A Language Policy for Lancastrian England

Description: Argues that English became the official language of England in the fifteenth century as the result of "deliberate, official policy." Dissemination of Chaucer's works and those of his followers suggests that the poet was chosen as the "cynosure" of a conscious movement to promote English letters, sponsored by Henry V, Henry Beaufort, and Thomas Chaucer and carried forth by John Lydgate and Thomas Hoccleve.; Reprinted in The Emergence of Standard English (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1996), pp. 16-35.; Reprinted in Daniel J. Pinti, "Writings After Chaucer" (New York and London: Garland, 1998), pp. 81-99