Such was the pace of continuous change to the
language at this time, that different forms of words
were often used interchangeably, even by the same
author, and this flexibility (or inconsistency) in spelling
is quite noticeable in Chaucer’s work (e.g. yeer and
yere, doughtren and doughtres, etc). However, it
should be noted that, because Chaucer’s work was
copied by several different scribes, and we have no
original in Chaucer’s own hand, different manuscripts
have different spellings, none of which are definitive (e.g. the same word is variously
rendered as site, sighte, syth, sigh and cite in different manuscripts).