The Teaching and Cultivation of the French Language in England Part 2

[6] Adam du Pet.i.t Pont (_d._ 1150) wrote an epistle in Latin, many words of which were glossed in French. But there is no evidence that it was used in England. It was published by E. Scheler in his _Trois traites de lexicographie latine du 12e et 13e siecles_, Leipzig, 1867.

[7] Ed. T. Wright, _Volume of Vocabularies_, i. 96, and Scheler, _op.

cit._ Both editions are deemed unsatisfactory by Paul Meyer (_Romania_, x.x.xvi. 482).

[8] It has been published five times: (1) At Caen by Vincent Correr in 1508 (_Romania_, _ut supra_); (2) H. Geraud, in _Doc.u.ments inedits sur l'histoire de France_: "Paris sous Philippe le Bel d'apres les doc.u.ments originaux," 1837; (3) Kervyn de Lettenhove, 1851; (4) T. Wright, _Volume of Vocabularies_, i. pp. 120 _sqq._; (5) Scheler, _Trois traites de lexicographie latine_.

[9] Wright, _op. cit._ pp. 139-141.

[10] _Statutes of the Colleges of Oxford_, 3 vols., Oxford and London, 1853; A. Clark, _Colleges of Oxford_, 1891, p. 140; H. C. Maxwell Lyte, _History of the University of Oxford_, 1880, pp. 140-151.

[11] _Doc.u.ments relating to the Universities and Colleges of Cambridge_, 1852, ii. p. 33; J. Ba.s.s Mullinger, _The University of Cambridge_, 1873; G. Peac.o.c.k, _Observations on the Statutes of the University of Cambridge_, 1841, p. 4.

[12] J. Heywood, _Early Cambridge University and College Statutes_, 1885, ii. p. 182.

[13] C. H. Cooper, _Annals of Cambridge_, Cambridge, 1852, i. p. 40.

[14] Rashdall, _op. cit._ ii. p. 519 _n._

[15] Rashdall, _op. cit._ i. pp. 319 _et seq._ Later the English nation was known as the German; it included all students from the north and east of Europe. On the English in the University of Paris see Ch.

Thurot, _De l'organisation de l'enseignement dans l'Universite de Paris_, Paris, 1850; and J. E. Sandys, "English Scholars of Paris, and Franciscans of Oxford," in _The Cambridge History of English Literature_, i., 1908, chap. x. pp. 183 _et seq._

[16] Quoted, E. J. B. Rathery, _Les Relations sociales et intellectuelles entre la France et l'Angleterre_, Paris, 1856, p. 11.

[17] A writer of about 1180 says it was impossible to tell who were Normans and who English ("Dialogus de Scaccario": Stubbs, _Select Charters_, 4th ed., 1881, p. 168).

[18] "Discours sur l'etat des lettres au 13e siecle," in the _Histoire litteraire de la France_, xvi. p. 168.

[19] D. Behrens, in H. Paul's _Grundiss der germanischen Philologie_, Stra.s.sbourg, 1901, pp. 953-55; Freeman, _Norman Conquest_, v. 1876, pp.

528 _sqq._; Maitland, "Anglo-French Law Language," in the _Cambridge History of English Literature_, i. pp. 407 _sqq._, _History of English Law_, 1895, pp. 58 _sqq._, and _Collected Papers_, 1911, ii. p. 436. At the universities, where Latin was the usual language of correspondence, letters and pet.i.tions were often drawn up in French (Oxford Hist. Soc., _Collectanea_, 1st series, 1885, pp. 8 _sqq._).

[20] Bateson, _Mediaeval England_, 1903, p. 319.

[21] Maitland, _Collected Papers_, 1911, ii. p. 437.

[22] Such are Bozon's _Contes moralises_ (_c._ 1320), ed. P. Meyer, in the _Anciens Textes Francais_, 1889. In his Introduction Meyer lays stress on the widespread use of French in England at this time, and its chance of becoming the national language of England, an eventuality which, he thinks, might have been a benefit to humanity.

[23] MS. at Trinity Col. Cambridge (R. 3. 56).

[24] Paul Meyer calls it the work of a true grammarian (_Romania_, x.x.xii. p. 65).

[25] There are four MSS. extant. These have been collated and published by J. Sturzinger in the _Altfranzosische Bibliothek_, vol. viii., Heilbronn, 1884; cp. _Romania_, xiv. p. 60. The earliest MS. is in the Record Office, and was published by T. Wright in Haupt and Hoffman's _Altdeutsche Blaetter_ (ii. p. 193). Diez quoted from this edition in his _Grammaire des langues romanes_, 3rd ed. i. pp. 415, 418 _sqq._ The three other MSS. are in the Brit. Mus., Camb. Univ. Libr. and Magdalen Col. Oxon., and belong to the three succeeding centuries. Portions of the Magdalen Col. MS. are quoted by A. J. Ellis, in his _Early English p.r.o.nunciation_, pp. 836-839, and by F. Genin, in his preface to the French Government reprint of Palsgrave's Grammar, 1852. It is the British Museum copy, made in the reign of Edward III., which contains the French commentary.

[26] Early English writers on the French tongue were fond of drawing attention to the opportunities for punning afforded by the language.

[27] Edited by Miss M. K. Pope in the _Modern Language Review_ (vol. v., 1910, pt. ii. pp. 188 _sqq._), from the Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 17716, ff.

88-91; it also exists at All Souls, Oxford (MS. 182 f. 340), and at Trinity Col. Cambridge (MS. B 14. 39, 40); in the last MS. the introduction of the two preceding ones is lacking (cp. Meyer, _Romania_, x.x.xii. p. 59).

[28] For instance, we are told that _a_ is sounded almost like _e_ as in _savez vous faire un chauncoun ..._; that the phrases _a_, _en a_, _i a_ which mean one and the same thing when they come from the Latin _habet_, should be written without _d_; that _aura_, _en array_ should be written without _e_ in the middle, and sounded without _u_, as _aray_, _en array_, though the English include the _e_.

[29] Published by Stengel, in the _Zeitschrift fur neufranzosische Sprache und Literatur_, 1879, pp. 16-22.

[30] Miss Pope, _ut supra_.

[31] His name has provoked some discussion as to its correct form. It is frequently written as Biblesworth, and one MS. gives it the form of Bithesway; the correct form, however, is Bibbesworth, the name of a manor in the parish of Kempton (Herts), of which Walter was the owner (P. Meyer, _Romania_, xv. p. 312, and x.x.x. p. 44 _n._; W. Aldis Wright, _Notes and Queries_, 1877, 4th Series, viii. p. 64).

[32] Printed from the MS. in the Bodleian, in Wright and Halliwell's _Reliquiae Antiquae_, i. p. 134.

[33] _Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1247-58_, pp. 58, 103, 187. He received exemption from being put on a.s.sizes or juries in 1249.

[34] _Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1301-1307_, p. 39.

[35] She died in 1304; her father was one of the leaders on the king's side at the battle of Lewes (1264).

[36] There are many MSS. in the British Museum; others at Oxford and Cambridge, and one in the Library of Sir Th. Phillips at Cheltenham. The best-known edition of the vocabulary is that of T. Wright, _Volume of Vocabularies_, i. pp. 142-174, which is the one here quoted, and which reproduces Arundel MS. 220, collated with Sloane MS. 809. P. Meyer has given a critical edition of the first eighty-six lines in his _Recueil d'anciens textes--partie francaise_, No. 367 (cp. _Romania_, xiii. p.

500).

[37] In the vocabularies written in imitation of Bibbesworth at later dates, the English gloss is fuller, and in the latest one complete, as French became more and more a foreign language.

[38] "Pus to le frauncoys com il en court en age de husbonderie, com pur arer, rebiner, waretter, semer, sarcher, syer, faucher, carier, batre, moudre, pestrer, briser," etc.

[39] _Polychronicon_, lib. 1, cap. 59 (ed. Babington and Lumly, Rolls Publications, 41, 1865-66, vol. ii. pp. 159 _sqq._).

[40] Cp. the thirteenth-century romance in which Jehan de Dammartin teaches French to Blonde of Oxford (ed. Le Roux de Lincy, Camden Soc., 1858).

[41] F. Anstey, _Monumenta Academica_, 1868, p. 438.

[42] Anstey, _op. cit._, 1868, p. 302.

[43] Published from a MS. in Cambridge University Library (Ee 4, 20), by Skeat, in the _Transactions of the Philological Society_ (1903-1906).

[44] The MS. in which the work is preserved dates from about 1340, but is probably copied from an earlier one.

[45]

"Corps teste et hanapel _Body heuede and heuedepanne_ Et peil cresceant sur la peal.

_And here growende on the skyn_," etc.

[46] How close the resemblance is between the two works may be judged by the following quotations:

Par le gel nous avons glas, Et de glas vient verglas. (NOMINALE.)

Pur le gel vous avomus glas, Et pluvye e gele fount vereglas. (BIBBESWORTH.)

And it is in words almost identical with those of Bibbesworth that the author describes the difference in the meaning of some words according to their gender:

La levere deit clore les dentz.

_The lippe._ Le levere en boys se tient de deynz.

_The hare._ La livre sert a marchauntz.