Chapter VII: The Southern Dialect of Kent

Though the Kentish dialect properly belongs to Southern English, from its position to the south of the Thames, yet it shows certain peculiarities which make it desirable to consider it apart from the rest.

In Beda's _Ecclesiastical History_, Bk I, ch. 15, he says of the Teutonic invaders: "Those who came over were of the three most powerful nations of Germany--Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. From the Jutes are descended the people of Kent, and of the Isle of Wight, and those also in the province of the West-Saxons who are to this day called Jutes, seated opposite to the Isle of Wight"; a remark which obviously implies the southern part of Hampshire. This suggests that the speech of Kent, from the very first, had peculiarities of its own. Dr Sweet, in his _Second Anglo-Saxon Reader, Archaic and Dialectal_, gives five very brief Kentish charters of the seventh and eighth centuries, but the texts are in Latin, and only the names of persons and places appear in Kentish forms. In the ninth century, however, there are seven Kentish charters, of a fuller description, from the year 805 to 837. In one of these, dated 835, a few lines occur that may be quoted:

Ic bidde and bebeode swælc monn se thæt min lond hebbe thæt he ælce
gere agefe them higum æt Folcanstane l. ambra maltes, and vi. ambra
gruta, and iii. wega spices and ceses, and cccc. hlafa, and an
hrithr, and vi. scep.... Thæm higum et Cristes cirican of thæm londe
et Cealflocan: thæt is thonne thritig ombra alath, and threo hund
hlafa, theara bith fiftig hwitehlafa, an weg spices and ceses, an
ald hrithr, feower wedras, an suin oththe sex wedras, sex gosfuglas,
ten hennfuglas, thritig teapera, gif hit wintres deg sie, sester
fulne huniges, sester fulne butran, sester fulne saltes.

That is to say:

I ask and command, whosoever may have my land, that he every year
give to the domestics at Folkestone fifty measures of malt, and six
measures of meal, and three weys [_heavy weights_] of bacon and
cheese, and four hundred loaves, and one rother [_ox_], and six
sheep.... To the domestics at Christ's church, from the land at
Challock: that is, then, thirty vessels of ale, and three hundred
loaves, of which fifty shall be white loaves, one wey of bacon and
cheese, one old rother, four wethers, one swine or six wethers, six
goose-fowls, ten hen-fowls, thirty tapers, if it be a day in winter,
a jar full of honey, a jar full of butter, and a jar full of salt.

At pp. 152-175 of the same volume, Dr Sweet gives 1204 Kentish glosses of a very early date. No. 268 is: "_Cardines_, hearran"; and in several modern dialects, including Hampshire, the upright part of a gate to which the hinges are fastened is called a _harr_.

Several years ago, M. Paul Mayer found five short sermons in a Kentish dialect in MS. Laud 471, in the Bodleian Library, along with their French originals. They are printed in Morris's _Old English Miscellany_, and two of them will be found in _Specimens of Early English_, Part I, p. 141. The former of these is for the Epiphany, the text being taken from Matt. ii 1. The date is just before 1250. I give an extract.

The kinges hem wenten and hi seghen the sterre thet yede bifore hem,
alwat hi kam over tho huse war ure loverd was; and alswo hi hedden
i-fonden ure loverd, swo hin an-urede, and him offrede hire
offrendes, gold, and stor, and mirre. Tho nicht efter thet aperede
an ongel of hevene in here slepe ine metinge, and hem seide and het,
thet hi ne solde ayen wende be herodes, ac be an other weye wende
into hire londes.

That is:

The kings went (them), and they saw the star that went before them
until it came over the house where our Lord was; and as-soon-as they
had found our Lord, so (they) honoured him, and offered him their
offerings, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. The night after that
(there) appeared an angel from heaven in their sleep, in a dream,
and said to-them and commanded, that they should not wend again
near Herod, but by another way wend to their lands.

In the days of Edward II (1307-27) flourished William of Shoreham, named from Shoreham (Kent), near Otford and Sevenoaks, who was appointed vicar of Chart-Sutton in 1320. He translated the Psalter into English prose, and wrote some religious poems, chiefly relating to church-services, which were edited by T. Wright for the Percy Society in 1849. His poem "On Baptism" is printed in _Specimens of Early English_, Part II. I give an extract:

In water ich wel the cristny her{1}
As Gode him-self hyt dightë{2};
For mide to wesschë{3} nis{4} nothynge
That man cometh to so lightë{5}
In londë{6};
Nis non that habben hit ne may{7}
That habbe hit wilë foundë{8}.

This bethe{9} the wordës of cristning
By thyse Englísschë costës{10}--
"Ich{11} cristni the{12} ine the Vader{13} name
And Sone and Holy Gostes"--
And more,
"Amen!" wane hit{14} is ised{15} thertoe,
Confermeth thet ther-to-fore{16}.

{Footnotes:
1: _I desire thee to christen here_
2: _ordaine it_
3: _to wash with_
4: _is not_
5: _easily_
6: _in (the) land_
7: _there is noe that may not have it_
8: _that will try to have it_
9: _these are_
10: _coasts, regions_
11: _I_
12: _thee_
13: _Father's_
14: _when it_
15: _said_
16: _that which precedes_ }

In the year 1340, Dan Michel of Northgate (Kent) translated into English a French treatise on Vices and Virtues, under the title _The Ayenbite of Inwyt_, literally, "The Again-biting of In-wit," i.e. Remorse of Conscience. This is the best specimen of the Kentish dialect of the fourteenth century, and is remarkable for being much more difficult to make out than other pieces of the same period. The whole work was edited by Dr Morris for the Early English Text Society in 1866. A sermon of the same date and in the same dialect, and probably by the same author, is given in _Specimens of Early English_,