Written and spoken in many places outside of France, and fluid in its incorporation into local language, the uses of French in medieval Europe is the subject of this fine volume of 14 essays, with a focus mainly on cases in England, the Low Countries, and Italy. Among the topics are the stories of King Arthur in Italy; the use of a mixture of French and Italian in the 15th-century story of Aquilon of Bavaria, by Raffaele da Verona; the use of French, Italian, and German in the legal documents of the states of Savoy; the presence of French, and mixtures of French and English, French and Latin, and French and Italian in institutions and legal and religious texts; the multilingualism of the songs in Le roman de Fauvel; and a survey of words shifting from French into English. Three of the articles are in French. The volume is distributed in North America by The David Brown Book Co. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
