Thomas O’Donnell & Jane Gilbert 
Medieval French Interlocutions 
Shifting Perspectives on a Language in Contact

Specialists in other languages offer perspectives on the widespread use of French in a range of contexts, from German courtly narratives to biblical exegesis in Hebrew.



French came into contact with many other languages in the Middle Ages: not just English, Italian and Latin, but also Arabic, Dutch, German, Greek, Hebrew, Irish, Occitan, Sicilian, Spanish and Welsh. Its movement was impelled by trade, pilgrimage, crusade, migration, colonisation and conquest, and its contact zones included Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities, among others. Writers in these contact zones often expressed themselves and their worlds in French; but other languages and cultural settings could also challenge, reframe or even ignore French-users’ prestige and self-understanding.


The essays collected here offer cross-disciplinary perspectives on the use of French in the medieval world, moving away from canonical texts, well-known controversies and conventional framings. Whether considering theories of the vernacular in Outremer, Marco Polo and the global Middle Ages, or the literary patronage of aristocrats and urban patricians, their interlocutions throw new light on connected and contested literary cultures in Europe and beyond.

Table of Content

List of Illustrations

Contributors

Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations


Introduction – Thomas O’Donnell, Jane Gilbert and Brian J. Reilly


1. Our Language and the Others: Old French Glosses in Berekhiah Ha-Naqdan’s
Uncle and Nephew and
Commentary on the Book of Job – Ruth Nisse

2. From Liutprand of Cremona to Robert de Clari: Wonder and the Translation of Knowledge Before and After the Crusader Conquest of Constantinople – Teresa Shawcross

3. Mixed Metaphors, Mixed Forms: Across Medieval Hebrew and French Prosimetra – Isabelle Levy

4. Deeds and Dialogue from a French-Irish Medieval Cultural Sphere – Máire Ní Mhaonaigh

5. The Presence of French in German Courtly Literature
c.1200 – Mark Chinca

6. Marco Polo and the Multilingual Middle Ages – Sharon Kinoshita

7. Romancing Allegory: Theories of the Vernacular in Outremer – Uri Zvi Shachar

8. ‘Dize en la estoria francesca’: The Circulation of Francophone Matter of Antiquity in Medieval Castile (
c.1200-1369) – Clara Pascual-Argente

9. Anxiety in the Contact Zone: The Debate of the Body and the Soul in late-medieval French and Occitan poetry – Catherine Léglu

10. The Uses of French in Medieval Wales – Georgia Henley

11. In Between Dutch and French: Multilingual Literary Patronage of the Flemish Nobility in the Fifteenth Century – Bart Besamusca and Lisa Demets

12. Sicilian Multilingualism and Cosmopolitan French – Karla Mallette


Bibliography

Index

About the author

THOMAS O’DONNELL is Associate Professor of English and Medieval Studies at Fordham University, New York, USA.