Groundbreaking surveys of the complex interrelationship between the
languages of English and French in medieval Britain.
With co-editors: CAROLYN COLLETTE, MARYANNE KOWALESKI, LINNE MOONEY, AD
PUTTER, and DAVID TROTTER
England was more widely and enduringly francophone in the Middle Ages
than our now standard accounts of its history, culture and language
allow. The French of England (also known as Anglo-Norman and
Anglo-French) is the language of nearly a thousand literary texts, of
much administration, and of many professions and occupations. English
literary, linguistic and documentary history is deeply interwoven both
with a continually evolving spectrum of Frenches used within and outside
the realm, and cannot be fully grasped in isolation.
The essays in this volume open up andbegin writing a new cultural
history focussed on, but not confined to, the presence and interactions
of francophone speakers, writers, readers, texts and documents in
England from the eleventh to the later fifteenth centuries. They return
us to a newly-alive, multi-vocal, complexly multi-cultural medieval
England, in which the use of French and its interrelations with English
and other languages involve many diverse groups of people. The volume's
size testifies to the significance of England's francophone culture,
while its chronological range shows the need for revision across the
whole span of our existing narratives about medieval English linguistic
and cultural history..
Contributors: HENRY BAINTON, MICHAEL BENNETT, JULIA BOFFEY, RICHARD
BRITNELL, CAROLYN COLLETTE, GODFRIED CROENEN, HELEN DEEMING, STEPHANIE
DOWNES, MARTHA DRIVER, MONICA H. GREEN, RICHARD INGHAM, REBECCA JUNE,
MARYANNE KOWALESKI, PIERRE KUNSTMANN, FRANCOISE H. M. LE SAUX, SERGE
LUSIGNAN, TIM WILLIAM MACHAN, JULIA MARVIN, BRIAN MERRILEES, RUTH NISSE,
MARILYN OLIVA, W. MARK ORMROD, HEATHER PAGAN, LAURIE POSTLEWATE,
JEAN-PASCAL POUZET, AD PUTTER, GEOFFRECTOR, DELBERT RUSSELL, THEA
SUMMERFIELD, ANDREW TAYLOR, DAVID TROTTER, ELIZABETH M. TYLER, NICHOLAS
WATSON, JOCELYN WOGAN-BROWNE, ROBERT F. YEAGER
