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

226 Pages·1924·7.8 MB·English

by  Johan Frederik Bense (auth.)

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