Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice: From Oriental Bazar to English Cloister in Anglo-French

Abstract

SUGAR AND SPICE AND ALL THINGS NICE: FROM ORIENTAL BAZAR TO ENGLISH CLOISTER IN ANGLO-FRENCH In May of 1436 the Georgeof Seaton came into the port of Southampton: its entry was logged in French. In the same month a boat came in from Portugal: it too was logged in French.l These were just two out of many vessels, some from British ports, others from all over continental Europe, whose comings and goings were all recorded in French. Naturally, the year 1436 was not an exception to the rule: from the time of the Oak Book in about 13002 French was the working language of the port. At around this same period, the early decades of the fifteenthcentury, the Grocers5 Company, the Merchant Taylors, the Goldsmiths, the Mercers, and other mercantile corporations based in London were also using French, mixed with English, to preserve a record of their business activities.3 In Southampton the regulations governing the administration of the medieval city were also in French, as were those for Leicester4 and York,5 where French appears alongside Latin and, increasingly, English. In the ecclesiastical field a similar situation obtained. At Durham, the extensive accounts of the abbey from the early fourteenth century to the sixteenth contain not only the expected Latin and, increasingly with the passage of time, English, but also an unexpected amount of French.6 In the same city a separate set of documents relating to the activities of the Bishop in the early part of the fourteenth century as both a temporal and a spiritual leader also contains a sizable percentage of Anglo-French.7 In the higher reaches of government and the law French continued to be widely used well into the fifteenthcentury, despite the statute of 1362 banning it from precisely these areas. This kind of first-hand evidence must call into question yet again the traditional wisdom from second-hand sources still being peddled even today regarding the nature and scope of later Anglo-French. In an article published in 1996, D. A. Kibbee writes approvingly of 'the study of later Anglo-French for many purposes, 1The LocalPort Book ofSouthampton for1435-6,ed.byBrianFoster (Southampton: Southampton University Press, 1963), p. 46. 2The OokBookofSouthampton, ed. by P. Studer, Publications oftheSouthampton RecordSociety,1o (Southampton: Cox& Shorland, 1910-11).SeealsoThe Port Books of Southampton, ed.byP. Studer, Publications ofthe Southampton RecordSociety, 15(Southampton: Cox& Shorland), 1913). 3See myarticle, 'The French Vocabulary intheArchives oftheLondonGrocers' Company', Zeitschrift fiir franzosische Sprache und Literatur, 102(1992),23-41;LisaJefferson andW.Rothwell, 'Society andLexis:AStudy oftheAnglo-French Vocabulary in theFifteenth-Century Accounts oftheMerchant Taylors'Company', ^eitschriftfurfranzosische Sprache und Literatur, 107(1997),273-301;LisaJefferson, 'TheAnglo-French Vocabulary oftheMedievalRecordsoftheGoldsmiths' CompanyArchives', Multilingualism inLater Medieval Britain: Proceedings ofthe iggyAberystwyth Colloquium, ed.byD. A.Trotter (Cambridge: Brewer), Jefferson iscontinuing towork onsimilar records left byother livery companies. 4Records ofthe Borough ofLeicester, ed.byMaryBateson, 2vols(London: Clay,1899;1901). 5 TorkMemorandum Book, ed.byMaudSellers, Surtees Society, 120,125(Durham: Andrews, 1911;1914). 6Extracts from the Account Rolls ofthe Abbey ofDurham, ed. byCanonFowler, Surtees Society, 99, 100,103 (Durham: Andrews, 1898;1898);1901). 7 Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense, TheRegister of Richard deKellawe [. . .J, 4 vols,ed.byThomasDufty Hardy, RollsSeries (London: Longman, 1873-78). [38] 648 From Oriental Bazar to English Cloister in Anglo-French which must include the fact that it was degenerating into a risible jargon'.8 That the leading port on the south coast of England, and, as will be seen later, the Port of London, along with a number ofhighly successful business groups with international as well as national connections, also administrators and lawyers dealing with affairs at both local and national level should all choose to preserve a substantial part of their important records in 'a risible jargon' defies common sense, so it may be appropriate to look at some of the available documents to see just what role was played by French at this late period. Until recently, such limited interest as late Anglo-French was able to arouse amongst scholars specializing in medieval French has been confined, with only a very few exceptions, to the effortsmade in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries to teach what was by now a language unknown to...