The Manières de langage as Evidence for the Use of Spoken French within Fifteenth-Century England

Abstract

This article examines what a group of medieval conversation manuals designed to teach spoken French to the English – the manières de langage – can tell us about the use of spoken French within late medieval England. Beginning with the observation that several of the manières dialogues are set in England, it argues that the manières model the French required to interact with three groups of in-coming French-speakers on English soil: travellers, merchants and artisans, and agricultural labourers. The approach pursued complements previous studies of the manières, including my own, which have established their fitness for preparing English learners of French to use French on the Continent. At the same time as the argument addresses the topics of French pedagogy and French acquisition in late medieval England, it thus also contributes to developing understandings of late medieval English multilingualism and of intercultural contact within late medieval England.