Excerpt from The Knightes Tale, From the Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer The term anglo-saxon, which is currently used to designate the language supposed to have been spoken by our forefathers before the Norman Conquest, is an invention of modern times, and has t even the advantage of convenience to recommend it. It was t until the close of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century, when the fusion of races was followed by the rise of a truly national spirit and an outburst of literary activity. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art techlogy to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.