Text 5.9: William Caxton, “Prologue” to Eneydos (1490)
Printing was a revolutionary development which had wide-reaching and long-lasting effects.
Indeed, many people among those who had a stake in the power of their own literacy were
suspicious of the social unrest that could result from increased access to knowledge and
enlightenment on the part of the lower orders. This was similar to the fears Church and State
had had a hundred years before in connection with the vernacular translation of the Bible in
the framework of the Wycliffe movement and the Peasants’ Revolt. The consequences of
printing were, as we meanwhile know, unbelievably enormous though generally peaceable.
Caxton’s enterprise depended on securing a reading public that would buy his books. The
most promising buyers were the rising Middle Class, which did not necessarily have Latin.
Although Caxton printed some Latin and French works, the market insured that he would
publish chiefly English-language works and that these books would draw on the emerging
Chancery Standard of the London. His concern about variation in English as expressed in the
following text. See also 5.4.4 in History of English.
And certainly our language now vsed varyeth ferre from that whiche was vsed and spoken whan I
was borne. For we Englysshe men ben borne vnder the domynacyon of the mone, whiche is neuer
stedfaste but ever wauerynge, wexynge one season, and waneth and dyscreaseth another season.
And that comyn Englysshe that is spoken in one shyre varyeth from a nother. … And specyally he
axyed after eggys. And the good wyf answerde that she coude speke no frenshe. And the marchaunt
was angry for he also coude speke no frenshe but wold haue hadde egges and she vnderstode hym
not. And thenne at laste a nother sayd that he wolde haue eyren. Then the good wyf sayd that she
vnderstood hym wel.