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

Abstract

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.