The Organisation of Multilingual Miscellanies
The Organisation of Multilingual Miscellanies
The Contrasting Fortunes of Middle English Lyrics and Romances
This chapter examines the use of multiple languages, and particularly the co-existence of English and French items, in one and the same codex, focusing on miscellanies from the 13th to the 15th centuries. It argues that the question of whether scribes mixed French and English texts in manuscript miscellanies depended not just on chronology but also on the types of text they copied. To substantiate this case, I compare the situation of romances, which rarely circulated with French-language companions in manuscript, with those of lyrics, which mixed freely with French lyrics. The association of the lyric with francophone culture explains why English and French lyrics continued to be copied alongside each other in medieval manuscripts.
Keywords: multilingualism, Middle English romances, Middle English lyrics, French lyrics
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