Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain ed. by D. A. Trotter

Abstract

REVIEWS that women lack rhetorical ability. Further, she like Puttenham defines covertness and dissemblance as politic strengths as well as feminine spheres of operation. Private, coterie circulation thus came to be privileged as ‘‘not the opposite of public circulation, but rather a strategy that anticipated and even promoted such circulation’’ (p. 188). Yet Elizabeth ’s writing lost favor in later centuries, aligning her with other women writers whose perpetual fading away and recovery marks the boundaries of tradition and enhances the luster of its central figures. Lost Property is an admirable project in several respects. It moves across the unfortunate gaps that specializations have constructed between the medieval and early modern periods, between history and literature , and between intellectual and material culture. Its chronological and disciplinary capaciousness are impressive. The arguments are clearly in view throughout, and specific texts by women writers receive valuable close readings. Specialists may object to an occasional claim—for example , that English literature before Chaucer was ‘‘prenational’’ (p. 6)— but the book as a whole demonstrates for specialists in all the fields it touches that undertaking an inclusive account of women’s writing over three centuries can yield substantial rewards. Susan Crane Rutgers University D. A. Trotter, ed. Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain. Cambridge : D. S. Brewer, 2000. Pp. x, 237. $63.00. Though its main audience will be historical linguists and sociolinguists specializing in medieval English, this excellent collection of essays is essential reading for Chaucerians and for anyone else who wishes to understand the diverse linguistic and literary culture of later medieval England. The volume consists of thirteen papers out of the twenty that were given at an international colloquium at the University of WalesAberystwyth in September 1997. The picture of a multilingual society that emerges is new and exciting. Not entirely new, of course, for students of medieval English literature have long been familiar with ample evidence testifying to the interpenetration of English, French, and Latin in later medieval English literary texts. Macaronic literary texts are dis435 ................. 9680$$ CH16 11-01-10 12:37:33 PS STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER cussed in some detail in only one of the essays in the volume (that of Herbert Schendl), but the collection as a whole contains much that is relevant for students of medieval English literature, macaronic and otherwise . The essays are without exception up-to-date and in some cases also highly innovative in their approach to the major languages of late medieval Britain. Taken together, they demonstrate in illuminating detail how Latin, French, English, and Welsh were used for various liturgical , governmental, legal, literary, and everyday purposes. The volume contains the following essays: Llino Beverly Smith, ‘‘The Welsh and English Languages in Late-Medieval Wales’’; Begoña Crespo, ‘‘Historical Background of Multilingualism and Its Impact on English’’; Andres M. Kristol, ‘‘L’Intellectuel ‘anglo-normand’ face à la pluralité des langues: le témoignage implicite du MS Oxford, Magdalen Lat. 188’’; Michael Richter, ‘‘Collecting Miracles Along the AngloWelsh Border in the Early Fourteenth Century’’; Paul Brand, ‘‘The Languages of the Law in Later Medieval England’’; Herbert Schendl, ‘‘Linguistic Aspects of Code-Switching in Medieval English Texts’’; Luis Iglesias-Rábade, ‘‘French Phrasal Power in Late Middle English: Some Evidence Concerning the Verb nime(n)/take(n)’’; Tony Hunt, ‘‘Code-Switching in Medical Texts’’; Laura Wright, ‘‘Bills, Accounts, Inventories: Everyday Trilingual Activities in the Business World of Later Medieval England’’; Frankwalt Möhren, ‘‘Onefold Lexicography for a Manifold Problem?’’; Edmund Weiner, ‘‘Medieval Multiculturalism and the Revision of the OED’’; Lisa Jefferson, ‘‘The Language and Vocabulary of the Fourteenth- and Early Fifteenth-Century Records of the Goldsmiths’ Company’’; and William Rothwell, ‘‘Aspects of Lexical and Morphosyntactical Mixing in the Languages of Medieval England .’’ A brief account of four representative essays in the volume follows. Herbert Schendl’s ‘‘Linguistic Aspects of Code-Switching in Medieval English Texts’’ is one of the two articles in the collection that deals with literary texts (see also Rothwell, below). Schendl’s discussion of macaronic poetry (lyrics, Piers Plowman, and drama) and macaronic sermons addresses questions such as the difference between ‘‘code switching ’’ (CS) and borrowing. He analyzes evidence for possible constraints on switches, and he presents a chart...