“Alle mine thegenas … frencisce & englisce”: The Languages of 1066 – And All That
French played a major, though not the only role, in the pervasive multilingualism of British history and culture. As Britain’s only medieval ‘global’ vernacular, it was also important to a wide range of people for their participation in external theatres of empire, trade, culture, conflict, and crusade. Displacing the long shadow of nineteenth-century nationalizing conceptions of language and their entrenchment in modern university disciplinary divisions, emerging histories of French in England and increasingly of French in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland offer new ways of understanding language and identity. These lectures trace francophone medieval Britain in a chronological sequence across its four main centuries, interpolating two thematic lectures on areas especially needing integration into our histories, medieval women and French in Britain, and French Bible translation in medieval England.
Date: 23 January 2025, 17:00
Venue: Examination Schools, 75-81 High Street OX1 4BG
Venue Details: South School
Speaker: Professor Jocelyn Wogan-Browne (Fordham University)
Organising department: Faculty of History
Part of: The James Ford Lectures 2025: French in Medieval Britain: Cultural Politics and Social History, c.1100-c.1500
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Public
Editor: Belinda Clark