The values of French language and literature in the European Middle Ages

Two questions about linguistic identity lie at the heart of this project. What is the relation historically between language andidentity in Europe? How are cognate languages demarcated from each other? Normative models of national languageshelped shape Europe. Yet they did not become hegemonic until the 19th century. Indeed, they were imposed (not alwayssuccessfully) on a linguistic map of Europe more fluid and complex than most histories of national languages allow. In theMiddle Ages multilingualism was common, as was the use of non-local languages, notably Latin, but also French. Thisproject undertakes a revaluation of the nature and value of the use of French in Europe during a crucial period, 1100-1450,less in terms of its cultural prestige (the traditional focus of scholarship) than of its role as a supralocal, transnationallanguage, particularly in Western Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. The project fosters collaboration between, andcuts across, different intellectual and national scholarly traditions, drawing on expertise in codicology, critical theory,linguistics, literature, and philology; it involves scholars from a range of European countries and North America, entailingempirical research around a complex and widely disseminated textual tradition vital to medieval understandings ofEuropean history and identity, L’Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César. This case study will ground and stimulate broaderspeculative reflection on the two core questions concerning linguistic identity. While the project builds on prior critiques ofthe construction of, and investment in, national languages and literary traditions, it has a broad historical scope, and willoffer an innovative, genuinely international perspective, in terms of both its object of study and method. Indeed, its final aim,through and beyond its consideration of French as a lingua franca, is to interrogate that language’s role in the emergenceof a European identity in the Middle Ages.