Dear Dorothy and August,
I am thankful for your comments; I am happy to see that the topic is interesting.
Thanks for the reference on Rastorgueva as well.
I was mentioning about the period of Edward III. As far as I know, the King, and other interested gentlemen ordered to form a group concocted of gifted clerics and gentlemen to elaborate over the structure of the English Language in a way to make it uniform, free from the inflections and free from Norman cultural influences. There are few references concerning the activates of the group, moreover you can hardly find direct reference on those efforts (e.g. even in Britannica), but in coming week or two I will provide you with relevant reference concerning that Miraculous Reformation (I hope that will be interesting for you). As a result of that Miraculous Reformation the English became ready to be shaped into one of the most important languages of science (Modern English) fostering development of new ideas and concepts. Along with the ‘killed’ inflections the old archetypical constructs, obstructing proper thinking were killed as well.
As I said from Britannica we know:
Historical background
Among highlights in the history of the English language, the following stand out most clearly: the settlement in Britain of Jutes, Saxons, and Angles in the 5th and 6th centuries; the arrival of St. Augustine in 597 and the subsequent conversion of England to Latin Christianity; the Viking invasions of the 9th century; the Norman Conquest of 1066; the Statute of Pleading in 1362 (this required that court proceedings be conducted in English); the setting up of Caxton's printing press at Westminster in 1476; the full flowering of the Renaissance in the 16th century; the publishing of the King James Bible in 1611; the completion of Johnson's Dictionary of 1755; and the expansion to North America and South Africa in the 17th century and to India, Australia, and New Zealand in the 18th.
Copyright © 2001 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Chaucer, who was born and died in London, spoke a dialect that was basically East Midland. Compared with his contemporaries,
he was remarkably modern {
} in his use of language.
He was in his early 20s when the Statute of Pleading (1362) was passed, by the terms of which all court proceedings were henceforth to be conducted in English, though "enrolled in Latin." Chaucer himself used four languages; he read Latin (Classical and Medieval) and spoke French and Italian on his travels. For his own literary work
he deliberately chose English.
Copyright © 2001 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Thanks for spending your time,
With kind regards,
History of Reformation of English Language.
Скажу по секрету, это гласные и, э, и открытое э) became diphtongized when followed by one of the consonants (h, r, l). Breaking mostly covers short vowels), а еще, а еще, есть очень обожаемая мною вешь, называется I-mutation 
))) Это вообще сказка. Я уже молчу о Great consonant SHift и Great Vowel SHift 
Но это долго об(твердый знак)яснять, айнпес ворь айд масин хаджорд дасин. 
