Vernacular Literary Theory from the French of Medieval England

Excerpts from texts (with translation) from the French of medieval England offer a guide to medieval literary theory. From the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, French was one of England's main languages of literature, record, diplomacy and commerce and also its only supra-national vernacular. As is now recognised, the large corpus of England'sFrench texts and records is indispensable to understanding England's literary and cultural history, the multilingualism of early England, and European m