Learning French in Medieval England: The Manuscripts of Walter de Bibbesworth's 'Tretiz'

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In the mid-thirteenth century, an Essex knight named Walter de Bibbesworth composed a remarkable French vocabulary in rhyming couplets, known to scholars as the 'Tretiz'. In this work he set out the vocabulary for a variety of topics, including childbirth and infancy, the names of various flora and fauna (which features an entertaining section on animal noises), or occupations such as cart-making and beer-brewing.Sixteen manuscripts of this work survive, proof of its wide currency across the country. These date from the late thirteenth to the early fifteenth century (see Visual Evidence attachment for further details). These copies vary in length and content, in some cases significantly, and each one has its own set of Middle English translations of individual French terms, written either in the margin or above the line. The popularity of Bibbesworth's work is further attested by the influence it appears to have exerted over later French language-learning material circulating in Britain, including the fifteenth-century adaptation 'Femina Nova' which includes a full English translation and pronunciation guide.The manuscripts of the 'Tretiz' therefore stand as rare and precious documentation of how French was transmitted and acquired between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, and also (since its main sources appear to be Latin) of what Latin educational materials were in use in thirteenth-century Britain. Each manuscript has its own tale to tell about its users, their linguistic skills and needs, and the often contrasting ways in which they read Bibbesworth's text. Surprisingly, then, the 'Tretiz' remains little studied, a state of affairs which this project will remedy. Its central aim is to edit all sixteen manuscripts of the text and make these available to scholars and general users in the form of a website. This digital edition will allow users to engage with the material, by comparing readings from individual manuscripts, isolating the English and French from each other, and searching the textual record by date, place or theme. Editing and studying the complete textual record will make it possible to assemble a detailed picture of the evolving status and role of French in Britain, with each manuscript opening a door onto individual users, whose occupation, social standing or personal interests, for diverging reasons, required mastery of French. Alongside this online edition, additional outputs will offer a definitive account of the 'Tretiz' from start to finish: how it was created, how it was read, and how it influenced later works on the French language. The cumulative result of this research activity will be to place the 'Tretiz' at the heart of debate about the position of French in medieval Britain, a topic of great current interest to scholars.The project's wider intention is to increase public awareness that Britain, often thought of as a singularly monolingual country, has a long and ongoing tradition of multilingualism - and to find ways of exploiting that tradition for the benefit of its modern population. The case of medieval French is exceptional in certain ways, notably in the uninterrupted native transmission of a second mother tongue by a minority of the population for around 300 years; yet it draws attention to the normality and the desirability of mastering more than one language. Workshops with school teachers will aim to develop resources and strategies for encouraging secondary-age children to engage with multilingualism in their own classroom environment, and to consider what Modern Languages in schools and universities can offer in terms of widening horizons and creating opportunities for their personal futures. A series of public engagement activities (including public talks to targeted heritage groups and organisations and print and radio media work) will take the story of medieval British multilingualism to a variety of new audiences.