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The subjunctive mood of the verb indicates a particular attitude in the writer’s or speaker’s mind towards the event or action described. Its use is restricted in Modern English to a few contexts: in if clauses where the event is highly improbable or impossible, ‘if I were you’; in clauses dependent upon verbs of wishing, demanding, requesting etc. (more common in American than British English), ‘I wish I were dead’, ‘He recommends that she sell the book’; and in a handful of fixed phrases, expressing wishes such as ‘God bless!’, or a hypothesis in ‘as it were’, or a condition in ‘be they good or bad’. The subjunctive form is distinct from the indicative in Modern English only in the third person singular of the present (‘sell’ above), first and third person singular ‘were’, and present tense ‘be’.

As described in 4.5, the subjunctive has distinct forms in many Middle English dialects for the whole of the present tense except the first person singular, for the second person singular of the past tense of weak verbs, and for the first and third persons singular of the past tense of strong verbs and the verb ‘to be’. It is used more widely in Middle English than today, though the basic idea is the same, in that it is a non‐factual mood, concerned with events not as actually happening, but as possibilities to be desired, envisaged or conjectured. Hence most of the following categories express such notions as wishes, commands and hypotheses.

In main clauses the present tense of the subjunctive is used for wishes and commands, as Drihten us fulsten, ‘may God help us!’, 3/46; fo we on, ‘let us proceed’, 2/179. Wishes are often introduced by so, as or þer: so hit bitide þat ich mote, ‘may it happen that I can’, 2/52; as help me … he þat on hyʒe syttes, ‘so help me he who sits on high’, 9/256; þer Ragnel … hym rere, ‘may Ragnel wake him’, 8/188. The past tense of the subjunctive is used where Modern English uses ‘would’ to express something that is unlikely to happen: that were a long lettyng, ‘that would be a long delay’, 7b/5; hit were now gret nye to neven / So hardy a here, ‘it would today be very difficult to name so bold a company’, 9/58–9; alle were þe better, ‘(to have) all would be better’, 8/34; a sory couple of ʒou it were, ‘you would make a sorry couple’, 5/458. The same writer uses the idiom þat nouʒt nere with the past subjunctive, ‘that would not be possible’, 5/457, and þat nouʒt nis, ‘that is not possible’, 5/131, with the present indicative. These hypothetical sentences often include an if or though clause: nere ich never no þe betere / þeʒ …, ‘I should not be at all better off, even though …’, 2/283–4.

In subordinate clauses the subjunctive is most commonly used for a condition or hypothesis. Such clauses are often introduced by if or sometimes so: ʒif ich were Orfeo þe king, 5/558; if þou crave batayl, 9/277; ʒ ef love wer in myn herte, 14l/9; þu starest so þu wille abiten, ‘you are staring as if you wish to bite’, 2/77. There are also conditional clauses with no conjunction where the word‐order of subject and verb is reversed (see 5.9.1 (iii) ): be Hunger went, ‘once Hunger has gone’, 7b/211; wolle thow, nulle thow, ‘whether you wish it or not’, 7b/153; wer I as hastif as þou, ‘if I were as hasty as you’, 8/520.

The verb is in the subjunctive in subordinate clauses of concession, introduced by though, never so and the like: þaʒ hit displese ofte, ‘even though it may often displease’, 8/1; ne bo þe song never so murie, ‘however delightful the song may be’, 2/345; or introduced by al, in which case the verb precedes the subject: al were his bodi sturne, ‘although his body was/may have been forbidding’, 9/143. The subjunctive is also often used in clauses of purpose or result, introduced by þat, lest, etc.: that þou betere therby, ‘so that you may thereby benefit’, 7a/21.

In subordinate clauses of time that look forward to an anticipated event, introduced by conjunctions such as er or til, the subjunctive is usual with the present tense: er þou glyde hens, ‘before you go from here’, 8/204; tyl þou fele lyst, ‘until you feel desire’, 6/19. It is quite common when the point of view is in the past: or he wer tille þe booryngis brought, ‘before he was brought to the nail‐holes’, 15/146.

With reference to place, the subjunctive is used for subordinate clauses introduced by where to express uncertainty with the indefinite meaning ‘wherever’: where he in court were, ‘wherever he may have been at court’, 9/100.

The subjunctive is very often found after verbs of thinking, seeming or saying, for indirect statements and questions, since these are not facts but reports or opinions: and weneþ it be Glodeside, ‘and believes it to be Glodeside’ (it isn’t), 13/209; I hope þat he were, ‘I believe he was’, 9/140; bet þuʒte þe dreim þat he were /Of harpe, ‘the music seemed rather to come from a harp’, 2/21–2; y preye the … what beste be to done, ‘I ask you what it is best to do’, 7b/209–10. Verbs of knowing, on the other hand, normally take the indicative if no uncertainty is involved. So compare the confident indicative in ich wot he is nu suþe acoled, ‘I know he has now cooled off considerably’, 2/205, with the subjunctive where there is a stronger element of opinion: uch wyʒe may wel wit no wont þat þer were, ‘each person may well know that there was no shortage’, 9/131.

As the distinctions between the subjunctive and the indicative forms – always only partial – were reduced, the subjunctive mood came more and more to be expressed by other means, in particular by the use of the modal auxiliaries such as shall and sholde, may and miʒt, will and wolde. Modern English has, of course, developed further along the same lines. In Middle English the modal auxiliaries are quite often found as equivalents to the subjunctive, e.g. in an indirect question: to spyr uschon oþir / Quat body hit myʒt be, ‘each one to ask the other what body it might be’, 11/93–4.