Our fictional monk Godwin lived in the wake of the single most significant event in the history of the English language: the Norman Conquest of 1066.
Before the Conquest, English — albeit an old form of English — was the language of power and government in England. After the Conquest, French took its place for centuries.
It was but a temporary replacement: English eventually re-established itself in the halls of power, thanks to the gradual loss of English territory in France and the birth of a new English identity during the Renaissance. But the period of French dominance left its mark on all aspects of the language, from vocabulary to pronunciation. And, as Godwin found to his chagrin, it had a revolutionary impact on English spelling.
In fact, this early French influence over English, which arose from the Norman Conquest, is the beginning of the reason why English is written without accent marks (é, à, ç, etc.), or, as linguists call them, diacritics, today.
Let’s keep calling them diacritics, since accent can mean so many things, from different regional ways of speaking to where in a word you place the emphasis.