Chapter II: The Fifteenth Century (2)

For to aske the waye.
Pour demander le chemin.
Frende, God save you.
Amy, Dieu vous sauve.
Whiche is the ryght waye
Quelle est la voye droite
For to goo from hens to Parys?
Pour aller d'icy a Paris?
Syr, ye muste holde the waye on the ryght hande.
Sire, il vous fault tenir le chemin a la droite main.
Now saye me, my frende,
Or me ditez, mon amy,
Yf that any good lodginge
Y a il point de bon logis
Be betwixt this and the next vyllage?
Entre cy et ce prochayn village?
There is a ryght good one.
Il en y a ung tres bon.
Ye shall be there ryght well lodged,
Vous serez tres bien logé,
Ye & also your horse.
Vous et aussi vostre chevaul.
My frende, God yelde it you,
Mon ami, Dieu vous le rende,
And I shall doo an other tyme
Et ie feraye ung aultre foiz
As moche for you and I maye.
Autant pour vous se ie puis.
God be with you.
Dieu soit avecques vous.

The passage proceeds to describe, always in the form of a dialogue, the traveller's arrival at the inn, his entertainment there, and his departure:

Dame, shall I be here well lodged?
Dame, seroy ie icy bien logé?
Ye syr, ryght well.
Ouy sire, tres bien.
Nowe doo me have a good chambre
Or me faites avoir ungue bonne chambre
And a good fyre,
Et bon feu,
And doo that my horse
Et faites que mon chevaul
Maye be well governed,
Puisse estre bien gouverné,
And gyve hym good hay and good otes.
Et lui donnés bon foin et bon avoine.
Dame, is all redy for to dyne?
Dame, est tout prest pour aller digner?
Ye syr, whan it please you.
Oui sire, quant il vous plaise.
Syr, moche good do it you.
Sire, bon preu vous face.
I praye you make good chere
Je vous prie faictez bonne chere
And be mery, I drynke to you.
Et soyez ioieux, ie boy a vous.
Now, hostes, saye me how moche have we spende at this dyner.
Hostesse, or me dites combien nous avons despendu a ce digner.
I shall tell you with a good wyll.
Je vous le diray voulentiers.
Ye have in alle eyght shelyngs.
Vous avez en tout huyt solz.
Nowe well holde your sylver and gramercy.
Or bien tenez vostre argent et grandmercy.
Do my horse come to me.
Or me faittz venir mon cheval.
Is he sadled and redy for to ryde?
Est il sellé et appointé pour chevaucher?
Ye syr, all redy.
Ouy sire, tout prest.
Now fare well and gramercy.
Or adiu et grandmercy.

Here the 'manière de langage' ends. It is followed by a list of nouns arranged under headings. The enumeration begins with the parts of the body,[125] followed by the clothing and armour--a list containing valuable information on the fashions of the time; then come the natural phenomena, the sun, the stars, water, the winds, and so on; the products of the earth and the food they supply, and finally, the names of the days of the week. With the exception of the last page, each word is preceded by a possessive adjective or an article indicating its gender. The English rendering is sometimes placed above the French word, sometimes opposite.

After the vocabulary, which covers nearly five pages, comes the courtesy book in English and French, occupying the next seven pages. It is a reprint of the _Lytylle Chyldrenes Lytil Boke_,[126] which contains a set of maxims for discreet behaviour at meals, in which children are told not to snatch meat from the table before grace is said; not to throw bones on the floor; nor pick their teeth with their knife; nor do many other things, which, when we remember that such books were intended for the instruction of the gentry, throw interesting sidelights on contemporary manners. The inclusion of such precepts for children in a text-book for teaching French was not without precedent; in the last of the series of riming vocabularies, _Femina_ (1415), there is a collection of moral maxims taken, in this instance, from the ancient writers, and printed in Latin, French, and English.

In conclusion, the author reverts to the more strictly commercial side of the treatise, with two letters, given in both French and English. One is from an apprentice who writes to his master reporting on some business he is transacting at Paris, and asking for more money. In the second a merchant communicates to his 'gossip' the news of the arrival at London and Southampton of ships laden with rich merchandise, and proposes that they should "find means and ways in this that their shops shall be well stuffed of all manner of merchandise." In both these letters the English comes first:

_A prentyse wryteth to his mayster, fyrste in Englysshe and after
in frensshe._[127]

Ryght worshypful syr, I recommaunde me unto you as moche as I may,
and please you wete that I am in ryght goode helth thanked be God.
To whome I praye that so it may be of you and of all your good
frendes. As for the mater for the whiche ye sent me to Parys, I
have spoken with kynges advocate the which sayd to me I must go to
the kynge and enfourme his royalle majeste thereof, and have
specyal commaundement. Therfore consyderynge the tyme I have taryed
at Parys in the pursute of this and the grete coste and expence
done bycause of this. Please you for to knowe that for to pursue
that mater unto the kyng, the which is at Monthason next Tours, and
for to go thyder it is nedefull to sende me some monye and with the
grace of God I shalle do suche dylygence that I shall gete your
hertes desyre. No more wryte I to you at this tyme but God have you
in hys protectyon. Wryten hastely the XIX daye of this moneth.

Tres honnoré sire, ie me recommande a vous tant comme je puis, et
plaise vous savoir que ie suis en tres bonne santé la marcy Dieu au
quel ie prie que ainsi soit il de vous et de tous vos bons amys.
Quant pour la matiere pour la quelle vous me envoiastes a Parys,
g'ay parlé avec l'advocat du roy le quel m'a dit quil me fault
aller au roy et advertir sa royalle maiesté de ce et ay un specyal
commandement. Pource consyderant le temps que j'ay attendu a Paris
en cest poursuite et lez granz costz et despens faitz par cause de
ce. Plaise vous savoir que pour poursuir ceste matiere au roy, le
qyel est a Monthason pres Tours, et pour aller la il est mestier de
m'enuoyer de l'argent. Et avecques la grace de Dieu je feray telle
diligence que aurez ce que vostre cueur desire. Aultre chos ne vous
escripz a ceste foiz mays que Dieu vous ayt en sa protection.
Escript hastivement le dixneufieme jour du moys.

And so ends this interesting little book.[128] The texts of the two complete editions are in the main identical. The arrangement of the matter on the pages is different, and the spelling of the words, both French and English, varies considerably. Slips which occur in Pynson's text, such as the rendering of 'neuf' by 'ten,' or the accidental omission of a word in the French version, are sometimes corrected in Wynkyn's version. On the other hand, similar mistakes, though much fewer in number, are found in Wynkyn's edition and not in Pynson's; while yet others are common to both the printers. Dialect forms are scattered through the two editions with equal capriciousness. Both texts contain a few anglo-normanisms. Pynson's shows numerous characteristics of the North-Eastern dialects, Picard or Lorrain, but at times there is a Picard form in Wynkyn's version, where the pure French form occurs in the other. Apart from such variations, the wording of the two editions is usually similar. In cases where it differs, the improvements are found in Wynkyn's edition, in spite of the fact that, as a general rule, the output of Pynson's press reaches a higher literary level than that of the more business-like Alsatian. This exception may, no doubt, be explained by the fact that Pynson was the first to print the _Good Book to learn to speak French_.[129] Yet here again mistakes are sometimes common to both texts, as, for instance, the rendering of the lines:

For the clerks that the seven arts can
Sythen that courtesy from heaven came,

by the French:

Pour les clers qui les sept arts savent
Puisque courtoisie de paradis vint,

in which the wrong interpretation of the English 'for' (conjunction) and 'sythen' (taken as meaning 'since,' not 'say') destroys the sense.

On the whole, the impression conveyed by the perusal of the two editions is that the work is a compilation of treatises already in existence in manuscript. Neither the letters nor the vocabulary present any strikingly new features. The origin of the courtesy book is known, and it is even possible that the fragment of one leaf preserved belongs, not to another edition of the _Good Book to learn to speak French_, but to an earlier edition of the courtesy book in French and English, printed probably by Caxton, with the intention of imparting a knowledge of polite behaviour and of the favourite language of polite society at the same time. The fact that it reproduces the original courtesy book more fully than does either of the complete texts of Wynkyn and Pynson, suggests that it belonged to some such edition, or to an edition of the _Good Book_ earlier than either of these. As to the dialogues, they may have belonged to the group of conversational manuals, which were, no doubt, fairly numerous. Caxton, while maintaining that his 'doctrine' contains more than "many other books," adds: "That which cannot be found declared in it, shall be found elsewhere in other books." That such practical little books shared the fate of the great majority of school manuals is not surprising.

The hypothesis that the work is a compilation of older treatises would, moreover, explain the variations in the quality of the French. The dialogues and letters, it would appear, were in the first place written by Englishmen. Pynson corrected them here and there, without, however, eliminating all the anglicisms, archaisms, and provincial forms; and when they passed through the hands of Wynkyn they underwent still further emendation. The English version contains gallicisms, just as the French contains anglicisms,[130] which were, however, probably due to a desire to make the English tally with the French. This same supposition also makes it easier to understand how it came about that the treatise was printed by the two rival printers within the space of a few years, and explains how it was they repeated the same obvious mistakes.

Thus, of the matter found in the mediaeval treatises for teaching French, grammar rules alone are unrepresented in this _Good Book_. Its aim is entirely practical. It seeks to teach those who wish to "lerne to _speke_ Frensshe" for practical purposes, that is, "to do their merchaundise," and there is no mention of any deeper or wider knowledge of the language. That the work was intended for the use of children as well as for merchants is shown by the introduction of the courtesy book, and, in the later edition, of the favourite frontispiece for children's school-books described above. But these do not form a vital part of the work itself, and are mere supplements, added probably with the intention of increasing the public to which the book would appeal. The children who used it, we may assume, would probably be of the class of the boy, "John, enfant beal et sage," who appears in the 'manière' of 1415, and learns French that he may the more quickly achieve his end of being apprenticed to a London merchant. To such children the apprentice's letter quoted above would be of much interest.

Grammar did not hold a very large place in the teaching of French at this time. Practice and conversation were the usual methods of acquiring a knowledge of spoken French, and no doubt such books as those of Caxton and of Pynson and Wynkyn de Worde found many eager students. The two editions of the first and the three editions of the second with which we are acquainted, all of which probably appeared in the course of the last decade of the fifteenth century, bear testimony to this. Reference has already been made to the probable existence of numerous works of a similar scope in manuscript, and later in print. Such were the "little pages, set in print, with no precepts," to which Claude Holyband, the most popular French teacher of London in the second half of the sixteenth century, refers with contempt; he accuses them of wandering from the 'true phrase' of the language, and of teaching nothing of the reading and pronunciation, "which is the chiefest point to be considered in that behalf," and hence of serving but little to the "furtherance of the knowledge of the French tongue." Yet, though such was the case in all these early works, they seem, without exception, to have enjoyed great popularity at the time they were written, when to speak French fluently was an all-important matter. The difficulty of this accomplishment was realised to the full. We find it expressed in a few disconnected sentences added in French probably at the beginning of the sixteenth century, at the end of the 'manière de langage' of 1396: "We need very long practice before we are able to speak French perfectly," says the anonymous writer, evidently an Englishman, "for the French and English do not correspond word for word, and the fine distinctions are difficult to seize." He proceeds to urge the necessity of a glib tongue in making progress in French, and quotes the case of an unfortunate man, good fellow though he might otherwise be, who lacked this faculty: "Il ne luy avient plus a parler franceis qu'à une vache de porter une selle, a cause que sa langue n'est pas bien afilée, et pour cela n'entremette il pas à parler entre les fraunceis."

In the early part of the sixteenth century, however, French began to be studied with more thoroughness in England. Communication with France and the tour in France were no longer fraught with the same dangers and difficulties, and favoured the use of a purer form of French. Fluent was no longer sufficient without correct pronunciation and grammar. The standard of French taught was also raised by the arrival of numerous Frenchmen, who made the teaching of their language the business of their lives. Further, the spread of the art of printing had rendered French literature more accessible, and supplied a rich material from which the rules of the language might be deduced. And so it became possible for John Palsgrave, the London teacher and student of Paris, to complete the first great work on the French language, in which, however, he did not forget to render due homage to his humble predecessors,[131] then fast passing into oblivion.

FOOTNOTES:

[75] Freeman, _Norman Conquest_, ii., 1868, pp. 16 _sqq._, 28 _sqq._

[76] _Manière de Langage_, 1396; cp. _infra_, p. 35.

[77] "Doulz françois qu'est la plus bel et la plus gracious language et plus noble parler, apres latin d'escole, qui soit au monde."

[78] Jehan Barton, _Donait François_, _c._ 1400.

[79] "Afin qu'ils puissent entrecomuner bonement ove lour voisin c'est a dire les bones gens du roiaume de France, et ainsi pour ce que les leys d'Engleterre pour le graigneur partie et ainsi beaucoup de bones choses sont misez en François, et aussi bien pres touz les sirs et toutes les dames en mesme roiaume d'Engleterre volentiers s'entrescrivent en romance--tresnecessaire je cuide estre aus Englois de scavoir la nature de François."

[80] Which no doubt became more numerous, as English, rather than Latin, became the medium through which French was learnt. Thus we find _pour honte_ written for 'for shame'; _il est haut temps_, for 'it is high time'; _quoi_ ('why') for _pourquoi_; _de les_ for _des_, and so on.

[81] Edited from a unique MS. in Trinity College, Cambridge, by W. Aldis Wright, for the Roxburghe Club, 1909 (Camb. Univ. Press). G. Hickes published part of the first chapter, with remarks on its philological value, in his _Linguarum Veterum Septentrionalium Thesaurus Grammatico-Criticus et Archaeologicus_, Oxford, 1705, i. pp. 144-151.

[82] "Liber iste vocatur femina quia sicut femina docet infantem loqui maternam, sic docet iste liber iuvenes rethorice loqui Gallicum prout infra patebit."

[83] P. Meyer, _Romania_, xxxii. pp. 43 _et seq._

[84] The English spelling, very corrupt in the original, is here modernized.

[85] These MSS. have been described and classified by J. Stürzinger, _Altfranzösische Bibliothek_, viii. pp. v-x.

[86] Brit. Mus. Harl. MS. 4971; Addit. MS. 11716, and Camb. Univ. Libr. MS. Ee 4, 20.

[87] Camb. Univ. Libr. MSS. Dd 12, 23. and Gg 6, 44.

[88] P. Meyer, _Romania_, xv. p. 262.

[89] Brit. Mus. Sloane MS. 513, pp. 135-138.

[90] Brit. Mus. Sloane MS. 513, fol. 139.

[91] There is a fragment, very indistinct, on French pronunciation in the Brit. Mus. MS. Harl. 4971: _Modus pronunciandi dictiones in Gallicis_.

[92] Cp. also the Brit. Mus. Addit MS. 17716, fol. 100.

[93] Camb. Univ. Libr. MS., Ee 4, 20; Oxford, All Souls, MS. 182.

[94] Brit. Mus. MS. Harl. 4971; MS. Addit. 17716 (preceding the observations on pronouns and verbs mentioned above); Camb. Univ. Libr., Ee 4, 20; Oxford Magdalen College, MS. 188, and All Souls, MS. 182.

[95] Published by Stengel, _op. cit._ pp. 25-40, from MS. 182 of All Souls, Oxford.

[96] Brunot, _op. cit._ i. p. 376.

[97] "A le honneur de Dieu et de sa tresdoulce miere et toutz les saintez de paradis, je Johan Barton, escolier de Paris, née et nourie toutes foiez d'Engleterre en la conté de Cestre, j'ey baillé aus avantdiz Anglois un Donait françois pur les briefment entroduyr en la droit language du Paris et de pais la d'entour la quelle language en Engleterre on appelle doulce France. Et cest Donat je le fis la fair a mes despenses et tres grande peine par pluseurs bons clercs du language avantdite."

[98] Brunot, _op. cit._ i. p. 376.

[99] "Cy endroit il fault prendre garde qu'en parlant François on ne mette pas une personne pour une aultre si come font les sottez gens, disantz ainsi _je ferra_ pour _je ferray_. . . ."

[100] We pass from the numbers of nouns to the person of verbs, then to the genders and kinds (proper, appellative) of nouns and their cases, six in number on the analogy of Latin, which is naturally the basis of the terminology of this work and all others for many years after; then come observations on the degrees of comparison, after which we return to the verbs, and their moods and tenses. The following sections deal with the parts of speech; the four indeclinables (adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections) are merely mentioned. Nouns, adjectives, and pronouns receive some attention, but the chief subject is the verb: "Cy maintenant nous vous baillerons un exemple coment vous fourmeres touz les verbs françois du monde, soient-ils actifez, soient-ils passivez, en quelque meuf ou temps qu'ils soient. Et ceste exemple serra pour cest verbe _jeo aime_. . . ." But the verbs are not classified, and only a few of the best known are conjugated as examples. In the list of impersonal verbs which closes the treatise, English is sometimes used to explain their meaning: "Me est avis, _Me seemth_."

[101] J. Bale, _Illustrium Maioris Britanniae scriptorum summarium_. Ipswich, 1548, p. 203.

[102] _Dict. Nat. Biog._, ad nom.

[103] Preserved in a considerable number of MSS.: Brit. Mus. (Harl. 3988, Addit. 17716), Oxford (All Souls, 182), Camb. Univ. Libr. (Bd 12, 23), and in Sir Thomas Philipps's Library at Cheltenham (MS. No. 8188). The earliest (Harl. 3988) was published by P. Meyer in the _Revue Critique_, 1873, pp. 373-408.

[104] The name of Kirmington, which occurs at the end, is no doubt that of the copyist.

[105] _Athenaeum_, Oct. 5, 1878: article by Stengel.

[106] Published by Stengel, _op. cit._ pp. 12-15.

[107] Stengel, _Athenaeum_, Oct. 5, 1878. Coyfurelly also rehandled the _Tractatus Orthographiae_ of 'T. H., Student of Paris.'

[108] Ed. Paul Meyer, _Romania_, xxxii. pp. 49-58. It exists in three MSS.; at the end of _Femina_ in Camb. Univ. Libr. (Dd 12, 23), at Trinity Col. Camb. (B 14. 39, 40), and in the Brit. Mus. (Addit. 17716).

[109] French, however, still had some standing at Oxford at this date.

[110] Preserved in Cambridge University Library.

[111] Containing such anglicisms as the rendering of 'already' by _tout prest_.

[112] Such collections exist in MSS. Harl. 4971 and Addit. 17716, Brit. Mus.; and in Ee 4, 20, Camb. Univ. Libr.

[113] Harl. 4971; cp. Stürzinger, _op. cit._ p. xvi.

[114] Early bibliographers seem to have been uncertain as to what category it belonged to: for some time it was called a _Book for Travellers_; then a _Vocabulary in French and English_ (Blades, _Life and Typography of Wm. Caxton_, 1861-63), and finally by the more appropriate title of _Dialogues in French and English_.

[115] Caxton's edition contains ff. 24, with about 24 lines on a page. There are three complete texts extant (at Ripon Cathedral, Rylands Library, and Bamborough Castle), and one fragmentary one (in the Duke of Devonshire's Library). The Ripon copy was reprinted for the Early English Text Society in 1900, by H. Bradley (extra series lxxix.). The other edition, of which a fragment exists in the Bodleian, was probably printed by Wynkyn de Worde (W. C. Hazlitt, _Handbook ... to the Literature of Great Britain_, 1867, p. 631).

[116] Published from a MS. in the Bibliothèque Nationale, by M. Michelant: _Le Livre des Mestiers, dialogues français-flamands, composés au 14e siècle par un maître d'école de la ville de Bruges_. Paris, 1875.

[117] H. Bradley: Introduction to the edition of Caxton's _Dialogues_.

[118] Caxton's arrangement of the French and English in opposite columns is no doubt accounted for by the fact that he wrote the English version by the side of the French in his copy of the original phrase book.

[119] E. G. Duff, _A Century of the English Book Trade_, Bibliographical Soc., 1905; and _Handlists of Books Printed by London Printers_, Bibliog. Soc., 1913, ad nom. The work is here given the inappropriate title of a "Vocabulary in French and English."

[120] It was to have been reprinted by H. B. Wheatley in a collection of early grammars, for the Early English Text Society.

[121] W. C. Hazlitt, _Bibliographical Collections and Notes_, 3rd series, London, 1887, p. 293.

[122] For instance, the _Cato cum commento_ (1514), _Stans puer ad mensam_ (1516), and _Vulgaria Stanbrigi_ (_c._ 1520).

[123] "What shalt thou do when thou haste an englyssh to be made in Latine? I shall reherce myn englyssh fyrst, ones, twyces, and loke out my princypal verbe, and aske hym this questyon _who_ or _what_. And that worde that answeryth to the questyon shall be the nomynatif case to the verbe."

[124] In the British Museum Catalogue Wynkyn's edition is dated 1493? and Pynson's 1500?; the year 1500? is also put forward as the date for the fragmentary edition. W. C. Hazlitt dates Wynkyn's edition at about the year 1498, and Pynson's at about 1492-3 (_Bibliographical Collections_, _ut supra_, and _Handbook_, London, 1867, p. 210).

[125]

My heres.
Mes cheveulx.
My browes.
Mez sourcieulx.
Myn eres.
Mez oreilles.
Myn teeth.
Mez dens.
My forhede.
Mon front.
Myn eyen.
Mez yeulx.
My nose.
Mon nez.
My tong.
Ma langue . . . etc.

[126] Published by E. J. Furnivall, _Manners and Meals in Olden Time_, 1868, pp. 16 _sqq._ The MS. used by the compiler of the French manual was no doubt of a later date than the one here printed.

[127] Pp. 19-20 _in fine_.

[128] It contains 11 quarto leaves, of the size of the time, with usually 29 lines to a page.

[129] Thus in Pynson's edition the order of the personal pronouns before the verb is often inverted ("le vous diray," "le vous rende"), while it is correct in Wynkyn's; and some lines of the French version of the courtesy book are almost unintelligible, whereas their meaning is clearly expressed by Wynkyn.

[130] Such phrases as "say me my friend" for _dites-moi mon ami_; "do me have a good chamber" for _faites-moi avoir une bonne chambre_.

[131] In addition to the works already mentioned, some reference to these mediaeval treatises is also found in an article by H. Oelsner, in the _Athenaeum_ (Feb. 11, 1905); in A. Way's edition of the _Promptorium Parvulorum_ (Camden Soc., 1865, No. 89; Appendix, pp. xxvii _sqq._ and pp. lxxi _sqq._); Ellis, _Original Letters_, 3rd series, ii. p. 208.