Competing Archives, Competing Histories: French and Its Cultural Locations in Late-Medieval England

Abstract

Apart from Latin, French was Britain and England's only medieval supraregional language: English remained a regional language of the British Isles until well into the early modern period, with, for example, almost no translations of major English-language works until then. Although insular French differed over time from the various Frenches of Continental regions, French retained a high degree of mutual intelligibility throughout Europe and on both sides of the Channel, and exchanges between England and Continental regions in both directions continued throughout the Middle Ages. The importance of England as the location of the earliest French-language literary culture early in the twelfth century is now widely recognized, and England's influence on the development of French-language literary writing in Europe becoming more so: interchange, exchange, and mutual influence continued in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, though in shifting proportions. French also remained indispensable to external contacts in medieval Europe, the Mediterranean, and beyond, and to careers in public administration; used in various professions and occupations (marine, mercantile, legal, for instance); and an important language of literary and documentary composition. Even if we were to discount the Frenches of other British and European regions circulating in England, there were some 950 French literary texts composed there from the early twelfth to the earlier fifteenth centuries. These are joined by an increasing use of French in governance, administration, record keeping, and particular professions and occupations, especially from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. French expanded its domains and range of users in later medieval England: indeed, when “nonliterary” French is considered, the bulk of French writing belongs to the later thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. Even in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as Ardis Butterfield has shown, the number of books printed in English in England is small compared with those printed in French. It is clear that French of various kinds was used by relatively large numbers of people in medieval England. Not all French users were fully bilingual in French and English, but the range of people involved in the production of various kinds of written and oral French(es) in England embraces a wider class spectrum than the capacity of French to function as an elite language suggests.