Zoom event
Dr Tom Hinton, Senior Lecturer in French at Exeter University.
French was the language of social climbing in medieval Britain. By 1300, around one in five people in the country would have been bilingual, and the language was commonly used by anyone who wanted to get on in the world: the nobility of course, but also merchants, lawyers, churchmen and administrators. This talk, based on current research, will introduce you to the earliest known textbook for learning French, the Tretiz by Walter de Bibbesworth. It focuses on two manuscripts of this text with a Devon connection: one owned by Richard Dove, a monk at Buckfast Abbey, and the other belonging to the fifteenth-century lawyer and cathedral canon John Stevens. Come along for a glimpse into Devon’s social history and to find out about the long history of multilingualism in Britain.
Join Devon History Society for this fascinating online lecture by Dr Tom Hinton on Learning French in Medieval Devon.
DHS Members FREE, Non-members £4 (or join via our website: https://www.devonhistorysociety.org.uk/about/join/).
Book via Eventbrite here: 