Abstract
This essay addresses the question of language choice in Anglo-Saxon charters in terms of two insular vernaculars, Old English and Old Cornish, rather than the more frequently studied choice between Old English and Latin. Through an examination of the diplomatic and boundary clauses of the surviving corpus of pre-Conquest charters from Cornwall, this chapter establishes that underlying what appear to be relatively ‘normal’ Anglo-Saxon royal diplomas was a complex bi- and even trilingual environment in Cornwall and South-West Britain, where language choice in documents was not a simple matter.
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