Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain

Essays reappraising the relationship between the various languages of late medieval Britain. The languages of later medieval Britain are here seen as no longerseparate or separable, but as needing to be treated and studied together to discover the linguistic reality of medieval Britain and make a meaningful assessment ofthe relationship between the languages, and the role, status, function or subsequent history of any of them. This theme emerges from all the articles collected here from leading international experts in their fields, dealing withlaw, language, Welsh history, sociolinguistics and historical lexicography. The documents and texts studied include a Vatican register of miracles in fourteenth-century Hereford, medical treatises, municipal records from York, teaching manuals, gild registers, and an account of work done on the bridges of the river Thames. Contributors: PAUL BRAND, BEGON CRESPO GARCIA, TONY HUNT, LUIS IGLESIAS-RABADE, LISA JEFFERSON, ANDRES M. KRISTOL, FRANKWALTMOHREN, MICHAEL RICHTER, WILLIAM ROTHWELL, HERBERT SCHENDL, LLINOS BEVERLEY SMITH, D.A. TROTTER, EDMUIND WEINER, LAURA WRIGHT Professor D.A. TROTTER is Professor of French and Head of Department of European Languages at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

Table of Contents:
- D A Trotter The Welsh and English languages in late-medieval Wales - Llinos Beverley Smith Historical background of multilingualism and its impact on English - Begona Crespo Garcia L'intellectuel 'anglo-normand' face à la pluralité des langues: le témoignage implicite du ms. Oxford, Magdalen 188 - Andres M Kristol Collecting miracles along the Anglo-Welsh border in the early fourteenth century - Michael Richter The languages of the law in later medieval England - Paul A Brand Linguistic aspects of code-switching in medieval English texts - Herbert Schendl French phrasal power in late Middle English. Some evidence concerning the verb nime(n)/take(n) - Luis Iglesias Rabade Code-switching in medical texts - Tony Hunt Bills, accounts, inventories: everyday trilingual activities in the business world of later medieval England - Laura Wright One-fold lexicography for a manifold problem? - Frankwalt Mohren Medieval multilingualism and the revision of the OED - E S C Weiner The language and vocabulary of the fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century records of the Goldsmiths' Company - Lisa Jefferson Aspects of lexical and morphosyntactical mixing in the languages of medieval England - William Rothwell

About the Author :
Laura Wright is a Reader in English Language at the University of Cambridge, where she works on the history of English. LISA JEFFERSON holds a D.Phil from the University of Oxford. She is the editor of Wardens' Accounts and Court Minute Books of the Goldsmiths' Mistery of London, 1334-1446 (Boydell, 2003) and The Medieval Account Books of the Mercers of London. An Edition and Translation (Ashgate/now Routledge, 2009).

Review :
The papers take three general approaches to their subject matter, emphasizing the historical background of medieval language contact, code swuitching, or the lexicographical consequences of multilingualism. At their best these papers apply contemporary linguistic analyses to historical events in ways that illuminate both, and that material advance understanding of medieval multilingualism.