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Textual and Codicological Manifestations of Multilingual Culture in Medieval England

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Medieval English in a Multilingual Context

Part of the book series: New Approaches to English Historical Linguistics ((NAEHL))

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Abstract

Focusing on multilingual literary texts and manuscripts, this chapter takes stock of developments in recent scholarship and highlights areas in which further work is needed. Changes of approach by editors and literary historians are illustrated with special reference to the substantial body of scholarship on the multilingual miscellany London, British Library, MS Harley 2253. Using this manuscript and its texts to illustrate new departures and new possibilities, this essay discusses a number of issues that merit further investigation. It calls attention to the presence of languages other than English, French and Latin in medieval England and the cross-linguistic influence which these languages exerted on each other; to the synchronic and diachronic fluctuations in the relations between the different languages in different texts and codices of the period; and to the latent multilingualism that is typical even of Middle English texts traditionally regarded as monolingual and that is recoverable through analysis of linguistic detail (e.g. grammatical inflections, abbreviations, discourse markers), manuscript detail (e.g. titles and explicits), and literary context (e.g. the use of sources and verse forms taken from other linguistic traditions). Finally, we emphasise the need to pay attention to the visual aspects of multilingual communication (such as the presence or absence of rubrication for Latin phrases in Middle English texts) and to the variations in scribal practice and the changing trends over time.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Bergner’s (1978) suggestion that miles is an error for males is unnecessary and implausible.

  2. 2.

    Critten (2020: 229) uses a similar metaphor to critique Turville-Petre’s phrase, describing it as ‘flatten[ing] out the matter of the book’s multilingualism’.

  3. 3.

    Turville-Petre’s (1996: 186–193) analysis of London, British Library, MS Add. 46919 in the same chapter makes this distinctiveness clear.

  4. 4.

    See results of the British Library database search for research on Digby 86: https://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?fn=search&ct=search&initialSearch=true& mode=Basic& tab=local_tab&indx=1&dum=true&srt=rank&vid=BLVU1&frbg=&tb=t&vl%28freeText0%29=digby+86&scp.scps=scope%3A%28BLCONTENT%29&vl%28297891280UI0%29=any&vl%28297891280UI0%29=title&vl%28297891280UI0%29=any [accessed 9 December 2022]. The essays collected in Fein (2019) account for much of the total critical work on Latin and French material in the manuscript.

  5. 5.

    All images from Harley MS 2253 are taken from the British Library Digitised Manuscripts website (http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_2253), and are reproduced with permission from the British Library.

  6. 6.

    As noted by Wehrle (1933), a rare exception is the macaronic song ‘Exultemus et letemus’ (cited in Harvey 1978), which has Latin first, followed by Anglo-French in the tail-lines.

  7. 7.

    It is notable that recent discussions of ‘Dum ludis floribus’ and other similar lyrics all focus on this idea of separation; see e.g. Putter (2009) and Butterfield (2013), both cited in Critten (2020: 225 and 240–241, notes 16–17).

  8. 8.

    Critten (2020: 239–240) makes the same argument in slightly different terms, focusing on French.

  9. 9.

    Fifteenth-century macaronic lyrics containing French known to us include items 137 (possibly two poems, both trilingual: ‘De amico ad amicam’ and ‘Responcio’), 138 (‘En Jesu Roy Soveraign’, French and English) and the trilingual drinking song ‘Fetys bel chere’ from the Selden carol book (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Selden B.26).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Ad Putter

  2. University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Joanna Kopaczyk

  3. Durham University, Durham, UK

    Venetia Bridges

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  1. Ad Putter
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Correspondence to Joanna Kopaczyk .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. English, Communication and Philosophy, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

    Sara M. Pons-Sanz

  2. School of Humanities, University of Westminster, London, UK

    Louise Sylvester

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Putter, A., Kopaczyk, J., Bridges, V. (2023). Textual and Codicological Manifestations of Multilingual Culture in Medieval England. In: Pons-Sanz, S.M., Sylvester, L. (eds) Medieval English in a Multilingual Context. New Approaches to English Historical Linguistics . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30947-2_14

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