About that time it would have been almost, if not quite, impossible to have decided or described what was the national language of the country. The services at the churches were read in Latin, the aristocracy indulged only in Norman-French, whilst the great mass of the people spoke a language, usually denominated Saxon or English, but which had been so mutilated and altered by additions from various sources that the ancient “Settlers on the shores of the German Ocean” would scarcely have recognized it as their native tongue. Each division of the kingdom had its peculiar dialect, very much as now, and from the remarks of a southern writer, named Trevisa, it must be inferred that the _patois_ of our own district, which he would include in the old province of Northumbria,[25] was far from either elegant or musical. “Some,” he says, “use strange gibbering, chattering, waffling, and grating; then the Northumbre’s tongue is so sharp, flitting, floyting, and unshape, that we Southron men may not understand that language.” Such a list of curious and uncomplimentary epithets inclines us at first sight to doubt the strict impartiality of their author, but when it is remembered that, in spite of the greatly increased opportunities for education and facilities for intercommunion amongst the different classes, the provincialisms of some of our own peasantry would be utterly unintelligible to many of us at the present day, we are constrained to admit that Trevisa may have had just reason for his remarks. In 1268 the Honor of Lancaster, the Wapentake of Amounderness, and the manors of Preston, Ribby-with-Wray, and Singleton were given by Henry III. to his son Edmund Crouchback, and in addition the king published an edict forbidding the sheriffs of neighbouring counties to enter themselves, or send, or permit their bailiffs to enter or interfere with anything belonging to the Honor of Lancaster, or to the men of that Honor, unless required to do so by his son. Edmund was also created earl of Lancaster, and became the founder of that noble house, whose possessions and power afterwards attained to such magnitude as to place its representative, Henry IV., upon the throne, although nearer descendants of his grandfather Edward III. were still living.