Anglo-French in the Thirteenth Century: A Reappraisal of Walter de Bibbesworth's <em>Tretiz</em>

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA) via the DOI in this record.The Tretiz of Walter de Bibbesworth has become an increasingly important touchstone in discussions of the position of French in medieval England. Yet the usual account of this text – as a functional defence of French in the face of the rise of English – relies on an adversarial model of language contact that does not reflect recent discoveries about medieval multilingualism in general and Anglo-French bilingualism in particular. Against this standard account, the present article argues that the Tretiz reflects an increasing confidence in the social and literary potential of French writing in the thirteenth century.Manuscript research used in this article was funded by the Neil Ker Memorial Fund