LAF: Learning Anglo-French: French Language-Learning Manuscripts in Britain, c.1200-c.1500

French in medieval Britain was both a language of culture and a second vernacular. This unusual situation makes it a key case study for grasping how multilingual societies work. Yet the means by which the language was transmitted in Britain are still poorly understood. Learning Anglo-French (LAF) draws on recent methodological advances to address vital questions about the history of vernacular language acquisition and multilingualism in medieval Britain; simultaneously, it explores how far it is now possible to go in analysing medieval manuscripts and uncovering their hidden histories. Its central corpus is a group of over fifty manuscripts made in Britain between the 13th and 15th centuries containing texts used to teach French.

LAF presents two notable innovations. First, its focus on manuscripts diverges from current scholarly practice, which tends to approach French language-learning materials as individual texts abstracted from their material contexts. In LAF, each manuscript will be understood as containing a specific programme of French learning, with relevant materials grouped together in differing constellations that are yet to be studied cohesively. Second, the manuscripts will be subjected to holistic analysis at a level that has rarely been attempted for any medieval materials, with results integrated into an open-access database and disseminated through high-profile publications. The analyses envisaged will include digital codicology, linguistic analysis and DNA and protein analysis. Together, these investigations will uncover concrete answers to problems that have historically appeared intractable yet crucial: Where was French being learned? What kind of French? How, by whom, and in what contexts? The presentation of data in interactive and searchable formats will enable the formulation of new research questions across a range of fields, including Modern Languages,
English Studies, History, Codicology, Education, Linguistics and Archaeology.