Truth, troth and trouthe

The modern word truth has ancestors in Middle English trouthe and the archaic word  troth now rarely used but just recognisable in the quaintly dated: I plight my troth. 

In Old English, the connotations were of fidelity, loyalty and truth, connected interestingly to treow, which could also mean a tree, stalwart and strong. From there it shifted towards keeping one's word and thus demonstrating faithfulness, honour and trustworthiness. It is that denotation which has survived into Modern English truth, where the emphasis is on factual accuracy, telling the truth.

There are contemporary literary works based on this idea: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Piers Plowman and Chaucer's "The Franklin's Tale" - although we must remember that the Franklin is guessing at an aristocratic world that he neither knows nor understands. The Knight, (a probably satirical portrait - thank you Terry Jones) is said to have held the concept of trouthe from an early age. 

I cannot vouch for the historical truth of these images because I did not have my point-and-shoot camera with me in the 14th century

The psychological concept of trouthe is both wide and profound. It meant that the person placed her or his whole self-hood and integrity within words or a vow. To break it was not merely lying: it was an abandonment of all the speaker stood for as a moral individual. I believe that idea, in all its resonance, lies at the heart of Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons, where Sir Thomas More cannot utter empty words to - literally - save his life. Is the concept now completely dead?