An investigation of the rivalry of a number of Scandinavian loanwords which entered the English language in late Old English or Middle English and survived in Modern English, and their synonyms in Middle English. It analyses the restructuring process taking place in a number of semantic fields and attempts to account for the survival of the loanwords. Of particular interest are the meaning, frequency and distribution of the Scandinavian borrowings and their equivalents.

So far, no comprehensive study of the obsolescence of Scandinavian loanwords in English has ever been published. This book remedies that situation, and presents an analysis of the causes of obsolescence of Scandinavian loanwords in English since the 15th century. The study has mainly been based on the Oxford English Dictionary and the Middle English Dictionary. Over 300 loanwords have been selected, grouped into semantic fields and analysed. To account for their disappearance, reasons such as the rivalry of synonyms, the exclusive use in local dialects, the disappearance of the referent as well as rare occurrence or phonological changes were investigated.

This book is a rigorous and broad update of the state of the art in the investigation of Old and Middle English. The volume, written by some of the best known experts in this field, addresses different issues, such as etymology, manuscript sources, and medieval literary traditions, among others. Its contents will be particularly useful for those interested in the different perspectives of current research in the field, exhorting the reader to consider the relationship of the medieval textual heritage and language with both its contemporary medieval audience and the readers of the 21st century. This book will appeal to specialists in Old and Middle English language and literature and also to university students. In contrast with monographs, which focus on a specific aspect, these essays allow a broader panorama of what is being done and the approaches currently being used.

This book focuses on the Norse-derived vocabulary in the works of Archbishop Wulfstan II of York (d. 1023). A considerable advantage derives from studying Wulfstan's compositions because, unlike most Old English texts, they are closely dateable and, to a certain extent, localizable. Thus, they offer excellent material for the examination of the process of integration and accommodation of Norse-derived vocabulary in Old English. After establishing the list of terms which can be accepted to be Norse-derived, this book analyses their relations with their native synonyms, both from a semantic and a stylistic point of view, and their inclusion in the word-formation processes to which Wulfstan submitted his vocabulary, native and borrowed alike. The information derived from this approach is used to explore the possible reasons for the archbishop's selection of the borrowed terms and the impact which his lexical practices had on contemporary and later English writers.