The Languages of Medieval Wills written in England, 1200-1500
ORGANISERS:
Dr Julia Fernández Cuesta, University of Seville
Dr Laura Wright, University of Cambridge
Medieval wills in England were written in four distinct linguistic systems: Middle English,
Medieval Latin, Anglo-Norman French, and the mixed-language business system. A body of
recent work has focused on the changing roles of these four linguistic systems in the period
1066-1500 (e.g. Catto 2003, Ingham 2009, 2011, 2013, Trotter 2010, Wright 2010, 2012,
Schendl and Wright 2011, Alcolado-Carnicero 2014). At the University of Seville, the
SCONE Corpus of Northern English has been analysing northern Middle English wills
(Fernández Cuesta and Rodríguez Ledesma 2004, Fernández Cuesta (in press)). At the
University of Birmingham, Alison Spedding recently completed a PhD on the emergence and
development of mother-tongue testamentary language in the medieval period, and at the
University of Tampere, a project entitled “Multilingual Practices in the History of Written
English” is underway. This panel proposes to bring these initiatives together, using the
medieval will as a common basis for looking at the use of English, French, Latin and
codeswitched writing in England during the period. In particular, we welcome proposals for
papers that:
• consider the regional development of testamentary language
• take a discourse-analysis approach / consider the orality of wills
• consider the relationship and usage of Middle English / Medieval Latin / Anglo-Norman
French / the mixed-language business system - whether directly related to medieval
wills, or indirectly related
• focus on the linguistic characteristics of specific parts of the testamentary act
• grapple with the problem of how to determine authorship of wills
References
Alcolado Carnicero – José Miguel. 2014. Social Networks and Mixed-Language Business
Writing: Latin/French/English in the Wardens’ Accounts of the Mercers’ Company of
London, 1390-1464. University of Castilla-La Mancha: unpublished PhD thesis.
Catto, Jeremy. 2003. “Written English: The Making of the Language 1370–1400”, Past &
Present 179: 24-59.
Fernández Cuesta, Julia – Rodríguez Ledesma, Mª Nieves 2004. “Northern Features in 15th16th-Century Legal Documents from Yorkshire”, in: Dossena, Marina – Roger Lass
(eds.). Methods and Data in English Historical Dialectology. Bern: Peter Lang, 287308.
Fernández Cuesta, Julia. [In press]. “The Voice of the Dead: Analysing sociolinguistic
variation in early Modern English Wills”, Journal of English Linguistics.
Ingham, Richard. 2009. “Mixing languages on the manor”, Medium Ævum 78 (1): 80–97.
— 2011. “The decline of bilingual competence in French in medieval England: Evidence
from the PROME database”, in: Nils Langer – S. Davies – Wim Vandenbussche
(eds.). Language and History, Linguistics and Historiography – Interdisciplinary
Problems and Opportunities. Berne: Peter Lang, 71-292.
— 2013. “Language-mixing in medieval Latin documents: vernacular articles and
nouns”, in: Judith A. Jefferson – Ad Putter (eds.). Multilingualism in Medieval
Britain (c.1066-1520) Sources and Analysis. Turnhout: Brepols.
Schendl, Herbert – Laura Wright (eds.). 2011. Code-switching in Early English. Berlin:
Mouton.
Spedding, Alison J. 2010. ‘My Testament in Englisshe tonge’: A Study in the Use of the
Vernacular in Medieval Wills. University of Birmingham: Unpublished PhD thesis.
— 2014. “Hoc est testamentum: The Structure and Development of Introductory Clauses
in Latin Testamentary Writing”, Viator 25, No. 2.
Trotter, David. 2010. “Bridging the gap: The (socio)linguistic evidence of some medieval
English bridge accounts”, in: Richard Ingham (ed.). The Anglo-Norman Languge and
its Contexts. York: York Medieval Press and The Boydell Press, 52-63.
Wright, Laura. 2010. “A pilot study on the singular definite articles le and la in fifteenthcentury London mixed-language business writing”, in: Richard Ingham (ed.). The
Anglo-Norman Languge and its Contexts. York: York Medieval Press and The
Boydell Press, 130-142.
— 2012. “On variation and change in London medieval mixed-language business
documents”, in: Merja Stenroos – Martti Mäkinen – Inge Særheim (eds.). Language
Contact and Development around the North Sea. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John
Benjamins, 99-115.