Why did English change more between 1100 -1600 than 1600-present? | AskHistorians Archive Observer

Why did English change more between 1100 -1600 than 1600-present?

by weedandsteak

This was inspired by an earlier post. Why is the difference between English in the 12th century and Elizabethan English so stark whilst we can quite easily read Elizabethan today?

Searocksandtrees

Not discouraging new responses here, but FYI you can get started on some earlier threads

/u/sunagainstgold in How is it that I can mostly read "The Canterbury Tales" in the original, but "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", written at roughly the same time, and in the same country, is virtually unintelligible?
/u/bloodswan in When I hear Chaucer spoken in Middle English, it almost sounds more like Dutch than English. But though Shakespeare is closer in time to Chaucer than the present, his English is much easier to understand. What happened to English in between, and why?