French Lessons in Late-Medieval England: The Liber Donati and Commune Parlance

This volume presents fifteenth-century teaching and reference materials designed to support facility in French among the English. At its centre is the Liber donati, a collection of notes on French grammar and lexis that concludes on a lively series of dialogues showing French in action; also included is Commune parlance. These materials paint a vivid picture of the kinds of French that English learners might desire to wield and of the high levels of fluency they could achieve. As such, this edition makes an important contribution to the history of modern languages education and to recent reassessments of the longevity of French in medieval England. Its pairing of first-time modern-English translations with facing-page original text allows teachers and students of the Middle Ages and all interested in the history of language teaching to use these stimulating materials in many ways.