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The Anglo-Dutch Relations from the Earliest Times to the Death of William the Third: Being an Historical Introduction to a Dictionary of the Low-Dutch Element in the English Vocabulary PDF

226 Pages·1924·7.8 MB·English
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Preview The Anglo-Dutch Relations from the Earliest Times to the Death of William the Third: Being an Historical Introduction to a Dictionary of the Low-Dutch Element in the English Vocabulary

THE ANGLO·DUTCH RELATIONS FROM THE EARLlEST TIMES TO THE DEATH OF WILLIAM THETHIRD BEING AN HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION TO A DICTIONARY OF THE LOW-DUTCH ELEMENT IN THE ENGLISH VOCABULARY ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT TER~VERKRIJ­ GING VAN DEN GRAAD VAN DOCTORiN DE LETTEREN ENWIJSBEGEERTEAAN DE UNI VERSITEIT VANAMSTERDAM OP GEZAGVAN DEN RECTOR MAGNIFICUS DR. OTTO LANZ, HOOGLEERAAR IN DE FACULTEIT DER GE NEESKUNDE, IN HET OPENBAARTE VERDE DIGEN IN DE AULA DER UNIVERSITEIT OP DONDERDAG 11 DECEMBER 1924 DES NA- MIDDAGS TE 3 UUR nOOR JOHAN FREDERIK BENSE GEBOREN TE 'S-GRAVENHAGE Springer-Science+Business Media, B.Y. 1924 ISBN978-94-017-5673-0 ISBN978-94-017-5972-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-5972-4 CONTENTS Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I Books ReferredTo (Abbreviationsused) . IX OtherAbbreviations . . . . . . . XII CHAPTER I Before the Conquest . . CHAPTER II 1066-1272 The Conquest • • • . . . . . • 7 Flemish Influenceon ArtandTrade . . 12 Flemings in Wales . . . . . . . . . . . . • . 14 Flemish and Brabant Mercenaries in England inthe 12th Century . . . . . . . . . 15 Scotland . . ... 18 Wales and Ireland . . 19 Industrial Relations . . . . . .. 22 Commercial Relations 23 Politicaland Other Relations . 24 Mercenaries in England in the 13thCentury 25 Industrial Relations. . . .. .... 27 Commercial Relations . . . . . . . . . 28 Political and Other Relations .. 31 CHAPTER III 1272-1520 Industrial Relations. • . 32 Commercial Relations . 43 TheWoolstaple. . . . 59 VI CONTENTS Pirates . . • . . 63 Flemish Bankers . 66 FroesofFlanders 67 Merchant-Adventurers 68 Scotland. . . . . . . . 69 Political and Other Relations. 71 Literary Relations . . 93 CHAPTER IV 1520-1702 Religious Relations .. 96 Industrial Relations. . 112 Scotland. . . . • .. 136 Ireland . . . . ... 138 Commercial Relations . 139 Merchant-Adventurers 143 Financial Relations . 147 Political Relations 151 Colonial Relations 192 Literary Relations 196 MAPS Small FlemishSettlements in the 12thCentury . . . .. 20 Belgium (Boundary between Dutch and French speaking Belgium • . • • • . • • • 33 Low DutchspeakingCountries . . . . . . . . . . .. 33 ERRATUM p. 79,1. 10f. f. for CourtreadCount. PREFACE Asvolumeaftervolume oftheNewEnglishDictionaryappeared, I was struck with the large number of Low Dutch words - for convenience' sake I use the term "Low Dutch'"for "Dutch and other continental Low German dialects" - which have in the courseof time foundeitheratemporaryorapermanentplaceinthe Englishvocabulary;anumbercomparativelymuchlargerthanthat of such words recorded bySkeatin his EtymologicalDictionary. Withtheexception ofMorris, who mentionsfourteen ofthemin his "Historical Outlines of English Accidence", of Skeat, who devotes a whole chapter to them in his "Principles of English Etymology" and ofde Hoog, whose "Studienover de Nederland sehe en Engelsehe taal enLetterkunde en haar wederzijdschen invloed" contains a list of 448 words, no philologist, as far as I knew, had ever given much, if any, attention to this important elementin the Englishlanguage. The plan of undertaking the study of the Low Dutchelement in the English vocabularywas ripening in me, when Professor Otto ]espersen's article "The History of the EnglishLanguage Consideredin its Relation to otherSubjects"in EnglischeStudien (35band,I heft, 1905),in which the leamed authorexpressedhis regret that "no specialists had made theDutch, Italian, Spanish etc. influences subjects of monographs", determined me, and I resolved to set about the work without any further delay. I beganbycollectingfrom thecolumnsofthe N.E.D.,ofSkeat's Etymological, and of the DialectDictionary (1) all the words thatwere consideredto have passedfrom Low Dutch into English; (2) all the words whose origin was stated to be obscure or un known, which seemed to me to be possible borrowings from Low Dutch; and (3) all the words thatwere saidto havebeenderivedfrom other VIII PREFACE sources than Low Dutch, but might, on further investigation, prove to be of Low Dutch origin after all. As I was aware that, owing to the eloseaffinity of English to Low Dutch, and especially for lack of evidence, it would be im possible to prove that Low Dutch words passed into Old English, I carefully exeluded all words which appeared to have been re corded before the twelfth century. Not havingovermuch leisure to devote to thislabour oflove, I made but slow progress; yet, as I proceeded, I grew more and more interested in the subject; for I began to realize, that the ultimate results might be of more than philological interest only, as they might throw further light on the economical, social and political history of Great Britain and Ireland; especially, as I repeatedlymetwith words in dialectsinwhich I hadleastexpect ed them, as in those of Cumberlandand Lancashire, andalso, as I discoveredthatsome wordscamein evenbefore the 14th century, which is usuallyconsidered tobe theearliest periodin which bor rowings from Low Dutch were made. By the time I had thus got down to the words in R. in the N. E. D. and in Skeat, I found that my lists contained already more than2500 words to be dealt with, without reckoning the large number I had collected from the whole of the Dialect Die tionary. A few years' devotion of all my spare time, and some eight months' researchworkinthe BritishMuseum, haveenabledme to complete the first part, containing the words in A to E inclusive, which partis now ready for the press. In order to obtain the historical and literary evidence without which it was impossible in many cases to draw more or less posi tive conelusionsas to the possibilityor the probabilityofthe Low Dutch originofa word- in sofar atleast assuchconelusionscan ever be positive- I had to study the Anglo-Dutch relations, by which I mean whatever relations there have been between Great Britain and Ireland on the one hand, and the Low Dutch coun tries on the other. Now from early times these relations have been many and va rious. Not onlyhave they been political and commercial, as is but naturalin the case of nations that live in elose proximity to each other, but they have also been military,industrial,religious,liter- PREFACE IX ary, scientific and artistic, which points to an intercourse and contact almost unprecedented in the history of the world. A knowledge of this age-Iong intercourse and contact is of the greatest importance for our purpose, for without them, there could have been no linguistic borrowings other than of technical and scientific words, which are very often appellatives. Other foreign words can only enter a language, when two nations, the borrowers and the lenders, are in elose toueh with each other, by which I mean, that there is muchintercourse betweenindividuals of the two nations, or that smaller or largernumbers of the inha bitants of the one country travel about or settle in the other. We may even go so far as to say, that a word used by one man tra velling or settlingin another country, may appeal to such an ex tent to theimagination ofhis companions,that theyimmediately borrowit, even though they maynot be in need ofa new word for thenotion tobe expressed; or, the travellerorsettlerhirnself may be struck with a word or expression usedbyhis foreign compan ions, and carryit horne with hirn. The eloser thecoritactbetweenindividualsofthe two countries, the greater the chance that borrowings are made; hence, many loan-words, especially as regards non-technical words, musthave found their origin in marriages between members of the two nations, whoseissue wasbi-lingual. In modern times, now that the multiplication and spread of bookslendsitspowerfulassistancein enlargingas wellasin fixing the vocabulary from which people derive their words in the lan guage of every day life; now that people travel so much faster than theyused to do in theearlyages, the numberofnew borrow ings can be but small. But when many, or perhaps most people, even of the upper elasses, could neither read nor write; when the country was very thinly peopled - in the middle of the 14th century England had a population of hardly 4000000, more than one halfofwhichwas carriedoff bytheplague about that time1); - when travellers for greater safety travelled in the company of others, and had to spend long winter evenings with their fellow travellersin theguestroomsofinns, thechance of theirborrowing words from one another was very great indeed. Of course, the lower elasses would borrow more readily than 1) Gr.224,248. x PREFACE the upper, the less cultured from the more cultured, rather than vice versa, just as children will Iearn their words from their pa rentsand teachers; andif weconsiderthat thousandsof Flemings cametoEnglandin the Middle Agestoteachtheirhandicraftsand trades to the English, that numbers of English students went to the University of Louvain, as still larger numbers did to that of Leyden in more modern times, there can be no question as to which were the borrowers and which the lenders. Mystudy of the Anglo-Dutch relations from the earliest times to the death of William theThird, has taught me that (1) onewave of Flemish and Dutch immigration after another flowed overGreat Britain and Ireland from the time of William the Conqueror to that of William the Third; (2) thousands came to stay, lived with English hosts, taught their trades to English apprentices, and married English wives; (3) the handicrafts andindustriestheyintroducedor improved were .many, in addition to the principal one, which was wea ving; (4) onmany occasions British and Low Dutch soldiers fought side by side, either in Great Britain and Ireland, or in the Low Countries and elsewhere; (S) from the Middle Ages to the middle of the 16th century, there was an almost uninterrupted trade with the Hanseatic towns; the Hanse merchantsenjoyedgreat privileges in England, where they had their Guildhallin more than one town; (6) thecarryingtradebetweenGreatBritainandtheContinent waschieflyin thehandsofthe DutchuntilCromwell's Navigation Act; hence thecontinualcontactbetweenEnglishandLow Dutch seamen, which led to theintroductioninto EnglishofseveralLow Dutch nautical terms; (7) there was continual contact between English and Low Dutch fishermen; (8) from the 14th century there were English colonies of Mer chant-Adventurers in various towns of Flanders, the Netherlands and North Gerrnany, while at various times the English or the Scotch woolstaple was in Flemish or Dutch towns; (9) during the latter part of the 16th, and toa much greater extent during the whole of the 17th century, the English endea voured to outvie the Dutch, who were far ahead of themin every PREFACE XI way, by studying and imitating their political, social, industrial, commercial and scientific methods and institutions; (10) the thousands of religious refugees, both Dutch in Eng land, and English in the Low Countries, had a great influence on English habits of thought in religious matters, which gave rise to the numerous sectarian churches in England; (11) Dutch literature and art found their way to England. where several Dutch scholars, literary men and artists found either a temporary, or a permanent horne; (12) there was much contact between the English and the Dutch in the colonial settlements, especially in those which duringthe 17thcenturyandlaterpassedfrom Dutchinto English hands. In an introductory chapter to my work on the Low Dutch elementin the Englishvocabularyit was myintentiontodealwith the individual contact incident to all this intercourse; for it is from this contact, its circumstances, its time and its place, that theindispensablehistoricalandliteraryevidencehasto be drawn. To avoidmaking it too much like a mere chronological table of doubtful interest, I have endeavoured to work the details and particulars from which this contact is evident, into a generalsur vey of the Anglo-Dutch relations - at least as far as I have not found it impossible to do so - in such a manner as to make the nature and extent of the contact self-evident. To show that, of it were not for lack of material, we might prove that some of the Low Dutchwords in Englishdatefrom timesbefore the Conquest, I have begun with the Old English period. That what was intend ed to be an introductory chapter has thus grown to the size of an introductory volume, may be regarded as evidence of the com prehensivenessofthe Anglo-Dutchrelations, as weIlas ofthedebt which the United Kingdom owes to them in addition to some hundreds of words. It is a pleasure to me here to tender my cordial thanks to Pro fessor A. Mawer, of Liverpool, to whom I am indebted for parti culars in connexion with the names and localities of some places where there were early Flemish and Frisian settlements; to my friend Mr. F. P. Bevill Shipham, Inspector of schools under the London County Council, who supplied me with some information about Flemish and Dutch settlers and their

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