FoE New York 2007

The French of England: Multilingualism in Practice, c.1100-c.1500

27th Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval Studies, Fordham University
Friday, March 30 - Sunday, April 1, 2007
At the Lincoln Center Campus of Fordham University

Medieval England presents a historical example of European multilingualism striking for the diversity of "cultural traffic" between the English and French languages. This conference addresses the sociolinguistic plurality of French in England in its documentary and literary forms, internal and external interrelations, and cross-disciplinary importance to Middle English and continental French Medieval Studies. Speakers will come from history (including legal history); literature; religion; art history; and linguistics. The conference aims:

to promote wider scholarly awareness of the French of England as a field, of medieval England as a multilingual society, and of links between insular and continental Frenches;
to work towards a Middle English literary and cultural studies fully inclusive of French; and
to explore beyond the traditional subdivisions (Norman French, Anglo-Norman, Anglo-French, continental French/es) towards a more inclusive account of French in England and its interrelations with other languages

The French of England Project

The French of England (FoE), a term describing the French texts that circulated in medieval England (covering both Anglo-Norman and Anglo-French), is a major but relatively under-researched field, which has largely tended to fall between the nationalizing literary and cultural histories of England and France. Inaugurated at Fordham University in 2001 and now sponsored jointly by the Center for Medieval Studies at Fordham University in New York City and the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York in England, FoE has received generous financial support from the National Endowment for the Humanities in the USA, the Modern Humanities Research Association in the UK, and the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Fordham.
The Project was created to increase awareness of and access to the francophone texts of medieval England. For at least 400 years in England, French was a major language of literary and cultural pursuits, of documentation and record, of instruction, and of various professions. In literature alone, nearly a thousand texts have now been catalogued, many needing modern editions. Still greater bodies of French material exist in administrative, mercantile, professional and legal records. The history and literary cultures of medieval England cannot adequately be understood without investigation of England’s extensive French corpus. FoE aims to increase awareness of and access to this field by its own translations and other publications and by encouraging the research of students and seasoned scholars alike.

A sister conference, The French of England: Linguistic Accommodation and Cultural Hybridities, will take place in The Centre for Medieval Studies, The King’s Manor, University of York, UK, over 13-16th July 2007, to be immediately followed by the York Manuscripts Conference, which in 2007 will be on “French and French-Influenced Manuscripts in England” and take place over 17th-19th July 2007. For further information, please contact Prof. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne (jwb502@york.ac.uk) and Prof. Linne Mooney (lrm3@york.ac.uk )

Conference Program

Saturday, March 31
8:30 a.m.	Registration and Coffee
9:00 a.m.	Welcome: Maryanne Kowaleski, Director of the Center for Medieval Studies, Fordham University
	The French of England Project Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, University of York and Fordham FOE Project
9:30-10:15	Session 1: Plenary
	Chair: Thelma Fenster, Fordham University Known Knowns, Known Unknowns, and Unknown Unknowns: The Circulation of French Literature in Medieval England Keith Busby, University of Wisconsin
10:15-10:45	Break
10:45-12:15	2: Concurrent Sessions
	2A. The French of Female Communities
	Chair: Mary C. Erler, Fordham University What Nuns Ate: The Multilingual Kitcheners’ Accounts of Campsey Ash Priory Marilyn Oliva, Fordham University What Women Do Together: ‘Queer’ Philology and Female Sexuality Lara Farina, West Virginia University The Rhyming French Chronicle of the Godstow Nuns Emilie Amt, Hood College
	2B. Later French of England and John Gower
	Chair: Alistair Minnis, Yale University John Gower, John Barton, and Others: Looking at Late Anglo-French Brian Merrilees and Heather Pagan, University of Toronto Linguistic and Political Union in Gower’s Trentham Manuscript Arthur Bahr, Haverford College John Gower’s French and His Readers Robert F. Yeager, University of West Florida
12:15-2:00	Lunch. A list of local restaurants will be provided.
2:00-3:30	3: Concurrent Sessions
	3A. Documentary and Literary Cultures in the French of England
	Chair: Maryanne Kowaleski, Fordham University English Testators Writing French Wills Sharon Teague, Rhode Island College and Bryant University Transmuting Alchemy: Chaucer’s English, Gower’s French, and the Privy Language of the London Goldsmiths Jonathan Hsy, University of Pennsylvania Uses of the French Language in Medieval English Towns Richard Britnell, University of Durham 3B. French Histories and The Making of English Identities Chair: Jennifer Goodman, Texas A & M University ’Que vous n’oubliez pas le françois’: The Shrewsbury Book and the Circulation of French Chivalric Material in Fifteenth-Century England Andrew Taylor, University of Ottawa Anglo-Norman as Antecedent: The Case of the Prose Brut Chronicle Julia Marvin, University of Notre Dame Old French of England Michelle Warren, Dartmouth College

3:30-4:00	Break
4:00-5:30	4: Concurrent Sessions
	4A. The French of England: Lexical and Syntactic Considerations
	Chair: Mary B. Speer, Rutgers University French Style(s) at Barking: Clemence of Barking and the Life of Edward the Confessor Delbert Russell, University of Waterloo Syntaxe anglo-normande: étude de certaines caractéristiques du XIIe au XIVe siècle Pierre Kunstmann, University of Ottawa Why Historians of the Early Common Law Need to Study French Paul Hyams, Cornell University
	4B. Influential French: Saints, Preachers, and Psalters
	Chair: Robert Hanning, Columbia University French and English in the Preaching Literature of Nicole Bozon Laurie Postlewate, Barnard College Questions of Influence: Clemence of Barking’s Life of St. Catherine and Representations of Law, Lordship, and Civic Unrest in Two Old French Catherine Legends Donna Bussell, University of Illinois-Springfield The Psalter en Romanz in Twelfth-Century England Geoff Rector, University of Ottawa
5:30-7:00	Reception
Sunday, April 1
8:30	Registration and Coffee
9:00-10:00	5: Concurrent Sessions
	5A. Linguistic Politics and the French of England
	Chair: Nicholas Paul, Fordham University Language Contact and Langland’s French Mary Catherine Davidson, University of Kansas The Memory of the Norman Conquest and the Invention of National Vernaculars in Renaissance France and England Paul Cohen, University of Toronto 5B. French Passions of England Chair: Suzanne Yeager, Fordham University
	The Life of Christ in the French of England: Theme and Variations Maureen Boulton, University of NotreDame Linguistic and Cultural Translation across the Conquest: The Virgin Body Anne Savage, McMaster University
10-10:30	Break
10:30-11:30	6: Concurrent Sessions
	6A. Genre Otherwise
	Chair: Nancy Regalado, New York University
	Wolf, Dog, and Man in Bestiaries and Marie de France’s ‘Bisclavret’ Susan Crane, Columbia University The Genre of the Ordre de bel ayse Richard Firth Green, Ohio State University
	6B. The ‘Presence’ of French Chair: Elizabeth Brown, Brooklyn College and The Graduate School, CUNY
	Authentication: Pentimento Languages Christopher Baswell, University of California at Los Angeles Translated Images: French Influence, or Lackof It, on English Book Iconography Joyce Coleman, University of Oklahoma
11:30-12:00	Break
12:00-1:00	Session 7: Roundtable
	7. French Futures: The French of England and Insular and Continental Medieval Studies Moderator: Christopher Baswell, University of California at Los Angeles Participants:Keith Busby, University of Wisconsin Sarah Kay, Princeton University Robert Stein, Columbia University and SUNY-Purchase Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, University of York and Fordham FOE Project
1:00-2:30	Lunch

This conference is part of Communitas: Past, Present & Future, the Fordham Graduate School of Arts and Sciences First Annual Reunion Weekend. We gratefully acknowledge the support of Dr Nancy Busch, the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Image: Edward the Confessor returns from his Norman upbringing to take up the English throne (CUL, Ee. 3. 59, f. 8v)