Appendix Timeline
The History of the English Language
Appendix · Timeline
The main dates used in the chapters, in order, with the chapter that explains each and the Wikipedia article it came from. Dates are given as the sources give them: "about" and "c." mean approximately, and where sources disagree both are listed. Nothing here is new: if a date is not in a chapter, it is not on this page. The list is selective, not every date in the course.
How to use this page
Read it down once to see the shape of the story: the Conquest, the long return of English, the standard and the press, the new words and the Bible, the dictionaries and rules, and the spread abroad. Then use the Chapter column to go back to the explanation. The Map page shows where the places are and how English is spoken around the world.
Watch out
Period labels are conventions (Chapter 1). Where an article gives a start or end for Old English, Middle English or Early Modern English, I list it as that article's date and not as a fact about the language. Several rows show two dates for the same event on purpose.
1066 to about 1250: the Conquest and the old language
| Date | Event | Ch. | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 450 to 1150; "after 1066" | Old English, as dated by two articles (Baugh's dates, and the Conquest as the usual end) | 1 | Old English; History of English |
| 14 October 1066 | Battle of Hastings; Harold killed | 2 | Norman Conquest |
| 25 December 1066 | William crowned at Westminster Abbey | 2 | Norman Conquest |
| 1069 to 1070 | The Harrying of the North | 2 | Norman Conquest |
| 1086 | Domesday Book: about 5% of land south of the Tees in English hands | 2 | Norman Conquest |
| 1095 | No English bishop remained after Wulfstan's death | 2 | Norman Conquest |
| 4 August 1116 | Fire at Peterborough destroys the monastery's library | 3 | Peterborough Chronicle |
| 1122 to 1154 | The Peterborough continuations, in transitional English; last entry 1154 | 3 | Peterborough Chronicle |
| 1150s to 1180s | The shift from Late Old English to Middle English complete, per the article | 1, 3 | Middle English |
| 1258 | The Provisions of Oxford, among the earliest English legal texts in French | 2 | Law French |
About 1250 to 1450: Middle English and the return of English
| Date | Event | Ch. | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1275 | First official document in Anglo-Norman, a statute | 2 | Anglo-Norman language |
| 1250 to 1400 | The most prolific period of French borrowing (about 40% of French words first appear) | 2 | French influence on English |
| 1348 to 1349 | The Black Death in England | 4 | Black Death in England |
| 1349 | English becomes the language of instruction at Oxford | 2 | French influence on English |
| 1362 | Pleading in English Act | 2 | Law French |
| from the 1370s | Monolingual English spreads in writing | 4 | Standard English |
| about 1375 to 1425 | Anglo-Norman abandoned in records | 4 | Standard English |
| about 1382; 1388 and 1395 | Wycliffe's Bible: Early Version; Later Version revised | 4 | Wycliffe's Bible |
| early 1380s | Chaucer begins The Canterbury Tales; Chaucer lived about 1343 to 1400 | 3 | Geoffrey Chaucer |
| 1407 / 1408 / 1409 | Oxford Convocation vote and the Constitution Periculosa (the article gives 1407 and 1408 for the vote, and 1407 to 1409 for the Constitution) | 4 | Wycliffe's Bible |
| August 1417; about 1430 | Henry V's English Signet letters; the Chancery Standard emerges | 4 | Chancery Standard |
| about 1400 to 1700 | The Great Vowel Shift (first phase complete about 1500) | 6 | Great Vowel Shift |
About 1450 to 1650: print, new words and the Bible
| Date | Event | Ch. | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| about 1440; 1453 | Gutenberg's movable-type press; the Mainz Psalter | 5 | Printing press |
| about 1470; about 1473; 1476 | Middle English ends about 1470 per one article; Caxton's first book in English at Bruges; his Westminster press | 1, 5 | Middle English; William Caxton |
| by 1480 | Printers in 110 places in Europe, including England | 5 | Printing press |
| about 1500; 1540s | Early Modern English begins "around 1500" (History of English) or in the 1540s (Middle English) | 1 | History of English; Middle English |
| 1526 | Tyndale's full New Testament, printed at Worms; he was executed in October 1536 | 7 | William Tyndale |
| 1538; 1543; 1583; 1598 | Elyot's wordbook; the phrase "inkhorn" first recorded; Mulcaster's and Florio's works | 7, 8 | Inkhorn term; A Dictionary of the English Language |
| January 1604; 1604 | Hampton Court Conference; Cawdrey's A Table Alphabeticall | 7, 8 | King James Version; A Table Alphabeticall |
| 1607; 1620 | Start of the colonial era in the infobox; the Pilgrims reach Plymouth Plantation | 9 | Colonial history of the United States |
| 1611 | The King James Version published | 7 | King James Version |
1650 to today: rules, America and the world
| Date | Event | Ch. | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1730 / 1731 | English required in the courts: the Proceedings in Courts of Justice Act (1730) or, in another article, Law French banished in 1731 | 2 | Law French; Anglo-Norman language |
| 1746 to 1755 | Johnson's Dictionary commissioned in June 1746, published 15 April 1755 (4 April for the folios) | 8 | A Dictionary of the English Language |
| 1762 | Lowth's A Short Introduction to English Grammar | 8 | Robert Lowth |
| 1769 | The Oxford standard text of the King James Version | 7 | King James Version |
| 1776 | End of the colonial era in the infobox | 9 | Colonial history of the United States |
| 1803; 1834; 1864; 1890 | Split infinitive: Comly's objection; an anonymous writer's advice; Alford's Plea; the term first recorded | 8 | Split infinitive |
| 1828 | Webster's American Dictionary (Webster lived 1758 to 1843) | 9 | Noah Webster |
| 2003; 2021 | Crystal's three-to-one estimate of non-native to native speakers; 380 million native and 1.457 billion total speakers | 10 | English language |
Note on sources
Every row was taken from the chapters of this course, which give the portion of each article read. I did not look up any date again for this page, and I left out minor dates for space. Article names in the Source column are the ones the chapters name. The grouping into periods and the "Watch out" remark are mine. The Black Death row's link to English in Chapter 4 is the article's "may have", not a settled fact.