Authors hesitated to use their native tongues because they were at the mercy of printers’ foremen and compositors. Thus, in an English manuscript, “be” could come out as “bee,” “grief” as “greef,” “these” as “thease,” “sword” as “swoord,” “nurse” as “noorse,” and “servant” as “servaunt.” Yet in the long run native languages were destined to triumph. The victory was not altogether glorious. It meant that the dream of a unified Christendom, with a single Latin tongue, was doomed.
