[blam]

"I doubt John even spoke English. "

I can't read the Magna Carta.

[raygun]

Its highly doubtful that John spoke "English". He may have spoken Anglo-Saxon early Middle English. Maybe. Undoubtedly he spoke French and knew Latin. The latter being the language of official business pretty much everywhere, and the former a result of the Norman Conquest in 1066.

Here's an example of the colloquial vervnacular at the time:

Ich was in one sumere dale, in one suthe diyhele hale, iherde ich holde grete tale an hule and one niyhtingale.

That plait was stif & starc & strong, sum wile softe & lud among; an aither ayhen other sval, & let that [vue]le mod ut al. & either seide of otheres custe

that alre-worste that hi wuste: & hure & hure of othere[s] songe hi holde plaiding suthe stronge.

The niyhtingale bigon the speche, in one hurne of one breche,

& sat up one vaire boyhe, - thar were abute blosme inoyhe,- in ore waste thicke hegge imeind mid spire & grene segge. Ho was the gladur uor the rise,

& song auele cunne wise: [b]et thuyhte the dreim that he were of harpe & pipe than he nere: bet thuyhte that he were ishote of harpe & pipe than of throte.

[Th]o stod on old stoc thar biside, thar tho vle song hire tide, & was mid iui al bigrowe; hit was thare hule earding-stowe.

[Th]e niyhtingale hi iseyh,

& hi bihold & ouerseyh, & thuyhte wel [vu]l of thare hule, for me hi halt lodlich & fule. "Vnwiyht," ho sede, "awei thu flo! me is the w[u]rs that ich the so.

Aside from that, you're not being able to read the Magna Carta is almost exclusively related to the scribes who translated you're copy being written by a bunch of coke-bottle lensed scribes w/out their cock=bottle lensed glasses.

Here's a link to a copy written by scribes with 20-20 vision:

Magna Carta