Forging a National Identity

A national identity began to take shape during the Middle Ages. After the Norman Conquest, the king and his noblemen spoke Norman French, while the peasants continued to speak the Anglo-Saxon language. These two languages gradually merged, producing what we now know as English.

By 1400, English had become the language of official documents and was the everyday language of the royal court and Parliament.

In the late 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories in verse told by a group of people travelling to Canterbury on a pilgrimage. The Canterbury Tales was one of the first books printed in England by William Caxton, who was the first person in the country to use a printing press for making books.