Chancery Standard

The chancery standard (Chancery Standard or CS, in English) was a written form of English used by the government bureaucracy and for other special purposes since the late XIV century. It is believed to have made a significant contribution to the development of modern English. Because of the different dialects of English spoken and written across the country at that time, the government needed a clear and unambiguous form for use in its official documents. The chancery standard was developed to meet this need.

History of the Chancery Standard

The chancery standard was developed during the reign of King Henry V (1413 to 1422) in response to his order for his chancery (government officials) to use, like himself, English rather than Anglo-Norman or English. Latin. It became widely standardized around the 1430s.

It was based largely on the dialects of London and East Midland, because those areas were the political and demographic centers of gravity. However, he used other dialectal forms, where he made the meanings clearer; for example, Northern they, their and them (derived from Scandinavian forms) were used more than London hi/they, hir and hem. This was perhaps because the London forms could be confused with words like he, her, him. (However, the colloquial form written as 'em, as in up and at 'em, may well represent a spoken survivor of hem rather than a shortening of the Scandinavian word them.)

In the early stages of its development, clerics using CS must have been familiar with French and Latin. The strict grammars of those languages influenced the construction of the standard. It was not the only influence on later forms of English—its level of influence is disputed, and there continued to be a variety of dialects spoken—but it provided a nucleus around which Early Modern English could crystallize.

By the mid-15th century, CS was used for most official purposes, except in the Church (which used Latin) and some legal matters (using French and some Latin). It was spread around England by bureaucrats in official business, and slowly gained prestige.

CS provided a widely intelligible form of English for early printers, from the 1470s onward.