I
hope so small a divergence may seem a venial error after so many
centuries. For the rest, it is as accurate as a good deal of
research and hard work could make it.
The matter of diction is always a question of taste and discretion
in a historical reproduction. In the year 1350 the upper classes
still spoke Norman-French, though they were just beginning to
condescend to English. The lower classes spoke the English of the
original Piers Plowman text, which would be considerably more
obscure than their superiors' French if the two were now
reproduced or imitated. The most which the chronicles can do is
to catch the cadence and style of their talk, and to infuse here
and there such a dash of the archaic as may indicate their fashion
of speech.
I am aware that there are incidents which may strike the modern
reader as brutal and repellent. It is useless, however, to draw
the Twentieth Century and label it the Fourteenth. It was a
sterner age, and men's code of morality, especially in matters of
cruelty, was very different. There is no incident in the text for
which very good warrant may not be given. The fantastic graces of
Chivalry lay upon the surface of life, but beneath it was a
half-savage population, fierce and animal, with little ruth or
mercy. It was a raw, rude England, full of elemental passions,
and redeemed only by elemental virtues.
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