The Lexis of Building in Wood in Bilingual Medieval England
By William Sayers
Vernacular Architecture, Volume 41, 2010
Abstract: Walter de Bibbesworth’s treatise on the French vocabulary required to manage a rural estate in late-thirteenth-century England includes the first continuous description in a western European vernacular language of the construction of a simple wooden house. His some thirty Anglo-Norman French terms for the timbers and other parts of the house are matched by fourteen Middle English glosses in the manuscript tradition, giving a unique synchronic perspective on the technical terminology of bi- and tri-lingual medieval England. The construction process he outlines can be followed detail by detail on the Bedford Hours illustration of the construction of Noah’s Ark.
Click here to read this article from Ingenta Connect
By William Sayers
Vernacular Architecture, Volume 41, 2010
Abstract: Walter de Bibbesworth’s treatise on the French vocabulary required to manage a rural estate in late-thirteenth-century England includes the first continuous description in a western European vernacular language of the construction of a simple wooden house. His some thirty Anglo-Norman French terms for the timbers and other parts of the house are matched by fourteen Middle English glosses in the manuscript tradition, giving a unique synchronic perspective on the technical terminology of bi- and tri-lingual medieval England. The construction process he outlines can be followed detail by detail on the Bedford Hours illustration of the construction of Noah’s Ark.
Click here to read this article from Ingenta Connect
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