The French Spelling of French Loan Words

Scribes also had a different way to represent that original long a sound. Rather than using those double es, they sometimes adopted the french practice of spelling that sound with i e. That was a common anglo norman spelling used in french loan words. When the vowel sounded those words shifted up to e, that i e spelling was retained. So it now represented the e sound. And that explains the spellings of words like brief, chief, grief and relief.