Lawman’s Brut - Old English Reconstructed

Abstract

Brut is a discourse written in the 1200s in the prestigious English of King Alfred (848-886). It tells the story of a long line of English kings legitimised by God including an ‘Anglo-Norman’ King Arthur. This article explores the identity, the language and the motivation of the author (who we call ‘Lawman’). It argues that Brut offers ESL teachers a valuable window into how English developed its irregular grammar and unpredictable spellings. By examining a text written during a period of intense linguistic change, teachers can help learners understand that modern English is the product of multiple layers. Lawman did a good, but not quite perfect, job. He seems to make morphological errors and he is not able to alliterate consistently. If Lawman was a scriptorium team, the team-members would have had to compile an Old English (OE) dictionary and a translation from French. The main writer would probably have spoken the Ancrene-Bodleian (AB) dialect of Middle English (ME) but be able to deploy an archaic grammar with the skill level of a modern degree student undergraduate approaching finals. He would have needed a patron, possibly Bishop Walter de Gray or a local knight. If Lawman was the ‘The Tremulous Hand of Worcester’ he might have possessed all the necessary skills, if a patron supplied him with vellum, ink and library space. In the introduction to the work, Lawman’s motivation for writing appears almost whimsical, but it may have had a political purpose, to support the monarchy. The political context shows how ideas about language, identity, and authority were expressed in medieval England, offering another point of interest for ESL teachers by placing the poem’s linguistic features within their cultural moment.