In this extract, as in that from the Metrical Psalter above, there is a striking preponderance of monosyllables, and, as in that case also, the final _-e_ is invariably silent in such words as oure, stere, lede, yhere, thare, were, etc., just as in modern English.  The grammar is, for the most part, extremely simple, as at the present day.  The chief difficulty lies in the vocabulary, which contains some words that are either obsolete or provincial.  Many of the obsolete words are found in other dialects; thus stere, to control, perfay, fonden (for fanden), chesen, to choose, feloun, adj. meaning “angry,” take kepe, soiourne, to tarry, travaile, to labour, parage, rank, all occur in Chaucer; barnage, reaut{’e}, in William of Palerne (in the Midland dialect, possibly Shropshire); oughte, owned, possessed, tyne, to lose, in Piers the Plowman; umbethinken, in the Ormulum; enkerly (for inkkyrly), in the alliterative Morte Arthure; march, to border upon, in Mandeville; seignorie, in Robert of Gloucester.  Barbour is rather fond of introducing French words; rybalddale occurs in no other author. Threllage or thryllage may have been coined from threll (English thrall), by adding a French suffix.  As to the difficult word nyt, see Nite in the N.E.D.

In addition to the poems, etc., already mentioned, further material may be found in the prose works of Richard Rolle of Hampole, especially his translation and exposition of the Psalter, edited by the Rev. H.R.  Bramley (Oxford, 1884), and the Prose Treatises edited by the Rev. G.G.  Perry for the Early English Text Society.  Dr Murray further calls attention to the Early Scottish Laws, of which the vernacular translations partly belong to the fourteenth century.

I have now mentioned the chief authorities for the study of the Northern dialect from early times down to 1400.  Examination of them leads directly to a result but little known, and one that is in direct contradiction to general uninstructed opinion; namely that, down to this date, the varieties of Northumbrian are much fewer and slighter than they afterwards became, and that the written documents are practically all in one and the same dialect, or very nearly so, from the Humber as far north as Aberdeen.  The irrefragable results noted by Dr Murray will probably come as a surprise to many, though they have now been before the public for more than forty years.  The Durham dialect of the Cursor Mundi and the Aberdeen Scotch of Barbour are hardly distinguishable by grammatical or orthographical tests; and both bear a remarkable resemblance to the Yorkshire dialect as found in Hampole.  What is now called Lowland Scotch is so nearly descended