History
Important texts for the reconstruction of the evolution of Middle English out of Old English are the Ormulum (12th century), the Ancrene Wisse and the Katherine Group (early 13th century, see AB language) and Ayenbite of Inwyt (ca. 1340).
The second half of the 11th century is the transitional period from Late Old English to Early Middle English. Early Middle English is the language of the 12th and 13th centuries. Middle English is fully developed as a literary language by the second half of the 14th century. Late Middle English and the transition to Early Modern English takes place from the early 15th century and is taken to have been complete by the beginning of the Tudor period in 1485.
Read more about this topic: Middle English
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“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“All history is a record of the power of minorities, and of minorities of one.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)