Editing Cornish language (section)

=== Middle Cornish ===
 [[File:Origo Mundi kynsa gwersow.jpg|thumb|right|The opening verses of {{lang|la-x-medieval|Origo Mundi}}, the first play of the {{lang|la-x-medieval|[[Ordinalia]]}} (the {{lang|la|[[masterpiece|magnum opus]]}} of medieval Cornish literature), written by an unknown monk in the late 14th century]]
[[File:Beunans Meriasek (The life of St Meriasek) (f.56v.) Middle Cornish Saint's Play.jpg|thumb|{{lang|cnx|[[Beunans Meriasek]]}} (The life of St. [[Meriasek]]) (f.56v.) Middle Cornish Saint's Play]]
The Cornish language continued to flourish well through the Middle Cornish ({{lang|kw|Kernewek Kres}}){{sfn|George|2009|p=343}} period (1200–1600), reaching a peak of about 39,000 speakers in the 13th century, after which the number started to decline.<ref name="ken">{{cite journal |last=George |first=Ken |author-link=Ken George |date=1986 |title=How many people spoke Cornish traditionally? |journal=Cornish Studies |volume=14 |pages=67–70}}</ref><ref name="stalmaszczyk" /> This period provided the bulk of traditional [[Cornish literature]], and was used to reconstruct the language during its revival. Most important is the {{lang|la-x-medieval|[[Ordinalia]]}}, a cycle of three mystery plays, {{lang|la-x-medieval|Origo Mundi}}, {{lang|la-x-medieval|Passio Christi}} and {{lang|la-x-medieval|Resurrexio Domini}}. Together these provide about 8,734 lines of text. The three plays exhibit a mixture of English and Brittonic influences, and, like other Cornish literature, may have been written at [[Glasney College]] near [[Penryn, Cornwall|Penryn]].<ref>{{citation |last=Padel |first=O.J. |title=Ordinalia |date=3 August 2017 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118396957.wbemlb247 |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain |pages=1–2 |editor1-last=Rouse |editor1-first=Robert |place=Oxford, UK |publisher=[[John Wiley & Sons]], Ltd |doi=10.1002/9781118396957.wbemlb247 |isbn=9781118396957 |access-date=16 September 2021 |editor2-last=Echard |editor2-first=Sian |editor3-last=Fulton |editor3-first=Helen |editor4-last=Rector |editor4-first=Geoff}}</ref> From this period also are the [[Hagiography|hagiographical]] dramas {{lang|cnx|[[Beunans Meriasek]]}} (''The Life of [[Meriasek]]'') and {{lang|cnx|[[Bewnans Ke]]}} (''The Life of [[Saint Kea|Ke]]''), both of which feature as an antagonist the villainous and tyrannical King [[Tewdwr Mawr|Tewdar]] (or Teudar), a historical medieval king in Armorica and Cornwall, who, in these plays, has been interpreted as a lampoon of either of the [[House of Tudor|Tudor]] kings [[Henry VII of England|Henry VII]] or [[Henry VIII of England|Henry VIII]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Mills |first=Jon |date=2012 |chapter=Depiction of Tyranny in the Cornish Miracle Plays: Tenor, Code Switching and Sociolinguistic Variables |title=Ilteangach, ilseiftiúil: Féilscríbhinn in ómós do Nicholas Williams – A festschrift in Honour of Nicholas Williams |pages=139–157 |chapter-url=http://rgdoi.net/10.13140/RG.2.1.1558.0882 |doi=10.13140/RG.2.1.1558.0882}}</ref>

Others are the ''Charter Fragment'', the earliest known continuous text in the Cornish language, apparently part of a play about a medieval marriage,<ref>{{cite book |last=Toorians |first=Lauran |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/614930826 |title=The Middle Cornish: Charter endorsement: the making of a marriage in medieval Cornwall |date=1991 |publisher=Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck |oclc=614930826}}</ref> and {{lang|cnx|[[Pascon agan Arluth]]}} (''The Passion of Our Lord''), a poem probably intended for personal worship, were written during this period, probably in the second half of the 14th century.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1144791918 |title=The Charter fragment and Pascon agan arluth |date=2020 |first1=Alan M. |last1=Kent |first2=Michael |last2=Everson |first3=Nicholas |last3=Williams |isbn=9781782011828 |location=Dundee |oclc=1144791918 |publisher=Evertype}}</ref> Another important text, the {{lang|cnx|Tregear Homilies}}, was realized to be Cornish in 1949, having previously been incorrectly classified as Welsh. It is the longest text in the traditional Cornish language, consisting of around 30,000 words of continuous prose. This text is a late 16th century translation of twelve of [[Edmund Bonner|Bishop Bonner]]'s thirteen homilies by a certain John Tregear, tentatively identified as a vicar of [[St Allen]] from [[Crowan]],<ref>{{cite journal |last=Frost |first=D. H. |date=1 May 2007 |title=Glasney's Parish Clergy and the Tregear Manuscript |url=http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/10.1386/corn.15.1.27_1 |journal=Cornish Studies |volume=15 |issue=1 |pages=27–89 |doi=10.1386/corn.15.1.27_1 |issn=1352-271X}}</ref> and has an additional catena, Sacrament an Alter, added later by his fellow priest, Thomas Stephyn.<ref>{{cite book |last=Classen |first=Albrecht |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/775645348 |title=Handbook of Medieval Studies Terms - Methods - Trends |series=De Gruyter Lexikon |publisher=[[De Gruyter]] |date=29 November 2010 |isbn=9783110215588 |pages=371–372 |oclc=775645348}}</ref> In the reign of Henry VIII, an account was given by [[Andrew Boorde]] in his 1542 {{lang|en-emodeng|Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge}}. He states, "{{lang|en-emodeng|In Cornwall is two speches, the one is naughty Englysshe, and the other is Cornysshe speche. And there be many men and women the which cannot speake one worde of Englysshe, but all Cornyshe.}}"<ref>{{cite book |last=Jenner |first=Henry |author-link=Henry Jenner |date=1904 |title=A Handbook of the Cornish Language Chiefly in Its Latest Stages with Some Account of Its History and Literature |location=London |publisher=David Nutt}}</ref>

When Parliament passed the [[Act of Uniformity 1549]], which established the 1549 edition of the English Book of Common Prayer as the sole legal form of worship in England, including Cornwall, people in many areas of Cornwall did not speak or understand English. The passing of this Act was one of the causes of the [[Prayer Book Rebellion]] (which may also have been influenced by government repression after the failed [[Cornish rebellion of 1497]]), with "the commoners of Devonshyre and Cornwall" producing a manifesto demanding a return to the old religious services and included an article that concluded, "and so we the Cornyshe men (whereof certen of us understande no Englysh) utterly refuse thys newe Englysh."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fletcher |first1=Anthony |first2=Diarmaid |last2=MacCulloch |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/213080705 |title=Tudor rebellions |date=2008 |publisher=[[Pearson Longman]] |isbn=9781405874328 |edition=5th |location=Harlow, Essex |pages=152 |oclc=213080705}}</ref> In response to their articles, the government spokesman (either [[Philip Nichols]] or [[Nicholas Udall]]) wondered why they did not just ask the king for a version of the liturgy in their own language.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ó hAnnracháin |first1=Tadgh |last2=Armstrong |first2=Robert Matthew |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1020678113 |title=Christianities in the Early Modern Celtic World |date=30 July 2014 |isbn=9781137306340 |pages=76 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |oclc=1020678113}}</ref> Archbishop [[Thomas Cranmer]] asked why the Cornishmen should be offended by holding the service in English, when they had before held it in [[Latin language|Latin]], which even fewer of them could understand.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ridley |first=Jasper |author-link=Jasper Ridley (historian) |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/970603152 |title=Thomas Cranmer |date=2013 |isbn=9781447241287 |publisher=Bello |location=London |oclc=970603152}}</ref> [[Anthony Fletcher]] points out that this rebellion was primarily motivated by religious and economic, rather than linguistic, concerns.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fletcher |first1=Anthony |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/213080705 |title=Tudor rebellions |date=2008 |publisher=[[Pearson Longman]] |first2=Diarmaid |last2=MacCulloch |isbn=9781405874328 |edition=5th |location=Harlow, Essex |pages=65 |oclc=213080705}}</ref> The rebellion prompted a heavy-handed response from the government, and 5,500 people died during the fighting and the rebellion's aftermath. Government officials then directed troops under the command of [[Anthony Kingston|Sir Anthony Kingston]] to carry out pacification operations throughout the West Country. Kingston subsequently ordered the executions of numerous individuals suspected of involvement with the rebellion as part of the post-rebellion reprisals.<ref>{{cite book |author-link=A. L. Rowse |last=Rowse |first=A. L. |title=Tudor Cornwall: Portrait of a Society |publisher=Jonathan Cape |location=London |date=1941 |pages=282–286}}</ref>

The rebellion eventually proved a turning-point for the Cornish language, as the authorities came to associate it with [[sedition]] and "backwardness". This proved to be one of the reasons why the Book of Common Prayer was never translated into Cornish (unlike [[Welsh language|Welsh]]), as proposals to do so were suppressed in the rebellion's aftermath. The failure to translate the Book of Common Prayer into Cornish led to the language's rapid decline during the 16th and 17th centuries.<ref>{{cite book |author-link=James Whetter |last=Whetter |first=James |title=The History of Glasney College |publisher=Tabb House |date=1988}}</ref><ref name="Mills">{{cite journal |last=Mills |first=Jon |date=2010 |title=Genocide and Ethnocide: The Suppression of the Cornish Language |url=https://kar.kent.ac.uk/27912/2/Mills%2C%20Jon%20%282010%29%20Genocide%20and%20Ethnocide%20-%20The%20Suppression%20of%20the%20Cornish%20Language%20%28not%20for%20distribution%29.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181012214437/https://kar.kent.ac.uk/27912/2/Mills%2C%20Jon%20%282010%29%20Genocide%20and%20Ethnocide%20-%20The%20Suppression%20of%20the%20Cornish%20Language%20%28not%20for%20distribution%29.pdf |archive-date=12 October 2018 |url-status=live |journal=Interfaces in Language |pages=189–206 |doi=10.13140/2.1.1439.5843}}</ref> [[Peter Berresford Ellis]] cites the years 1550–1650 as a century of immense damage for the language, and its decline can be traced to this period. In 1680 [[William Scawen]] wrote an essay describing 16 reasons for the decline of Cornish, among them the lack of a distinctive [[Cornish alphabet]], the loss of contact between Cornwall and [[Brittany]], the cessation of the miracle plays, loss of records in the Civil War, lack of a [[Cornish Bible]] and immigration to Cornwall.<ref name="Berresford-Ellis">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L709AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA82 |title=The Cornish Language and Its Literature |first=Peter Berresford |last=Ellis |author-link=Peter Berresford Ellis |date=1 January 1974 |publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul |via=[[Google Books]] |isbn=9780710079282}}</ref> [[Mark Stoyle]], however, has argued that the 'glotticide' of the Cornish language was mainly a result of the Cornish gentry adopting English to dissociate themselves from the reputation for disloyalty and rebellion associated with the Cornish language since the 1497 uprising.<ref>{{cite book |last=Stoyle |first=Mark |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/48154341 |title=West Britons: Cornish identities and the early modern British state |date=2002 |publisher=[[University of Exeter Press]] |isbn=0859896870 |pages=45 |oclc=48154341}}</ref>