Hi everyone,
I hope this is an appropriate question! I am working on a story set in the late 14th c. England/Scotland, and I am wondering if anyone can recommend some resources for researching the different dialects of English spoken at this time. I would like to have some of the dialogue in the story be authentic.
Additionally, if anyone can recommend something like a dictionary of the language spoken at this time, that would be very helpful as well.
Finally, if anyone can recommend a good history of Oxford University during this period, I'd appreciate it.
I commend your thoroughness!
It'll be a little tricky because as you can imagine, resources are geared towards preparing you to translate, not do original composition. Nevertheless: when I interloped on a Middle English lit class in grad school (I do Germany), the professor recommended I use the introduction in Chaucer's Major Poetry as a guide. It's a really good grammar resource.
Vocabulary is more of a challenge--the glossary is, again, geared towards translation, so it's just Middle English=>modern. (And of course this is specifically Chaucer, so it's East Midlands dialect).
There's also the excellent Middle English Dictionary online, and here you can select from the dropdown menu "definition and notes" as an option. It kind of approximates a modern=>Middle English dictionary that way, although it's not always very helpful. (Like when the word you type in ends up with 700+ results).
Chaucer's Major Poetry is out of print, but you should be able to get a used copy or to get it through your library system--they should have access to interlibrary loan because it probably won't be at the local public library.
As for university history: Rashdall's multivolume The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages is old...but that means it is free online. Volume 2, Part 2 looks at Oxford, Cambridge, and university student life.
It's from 1895 which is just ancient in scholarly terms, yes. But the type of scholarship this is--the incredibly detailed extrication of stuff like "what subjects were taught? what was the study progression? what rules did each college officially claim?" (the last, of course, being different from (a) what rules the colleges actually gave their students and (b) what students actually did)...for this type of scholarship, the late 19th/early 20th century scholars were on. their. game.
There's epic amounts of more recent work, of course--academics love writing about themselves (who doesn't?)--but you can't beat Rashdall for current purposes because you can't beat archive.org and free. :D
I hope this helps!