Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations and Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- General Introduction: What's in a Name: the ‘French’ of ‘England’
- Section I Language and Socio-Linguistics
- Section II Crossing the Conquest: New Linguistic and Literary Histories
- Section III After Lateran IV: Francophone Devotions and Histories
- Section IV England and French in the late Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
- Introduction
- 27 French, English, and the Late Medieval Linguistic Repertoire
- 28 Aristotle, Translation and the Mean: Shaping the Vernacular in Late Medieval Anglo-French Culture
- 29 Writing English in a French Penumbra: The Middle English ‘Tree of Love’ in MS Longleat 253
- 30 The French of English Letters: Two Trilingual Verse Epistles in Context
- 31 The Reception of Froissart's Writings in England: The Evidence of the Manuscripts
- 32 ‘Me fault faire’: French Makers of Manuscripts for English Patrons
- 33 The French Self-Presentation of an English Mastiff: John Talbot's Book of Chivalry
- 34 A ‘Frenche booke called the Pistill of Othea’: Christine de Pizan's French in England
- Bibliography
- Index of Primary Texts and Manuscripts
- Index of Primary Authors
- General Index: Persons and Places, Subjects
- YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS: PUBLICATIONS
28 - Aristotle, Translation and the Mean: Shaping the Vernacular in Late Medieval Anglo-French Culture
from Section IV - England and French in the late Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations and Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- General Introduction: What's in a Name: the ‘French’ of ‘England’
- Section I Language and Socio-Linguistics
- Section II Crossing the Conquest: New Linguistic and Literary Histories
- Section III After Lateran IV: Francophone Devotions and Histories
- Section IV England and French in the late Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
- Introduction
- 27 French, English, and the Late Medieval Linguistic Repertoire
- 28 Aristotle, Translation and the Mean: Shaping the Vernacular in Late Medieval Anglo-French Culture
- 29 Writing English in a French Penumbra: The Middle English ‘Tree of Love’ in MS Longleat 253
- 30 The French of English Letters: Two Trilingual Verse Epistles in Context
- 31 The Reception of Froissart's Writings in England: The Evidence of the Manuscripts
- 32 ‘Me fault faire’: French Makers of Manuscripts for English Patrons
- 33 The French Self-Presentation of an English Mastiff: John Talbot's Book of Chivalry
- 34 A ‘Frenche booke called the Pistill of Othea’: Christine de Pizan's French in England
- Bibliography
- Index of Primary Texts and Manuscripts
- Index of Primary Authors
- General Index: Persons and Places, Subjects
- YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS: PUBLICATIONS
Summary
One of the defining characteristics of late medieval Anglo-French court culture on both sides of the Channel is its attention to the importance of the mean expressed as interest in mediation and moderation in vernacular literature, chronicles, and governance texts. This culture did not invent intercession, a long-standing social and political practice in medieval Europe, but it valorized intercession as essential to good governance and, in developing the lexis of the mean and mediation, placed intercession within a newly widened network of terms and thought. Late medieval Anglo-French ideas of the mean drew inspiration from a variety of sources, particularly from a renewed interest in classical philosophy. The choice of the vernacular for ideas that might earlier have fallen within the purview of Latin, the traditional language of governance and philosophy, marks a major shift. In both English and French, exposition of sociopolitical ideas was explicitly part of an ongoing discussion about the role of vernaculars in translatio studii – in disseminating valuable learning more widely than Latin could – and, by implication, in translatio imperii, a claim to inherit the cultural imperium associated with Rome and Latin. Within these twin contexts of Anglo-French interest in translation and the existence of a shared vernacular discourse of the mean, this essay limns the outlines of an argument about how French and English translators self-consciously adapt and make vernacular Aristotelian ideas for contemporary audiences.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Language and Culture in Medieval BritainThe French of England, c.1100–c.1500, pp. 373 - 385Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2009