Table Of ContentMultilingualism in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age
Fundamentals of Medieval
and Early Modern Culture
Edited by
Albrecht Classen and Marilyn Sandidge
Volume 17
Multilingualism
in the Middle Ages
and Early Modern Age
Communication and Miscommunication
in the Premodern World
Edited by Albrecht Classen
.
ISBN 978-3-11-047096-3
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-047144-1
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-047090-1
ISSN 1864-3396
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
© 2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck
♾ Printed on acid-free paper
Printed in Germany
www.degruyter.com
Table of Contents
Albrecht Classen
Multilingualism in the Middle Ages
Theoretical and Historical Reflections. An Introduction 1
Ken Mondschein
“Victor Victus”
Bilingualism, Biculturalism, and the Medieval Frontier 47
Gregory B. Kaplan
The Impact of Bilingualism and Diglossia in Cantabria (Spain) during Late
Antiquity 65
Diane Peters Auslander
“The Walling of New Ross,” 1265
Multilingualism, Ethnicity, and Urban Politics in Post-Invasion
Ireland 85
Charles W. Connell
The Power of Multilingualism in the Voices of Hildegard of Bingen 103
Yasmine Beale-Rivaya
At the Crossroads of Languages
The Linguistics Choices along Border Communities of the Reconquista in
the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries 127
Richard Ingham and Imogen Marcus
Vernacular Bilingualism in Professional Spaces, 1200 to 1400 145
János M. Bak
A Kingdom of Many Languages
Linguistic Pluralism in Medieval Hungary 165
K. A. Tuley
Multilingualism and Power in the Latin East 177
VI TableofContents
Susanna Niiranen
Apothecary’s Art as a Contact Zone in Late Medieval Southern France 207
Christine Cooper-Rompato
Xenoglossia and Multilingualism in Middle English Sermons on
Pentecost 233
Michael Ingham
Bi- and Multilingualism in the Early English Ballad
Francophone Influencesin the Development of the Ballad Genre in
Medieval England 249
Albrecht Classen
Multilingualism in Medieval Europe
Pilgrimage, Travel, Diplomacy, and Linguistic Challenges. The Case of Felix
Fabri and His Contemporaries 279
Helena Halmari and Timothy Regetz
Language Switching and Alliteration in Oxford, MS Bodley 649 313
Kimberly A. Eherenman
The Devil Is in the Details
How Fray Bernardino de Sahagún’s Trilingualism Missed the Mark in New
Spain 329
Thomas Willard
Hard Places
Paracelsian Neologisms and Early Modern Guides 355
Index 395
Albrecht Classen (The University of Arizona)
Multilingualism in the Middle Ages
Theoretical and Historical Reflections. An Introduction
Throughout human history two issues have always stood out as fundamental,
supporting and promoting society at large: languages and communication.¹
Therearemanycriteriatodefinehumanexistenceandculture,butthereisuni-
versal agreement that language provides us with more specific characteristics
than any other phenomenon in order to interact with our social environment
and context. It would probably be more accurate to talk in plural here, since
no language simply stands alone by itself, being completely free from external
influences. Even rigid language control cannot prevent a strong impact by sur-
roundingorneighboringlanguages,althoughsomeexceptions,likethelanguage
oftheBasques,Euskara,seemtoconfirmthisrule,sinceitwasneverinfluenced
by the Latin spoken by the colonizing Romans who were in full control of the
Iberian Peninsula since ca.19 B.C.E.
All languages serve individuals to communicate with others and hence
to create a human community. We would probably not be able to survive as
human beings without our ability to express our thoughts and feelings and to
exchange them with our fellow-beings. In other words, we must convey our
needs,fears,desires,ourhappinessandjoyinonewayortheother.Notsurpris-
ingly,oneoftheworstformsofpunishment,apartfromtortureandexecution,is
total isolation, the denial of the human contact, especially total silence,which
hasbeentragicallypracticedbothinthepastandalsointhepresent.²TheAus-
ThepresentvolumearoseoutofthreesessionsthatIhadorganizedandchairedattheth
InternationalCongressonMedievalStudiesatWesternMichiganUniversity,Kalamazoo,MI,May
.Unfortunately,severalspeakerslatercouldnotcontributetothevolume,butthenIcould
attractseveralothersinthecourseoftime.Thetopicofmultilingualismcancertainlycountas
anotherfundamentaloneforourunderstandingoftheMiddleAgesandthepre-modernworld.
I am most thankful to all contributors for their great work, and am very grateful for their
patiencewithmyeditorialinquiriesandrequests.Mysincerethanksalsogototheeditorialstaff
at Walter de Gruyter in Berlin for their valuable assistance in getting this volume to print.
BruceA.Arrigo,HeatherY.Bersot,andBrianG.Sellers,TheEthicsofTotalConfinement:ACri-
tiqueofMadness,Citizenship,andSocialJustice.AmericanPsychology-LawSocietySeries(Ox-
ford:OxfordUniversityPress,);LisaGuenther,SolitaryConfinement:SocialDeathandIts
Afterlives (Minneapolis:Universityof Minnesota Press, ); Derek S.Jeffreys, Spirituality in
Dark Places: The Ethics of Solitary Confinement. Content and Context in Theological Ethics
(NewYork:PalgraveMacmillan,).Forastrongstatementevensupportingsolitaryconfine-
mentintheeighteenthcentury,seeJosiahDornford,Esq,NineLetterstotheRightHonorablethe
DOI10.1515/9783110470963-001
2 AlbrechtClassen
trianwriter StefanZweig (1881–1942) providesan excruciatingexamplefor this
topic in his famous novella“Chess Story” (1942),³ but we can go much further
back in order to learn more about the dangers and conflicts involved in
human language and,vice versa, its absence, which we might identify simply
with silence, hence death. Of course, there can be a type of spiritual silence,
such as in monasteries, but that silence then is supposed to supplant the
usual communication with other people with a communication with God.⁴
However, before we proceed further, let us make clear that human ideas,
feelings, or concerns can be formulated in many different ways, hence not
only by means of spoken or written words and sentences. ‘Language’ or rather
communication can consist of gestures, mimicry, images, sounds, knots, or
music, as long as any of those media allows the individual to communicate in
an efficient manner. This requires, of course, a mutual agreement that any of
those signs, gestures, images,or words really mean what they are supposed to
convey,andthat the receivers understandthosesignalsaccordingly.⁵The Span-
ish medieval poet Juan Ruiz, author of the famous fourteenth-century Libro de
buen amor, which I will discuss at the end of this essay, explicitly indicated
LordMayorandAldermenoftheCityofLondon,OntheStateofthePrisonsandPrisonersWithin
TheirJurisdictionShewingtheNecessityofaReformofThem:UrgingtheGreatAdvantageofSoli-
taryConfinement,andtheTreatingofPrisonerswithHumanity:WithObservationsontheBuilding
oftheNewCompters,andSomeExtractsofMr.Howard’sProposedImprovements:ToWhichis
Added anAccount of theDeathsofRob. May, Eliz.Gurney&T.Trimer, Who“DiedforWant in
thePoultryCompter”(London:PrintedbyJ.Andrews,);seealsoThePrisoner’sCompanion
ContainingReligiousandMoralAdvice,AdaptedtoPersonsinSolitaryConfinement(London:Sold
byDodsley,andSewell,[]).
AlbrechtClassen,“ChessinMedievalGermanLiterature:AMirrorofSocial-HistoricalandCul-
tural,Religious,Ethical,andMoralConditions,”ChessintheMiddleAgesandEarlyModernAge:
AFundamentalThoughtParadigmofthePremodernWorld,ed.DanielE.O’Sullivan.Fundamen-
talsofMedievalandEarlyModernCulture,(BerlinandNewYork:DeGruyter,),–;
seealsotheveryusefularticle,providingaplotsummaryandhistoricalbackgroundathttps://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Royal_Game(lastaccessedonAug.,).
ScottG.Bruce,SilenceandSignLanguageinMedievalMonasticism:TheCluniacTraditionc.
–. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, th ser., (Cambridge and
New York: Cambridge University Press, ). Cf. also Volker Roloff, Reden und Schweigen:
zurTraditionundGestaltungeinesmittelalterlichenThemasinderfranzösischenLiteratur.Münch-
enerromanistischeArbeiten,(Munich:Fink,);UweRuberg,BeredtesSchweigeninlehrh-
afterunderzählenderdeutscherLiteraturdesMittelalters:mitkommentierterErsteditionspätmit-
telalterlicherLehrtexteüberdasSchweigen.MünsterscheMittelalter-Schriften,(Munich:Fink,
).
SeetheintroductiontoWordsofLoveandLoveofWordsintheMiddleAgesandtheRenais-
sance,ed.AlbrechtClassen.MedievalandRenaissanceTextsandStudies,(Tempe:Arizona
CenterforMedievalandRenaissanceStudies,).
MultilingualismintheMiddleAges 3
that this very form of agreement could be lacking,which hence could lead to
major misunderstanding.⁶
TurningtoGenesisintheOldTestament,wefindthefamousexampleofThe
TowerofBabel,in11:1–9.⁷Theoriginofalllanguagesisassumedtohavebeena
universal medium of communication, and this in conformity with ancient, Pla-
tonic,philosophyaccordingtowhichallphenomenainthisworldaretheresult
of an evolutionary process, moving from the one harmonious origin to an end-
lessplethoraoffutureentities,thatis,fromtheseedtotheflower,forinstance,
ortotheGoodbeingtheoriginandalsogoalofallthingsandbeings(Boethius,
d.525).
However,asthebiblicalauthorinformsus:“Theysaidtoeachother,‘Come,
let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.’ They used brick instead of stone,
and tar for mortar.Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city,with a
tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves;
otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.’” Once God re-
alized the danger of global hubris involved in erecting the tower for mankind,
which was possible because all people spoke just one language, He confused
their languages and thus broke them all apart: “So the Lord scattered them
from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why
it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the
Foradiscussionofgestures,signs,andsymbolicobjects,seeMarinaMünklerandMatthias
Standke, “Freundschaftszeichen: Einige systematische Überlegungen zu Gesten, Gaben und
Symbolen von Freundschaft,” Freundschaftszeichen: Gesten, Gaben und Symbole von Freund-
schaftimMittelalter,ed.MarinaMünkler,AntjeSablotny,andMatthiasStandke.Beiheftezum
Euphorion,(Heidelberg:UniversitätsverlagWinter,),–.Theydonotdiscuss,how-
ever,multilingualfeatures.SeealsoJ.A.Burrow,GesturesandLooksinMedievalNarrative.Cam-
bridgeStudiesinMedievalLiterature,(CambridgeandNewYork:CambridgeUniversityPress,
);Gestures,Behaviors,andEmotionsintheMiddleAges,ed.AllenJ.Frantzen.EssaysinMe-
dievalStudies,(Chicago,IL:IllinoisMedievalAssociation,).
HolyBible,NewInternationalVersion®,NIV®Copyright©,,,byBibli-
ca, Inc.®: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%:- (last accessed
onAug.,).Cf.alsoTheVulgateBible.Vol.:ThePentateuch.Douay-RheimsTranslation,
ed.SwiftEdgar.DumbartonOaksMedievalLibrary(Cambridge,MA,andLondon:HarvardUni-
versityPress, ). See now Phillip MichaelSherman,Babel’s Tower Translated:Genesis
andAncient JewishInterpretation.BiblicalInterpretationSeries, (Boston: Brill,);for
theongoingpoliticalimplicationsofthistopic,seeLanguageandTechnology:FromtheTower
ofBabeltotheGlobalVillage(Brussels:OfficeforOfficialPubl.oftheEuropeanCommunities,
).Foradiscussionofthemedievalperspective,seeArnoBorst,DerTurmbauvonBabel:
GeschichtederMeinungenüberUrsprungundVielfaltderSprachenundVölker.vols.(Stuttgart:
Hiersemann,–).
4 AlbrechtClassen
whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole
earth” (Gen.11:8–9).
Sincethattime,asthismythological,ordivinelyinspired,accountindicates,
peoplespokedifferentlanguages,and,asaresultofthat,problemsandconflicts
emerged that continue to dominate even the modern world. In other words, as
the biblical author clearly recognized, language and languages prove to be the
criticalbenchmarkofallhumanexistence.Thepersonorinstitutionthatcontrols
languages,thatis,thatcanspeakmanylanguages,oremploystheminatleasta
mechanicalfashion,alsocontrolstheworld.Today,ofcourse,wehaveavailable
anevergrowingnumberofcomputer-basedgadgetsandsoftwareprogramsthat
allow us to have our words and sentences translated mechanically into almost
anylanguage,but this does not mean at all that most people have the commu-
nicativemeansavailabletobuildbridgestoanyothersocialcommunity—onthe
contrary. In one sense,the European Middle Ages were blessed in having Latin
availableasthelinguafrancaatleastforallintellectuals.Frenchenjoyedafairly
similarstatusfromtheseventeenththroughthenineteenthcentury,andEnglish,
today specifically American English, does the same. But in another sense, as
manyliteraryworksfromthepre-moderneraalreadyindicatetous,thisspecific
situation did not make communication anyeasier.⁸
Allthis pertains totheissueofcommunication,butnot tobi-andmultilin-
gualism,whichcontinuestomattergreatly,andseemstogaininimportanceall
the time in our present world considering the massive number of immigrants
from the south to the north and the west, which creates a challenging mix of
Indo-EuropeanwithArabicandmanyotherlanguages.Thesemillionsofpeople
mostlyarriveasmonolinguals,orasspeakersofseverallanguagesnotrelatedto
Indo-European,buttheyarequicklyforcedtoacquirethenewlanguageinorder
to communicate with the new social environment, whether they achieve true
mastery in the new language/s or not.
Thehugenumberofdistinctlanguages(atleastca.6000)andofdialects(at
leastca.24,000)spokenallovertheworldismind-boggling,allofthemconfirm-
ing the virtually endless capacities of the human brain, ever creating new lan-
guages and evolving old ones.⁹ Every language is exposed to a constantly on-
Albrecht Classen, Verzweiflung und Hoffnung: Die Suche nach der kommunikativen Gemein-
schaftinderdeutschenLiteraturdesMittelalters.BeiheftezurMediaevistik,(Frankfurta.M.,
Berlin,etal.:PeterLang,).
OliverM.Traxel,“Languages,”HandbookofMedievalCulture:FundamentalAspectsandCon-
ditionsoftheEuropeanMiddleAges,ed.AlbrechtClassen(BerlinandBoston:WalterdeGruyter,
),vol. , –. Cf. also the very useful Metzler Lexikon Sprache, ed. Helmut Glück
(StuttgartandWeimar:J.B.Metzler,).
Description:Uploaded by Studiosus. Enjoy!
