Multilingualism in Medieval Britain (c. 1066-1520)
Sources and Analysis
Edited by Judith Jefferson Edited by Ad Putter With Amanda Hopkins
This book is devoted to the study of multilingual Britain in the later medieval period, from the Norman Conquest to John Skelton. It brings together experts from different disciplines – history, linguistics, and literature – in a joint effort to recover the complexities of spoken and written communication in the Middle Ages. Each aut
This book is devoted to the study of multilingual Britain in the later medieval period, from the Norman Conquest to John Skelton. It brings together experts from different disciplines–history, linguistics, and literature – in a joint effort to recover the complexities of spoken and written communication in the Middle Ages. Each author focuses on one specific text or text type, and demonstrates by example what careful analysis can reveal about the nature of medieval multilingualism and about medieval attitudes to the different living languages of later medieval Britain. There are chapters on charters, sermons, religious prose, glossaries, manorial records, biblical translations, chronicles, and the macaronic poetry of William Langland and John Skelton. By addressing the full range of languages spoken and written in later medieval Britain (Latin, French, Old Norse, Welsh, Cornish, English, Dutch, and Hebrew), this collection reveals the linguistic situation of the period in its true diversity and shows the resourcefulness of medieval people when faced with the need to communicate. For medieval writers and readers, the ability to move between languages opened up a wealth of possibilities: possibilities for subtle changes of register, for counterpoint, for linguistic playfulness, and, perhaps most importantly, for texts which extend a particular challenge to the reader to engage with them.
- Edited by Judith Jefferson
- Edited by Ad Putter
- With Amanda Hopkins
Other Titles in this Series
Survival and Success on Medieval Borders
Cistercian Houses in Medieval Scotland and Pomerania from the Twelfth to the Late Fourteenth Century
Volume 24
Parisian Confraternity Drama of the Fourteenth Century
The 'Miracles de Nostre Dame par personnages'
Volume 22
Essays in Manuscript Geography
Vernacular Manuscripts of the English West Midlands from the Conquest to the Sixteenth Century
Volume 10
Celts, Gaels, and Britons
Studies in Language and Literature from Antiquity to the Middle Ages in Honour of Patrick Sims-Williams
Volume 35
Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Medieval Brittany, 450-1200
Connections and Disconnections
Volume 36
The Social Life of Illumination
Manuscripts, Images, and Communities in the Late Middle Ages
Volume 21
Writing and Reading in Medieval Manuscript Culture
The Translation and Transmission of the Story of Elye in Old French and Old Norse Literary Contexts
Volume 25
Grant risee?
The Medieval Comic Presence / La Presence comique medievale: Essays in Memory of Brian J. Levy
Volume 11
The Ideological Foundations of Early Irish Law and Their Reception in Anglo-Saxon England, c. 600-c. 900
Volume 37
Historical Narratives and Christian Identity on a European Periphery
Early History Writing in Northern, East-Central, and Eastern Europe (c.1070-1200)
Volume 26
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