Language and nationality: the role of policy towards Celtic languages in the consolidation of Tudor power

Abstract

This article considers the attitude of the governing elite in sixteenth‐century England to the minority languages spoken by subjects within their jurisdiction, concentrating on Cornish, Welsh and Irish. Perhaps influenced by the tendency of nineteenth‐century nationalists to equate nationality and language, historians have assumed that Tudor governments were hostile to languages other than English and wished to suppress them. An examination of a variety of sources leads to the suggestion that this was not the case. There was a certain amount of apprehension in the political sphere in the 1530s but in the second half of the century cultural perception of languages dominated as attempts to spread the Protestant faith led to an encouragement of the range of vernaculars. The conclusion points to parallels between sixteenth‐century and contemporary sympathy towards minority cultures in the context of the devolution debate.