The linguistic learning of English nuns at different periods was similar to that of the gentry outside the convent. It was not possible after the beginning of the fourteenth century (perhaps even during the last half of the thirteenth century) to assume in them that acquaintance with Latin, the learned and ecclesiastical tongue, which was generally assumed in their brothers the monks. Their learning was similar to that of contemporary laymen of their class, rather than of contemporary monks; and it went through exactly the same phases as did the coronation oath. About 1311 the King's oath occurs in Latin among the State documents, with the note appended that "if the King were illiterate" he was to swear in French, as Edward II did in 1307; but in 1399 when Henry IV claimed the throne, he claimed it in English, "In the name of the Fadir, Son and Holy Gost, I Henry of Lancastre, chalenge şis Rewme of Yngland"[826]. Similarly towards the close of the thirteenth century the English bishops begin to write to their nuns in French, because they are no longer "literate," in the sense of understanding Latin. Throughout this century the nuns are able to speak the courtly tongue; they use it for their petitions; and Chaucer's Prioress boasts it among her accomplishments at the close of the century, And Frensh she spak ful faire and fetisly After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe, For French of Paris was to her unknowe. But French, like Latin, is beginning to die away. It hardly ever occurs in petitions after the end of the century; and in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Bishops almost invariably send their injunctions to the nuns in English. The majority of nuns during these two centuries would seem to have understood neither French nor Latin[827]. The evidence of the bishops' registers is worth considering in more detail. The bishops were genuinely anxious that the reforms set forth in their injunctions should be carried out by the nuns, and they were therefore at considerable pains to send the injunctions in language which the nuns could understand. There are few surviving injunctions belonging to the thirteenth century; and their evidence is missed. Archbishop Walter Giffard in 1268[828] and Archbishop Newark in 1298[829] write to the nuns of Swine in Latin, a language which they seem to have employed habitually when writing to nunneries. Archbishop Peckham sometimes writes to the Godstow nuns in Latin (1279) and sometimes in French (1284)[830]; it is to be noted that his French letter is of a more familiar type. Bishop Cantilupe of Hereford writes about 1277 to the nuns of Lymbrook in Latin, but his closing words raise considerable doubt as to whether an understanding of Latin can be generally assumed in nunneries at this period, for he says "you are to cause this our letter to be expounded to you several times in the year by your penancers, in the French or English tongue, whichever you know best"[831].