old a Weak verb, and made its Perfect werode; but Tyndale turns this into a Strong Perfect, a change most seldom found in English. In his translation of St. Luke viii. 27, we read that the man which had a devil ‘ware noo clothes.’ We still say wore and worn. He gave us a few words hardly ever used before his time, such as immediatly (he has also the old anon, to which he should have stuck), exceedingly, and streyght ways.” (pages 289-291)

Whenever a language becomes set it is both good and bad in terms of flexibility. Words are gained and lost and forms can be lost. Tyndale did help establish standard English. He also helped kill off much of pre-existent English. Sometimes Tyndale used more than one form of the same thing. His Bible was not as uniform as most people think.

“Luther worked very hard to get it into the language of the common folks, not of the court.”

(sigh) He used the Saxon court dialect. I just learned that yesterday by the way. As Johann Michael Reu and Emil H. Rausch noted a century ago already:

“And this also was clear to him, that among the multiplicity of German dialects he could only select one which was most capable of development and was most widely used in his day. This was the language of the Saxon court, which at the same time held the golden mean between the broad and stiff High German and the soft and mild Low German. He himself at a later time declared, “I speak according to the Saxon court, which is followed by all the princes in Germany; all imperial cities and princely courts write according to the Saxon court; thus it is the most common German tongue; Emperor Maximilian and Elector Frederick have moulded the German language into one language in the Roman Empire.” Of course, the court writers in those days, like attorneys and jurists today, indulged in long, ponderous, and complicated sentences, but Luther’s predilection for what is simple and natural preserved him from slipping into this same error. Besides the paucity of words in the language of the court in those days precluded the possibility of fully reproducing the rich contents of the New Testament. Thus Luther introduced many expressions into the written language which in those days were not used in the written tongue, though current among the people, and also attempted to coin many entirely new ones. The language of the Saxon court “offered him only the starting point, in addition to this he looked upon the lips of the common man,”
From Johann Michael Reu and Emil H. Rausch, The life of Dr. Martin Luther, page 143.

As The [old] Lutheran Cyclopedia by Henry Eyster Jacobs and John Augustus William Haas admits:

“He had to choose an idiom that would be understood by both South-Germans and North-Germans (”Oberlaender and Niederlsender “). This he found, to some extent, in the diplomatic language used at the Saxon Court (” Ich rede nach der Saschsischen Kauzlei “).” (page 52)