Until 1362 English courts spoke French.

1362

The Pleading in English Act required cases to be argued in English, because many people no longer understood French.

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The event

• Hundred Years' War1337–1453 · France. The Plantagenet kings of England contested the French throne with the Valois in a war that ran, with truces, for 116 years. Despite English victories at Crécy, Poitiers and Agincourt, France eventually recovered nearly all its land, and both nations emerged with a stronger national identity.

14th century

More amazing facts

• 1349 · 1351 After the Black Death, England had to outlaw pay rises.
• 1351 "Drink your blood, Beaumanoir, and your thirst will pass!" So, says the chronicle, a comrade answered the wounded Breton leader who asked for water during the Combat of the Thirty in 1351.
• 1353 The first Lao kingdom was called "A Million Elephants". Lan Xang, founded in 1353, took the name as a boast of military might: elephants were the heavy force of Southeast Asian armies.
• 1368 · 1380 Russia and China began throwing off Mongol rule at almost the same time.
• 1370 · 1941 "Tamerlane" means "Timur the Lame", and his skeleton confirmed it. In 1941 anthropologist Mikhail Gerasimov found injuries to the right leg and arm and reconstructed Timur's face from his skull.
• 1373 · 1386 · 1943 An alliance made in the 14th century was invoked in the Second World War. In 1943 Portugal, citing its treaties with England of 1373 and 1386, let the British use bases in the Azores.

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