OLD ENGLISH

Considered the earliest form of the English language, was spoken and written in Anglo-Saxon Britain from c. 450 CE until c. 1150. the entire surviving body of Old English material from 600 to 1150 consists of only 3,037 texts (excluding manuscripts with minor variants), amounting to a mere three million words.

MIDDLE ENGLISH

Its period of roughly 300 years from around 1150 CE to around 1450, is difficult to identify because it is a time of transition between two eras that each have stronger definition. Continuity between Old and Middle English is mainly to be seen in texts of a religious, political or administrative character, thousands of which have survived. Most of the surviving material is religious in character