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

13世纪中叶，一位名叫沃尔特·德·比伯斯沃思的埃塞克斯骑士用押韵的对联创造了一套非凡的法语词汇，学者们称之为“Tretiz”。在这部作品中，他列出了各种主题的词汇表，包括分娩和婴儿期，各种动植物的名称(其中有一个有趣的关于动物噪音的部分)，或者职业，如手推车制造和啤酒酿造。这部作品的16个手稿幸存下来，证明它在全国范围内广为流传。它们可以追溯到13世纪末到15世纪初(更多细节见视觉证据附件)。这些副本的长度和内容各不相同，在某些情况下差异很大，每一份都有自己的一套中古英语翻译的个别法语术语，要么写在页边空白处，要么写在行上。毕贝斯沃思的作品的受欢迎程度进一步证明了它似乎对后来在英国流通的法语学习材料产生了影响，包括15世纪改编的《Femina Nova》，其中包括完整的英语翻译和发音指南。因此，《Tretiz》的手稿是关于13世纪至15世纪之间法语是如何传播和获得的稀有而珍贵的文献，也是13世纪英国使用的拉丁语教育材料的(因为它的主要来源似乎是拉丁语)。每一份手稿都有自己的故事来讲述它的用户，他们的语言技能和需求，以及他们阅读毕贝斯沃思文本的方式往往截然不同。令人惊讶的是，对“Tretiz”的研究仍然很少，这一状况将得到这个项目的补救。其中心目标是编辑文本的全部16个手稿，并以网站的形式向学者和普通用户提供这些手稿。这个数字版本将允许用户通过比较个别手稿的阅读，将英语和法语相互隔离，并按日期、地点或主题搜索文本记录，从而使用户参与到材料中来。编辑和研究完整的文字记录将有可能汇集法语在英国不断发展的地位和作用的详细图景，每一份手稿都为个人用户打开了一扇门，这些用户的职业、社会地位或个人兴趣，由于不同的原因，需要掌握法语。除了这个在线版，额外的输出将自始至终提供对《Tretiz》的明确描述：它是如何创作的，它是如何被阅读的，以及它如何影响后来的法语作品。这项研究活动的累积结果将是将“Tretiz”置于关于法语在中世纪英国的地位的辩论的核心，这是一个学者们目前非常感兴趣的话题。该项目的更广泛的目的是提高公众意识，即经常被认为是一个单一语言国家的英国拥有悠久而持续的多语言传统--并找到方法利用这一传统造福于现代人口。中世纪法语的情况在某些方面是特殊的，特别是少数人在大约300年的时间里不间断地以母语为母语进行传播；然而，它提请人们注意掌握一种以上语言的常态和可取性。与学校教师一起举办的工作坊将旨在开发资源和策略，鼓励中学年龄的儿童在自己的课堂环境中使用多种语言，并考虑学校和大学的现代语言在拓宽视野和为他们的个人未来创造机会方面可以提供什么。一系列公众参与活动(包括对目标遗产团体和组织的公开演讲，以及印刷和广播媒体工作)将把中世纪英国多种语言的故事带给各种新的受众。

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.