Materials for a Social History of the Dutch Language in Medieval Britain: Three Case Studies from Wales, Scotland, and England

ABSTRACT

This article presents some of the evidence we have for spoken and written Dutch in medieval Britain. It presents three case studies from Wales, Scotland, and England respectively. In Wales, the existence of a Dutch-speaking colony in Pembrokeshire is well known, but this article documents Dutch words both in the medieval writings of Gerald of Wales and in the modern dialect. In Scotland, I focus on a copy of a Dutch letter by Wouter Michiels and discuss the language and the identity of Michiels. In England, I focus on the remarkable quadralingual manuscript of the Book of Privileges. I conclude by pointing to the existence of other fascinating sources for the social history of Dutch in medieval Britain.

KEYWORDS:

• Medieval Dutch
• history of migration

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Joby, The Dutch Language.

2. Ibid., 2.

3. For the surge of book production in the fifteenth century, see the graph in Buringh and Van Zanden, “Charting the “Rise of the West,” 409–445.

4. Alvredi Beverlacensis Annalium sive Historiae de Gestis regum Britanniae, 11. The historical circumstances that prompted his observation, including the large numbers of Flemings in Aldred’s home-town of Beverley in Yorkshire, are discussed by Slevin, “The Historical Writing of Alfred of Beverley,” 230–236. Slevin concludes: ‘Alfred’s view of the Flemings as a nascent sixth “people” on the island therefore underlines both their influence and importance at the time and their distinctive identity’ (236).

5. See Oksanen, Flanders and the Anglo-Norman World, 178–216.

6. Gerald of Wales, The Journey Through Wales and the Description of Wales, 141. For a discussion of Gerald of Wales’s interest as a commentator on the multilingual culture of his day, see Putter, “Multilingualism in England and Wales,” 83–106.

7. Sharpe, “Addressing Different Language Groups,” 1–40.

8. Mark Ormrod, Lambert and Mackman, Immigrant England, 109.

9. Cited from Sharpe, “Addressing Different Language Groups,” 10.

10. Cited from the edition by Mossé, Handbook of Middle English, 286–87.

11. For the testimonies of Price and De Heere, see Chotzen, “Some Sidelights on Cambro-Dutch Relations, 1100–1600,” 101–44; Toorians, “Wizo Flandrensis and the Flemish Settlement in Pembrokeshire,” 99–118; and Toorians, “Flemish in Wales,” 184–87.

12. Ecclesiae Londino-Batavae Archivum, III.2, 2888.

13. Gerald of Wales, Speculum duorum or a Mirror of Two Men, 36–37.

14. See Gerald of Wales’s family tree in I.E. Rowlands, “The Making of the March: Aspects of the Norman Settement in Dyfed,” 124–157.

15. Journey, 136. The Latin is cited from Itinerarium Kambriae, I. ix, in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. by J.S Brewer, J.F. Dimock and G.F. Warner), VI, p. 77.

16. Modern commentators have also noted that the Irish word is in fact salann. See Coulter and Magoun, “Giraldus Cambrensis on Indo-Germanic Philology,” 104–109.

17. See Putter, “Multilingualism in England and Wales,” 92–93, 105; and Ormrod, Lambert and Mackman, Immigrant England, 103.

18. See the dialectal map for forms of oud with in Pieter van Reenen, Matthijs Brouwer, and Evert Wattel, Middelnederlands: Vormen en Constructies, at https://www.middelnederlands.nl/item/104/737/?text=oud+.

19. Journey, 124; Itinerarium I.vi, in Opera VI, p. 42.

20. Zimmer, “A Medieval Linguist: Gerald de Barri,”, 313–352 (321). In ‘Multilingualism in England and Wales’, I translated quasi Teutonice as ‘as one might in English’. I now believe this to be wrong.

21. Renout van Montalbaen, ed. by Jan Carel Matthes (Leiden: Sijthoff, 1910).

22. See the citations in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek (http://gtb.inl.nl/), s.v. houden¹.

23. Charles, The English Dialect of South Pembrokeshire.

24. Charles, English Dialect, 4.

25. Joby, “Wizo Flandrensis and the Flemish Settlers in Wales” (2019), published online at https://the-low-countries.com/article/wizo-flandrensis-and-the-flemish-settlers-in-wales.

26. See Norman Blake’s note on the verb in his discussion of Dutch loans in The History of Reynard the Fox, ed. by Blake, EETS 263, xxxii. For Dutch words cited in this paragraph, I refer readers to Het Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal and Het Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, both integrated at http://gtb.inl.nl/.

27. See Blake’s note on ‘strope’: Reynard, xliii.

28. Charles prefers to see it as a borrowing from French rigole, but that word was itself a borrowing from Middle Dutch regel, richel (in turn based on Latin regula), according to Trésor de la language française, online at https://stella.atilf.fr/.

29. Het Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal states that spriel and sprielig are relatively recent formations, but this is contradicted by the evidence of names attested in Gelderland and the Rhineland as early as the twelfth century: see Gerhard Köbler, Geschichtliches Ortslexikon Deutschlands (2011), s.v. Spriel, at www.koeblergerhard.de/GOLD-HP/Gold.htm.

30. Scotland and the Flemish People, ed. by Alexander Fleming and Roger Mason (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2019).

31. See Murison, “The Dutch Element in the Vocabulary of the Scots,” 159–175.

32. See https://sar.abdn.ac.uk/doc.

33. Havinga, “Assessing the Intensity of Language Contact between Middle Dutch and Scots in Late Medieval Aberdeen,” 251–278, accessible at https://www.abdn.ac.uk/pfrlsu/documents/Ch12_Havinga.pdf.

34. Capitalization and word division have been modernized, and abbreviations have been expanded. I have consulted with profit the published edition and translation by Gemmill, Aberdeen Guild Court Records 1437–1468, acessible at https://deriv.nls.uk/dcn23/1271/7980/127179809.23.pdf, and the online transcriptions at https://sar.abdn.ac.uk/doc. These do not, however, always make satisfactory sense of the originals. For instance, for this bond, Gemmill’s reading trensten (translated as ‘thirtieth’) for tiensten (p. 107) is not a word I recognize as Dutch, let alone as a word for ‘thirtieth’ (Middle Dutch derstichste). In the other Dutch document (dated 1481), ARO-6-0691-04 (p. 691 at https://sar.abdn.ac.uk/doc), ‘anders’ should read ‘andersz’, i.e. the Dutch version of the name ‘Anderson’.

35. The manuscript reads ‘Mamysse’. I have expanded to ‘Mychaelsmysse’, Michaelmas being traditionally a day on which debts were due, but ‘Martensmysse’ (Gemmill) is also possible since both were quarterdays associated with payments of dues.

36. SR#27, Schepenregister, vol. I, folio 83v, digitized at https://felixarchief.antwerpen.be/detailpagina?invnr=SR_27&dtnr=1224_31&dtrecordid=266809&page=1&pageSize=10&type=copy.

37. Kruip, “Jan van Battel (1477–1557), (heraldisch) schilder in Mechelen. Kunstenaar, werken en nieuwe vondsten,” 105–139.

38. See note 38 above for reference to the digitized folio of Het Schepenregister. There is a published transcription of the agreement between William Knox and Wouter Michiels in Asaert, “Documenten voor de geschiedenis van de beeldhouwkunst te Antwerpen in de XVe eeuw,’ 43–86 (48).

39. Lloyd Williams, “The Import of Art,” 298–323.

40. Macfarlane, “Vaus, John (c. 1484 – c. 1539),’ at https://www.oxforddnb.com.

41. Stevenson, “Trade between Scotland and the Low Countries in the Late Middle Ages,” 330. I would like to thank my colleague Anna Havinga for alerting me to this dissertation.

42. Van Loey, Middelnederlandse Spraakkunst. II. Klankleer, 42.

43. See Spufford, “Moneys of Account in the Burgundian Netherlands,” 137–162.

44. See Van Reenen et al, Middelnederlands, https://www.middelnederlands.nl/item/104/734/?text=oud, with clusters near Zwolle,

45. See Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, s.v te^I.

46. Van Loey, Spraakkunst, 40.

47. https://www.middelnederlands.nl/item/183/1318/?text=juli+.

48. The manuscript has no classmark.

49. See Putter, van Houts, Levelt, and Arbabzadah, “Ysengrimus en Reynard the Fox: Engels-Nederlandse contacten als context voor de Reynaerttraditie,” 65–81.

50. Bakker and Gerritsen, “Collecting Ships from Holland and Zeeland: A Caxton Letter Discovered,” 3–11.

51. The Book of Privileges of the Merchant Adventurers of England, 1296–1483.

52. The Medieval Account Books of the Mercers of London: An Edition and Translation, 436.

53. Sutton, “Robert Bale, Scrivener and Chronicler of London,” 180–206 (185).

54. See Blake’s note, History of Reynard the Fox, xlvi.

55. See Putter,”‘Dutch, French and English in Caxton’s Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye”.

56. Caxton, The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, 2 vols.

57. See OED s.v. frank adj.², 1b. and 1 c.

58. Caxton’s source just has franches at this point: Lefèvre, Le Recoeil des histoires de Troyes, 409.

59. See Hellinga, William Caxton and Early Printing in England, 48–50.

60. Blake, “William Caxton’s Reynard the Fox and his Dutch Original,”, 298–325 (314).

61. Visser, A Historical Syntax of the English Language, 3 vols, III, 1789.

62. Book of Privileges, pp. 81, 83 (Latin), 92 (Middle English translation).

63. Chris de Wulf, Klankatlas van het Veertiende-Eeuwse Middelnederlands (Gent: Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal en Letteren, 2019), p. 462. The change can be followed in the charters of Louis de Male, Count of Flanders and Duke of Brabant: in a charter dated 1338 the word appears as hude; in a renewal of the same charter in 1366 the spelling has changed to huyde. Texts in F.H. Mertens and K.L.Torfs, Geschiedenis van Antwerpen (Antwerp: Buschmann, 1845–1853), 7 vols, II, pp. 280, 553.

64. See Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, s.v. wage.

65. Printed in Mertens and Torfs, Geschiedenis, II, p. 544.

66. The manuscript fragments in question are Norwich, Norfolk Record Office, DN/ACT 5/5 (Brabantsche yeesten) and Kew, The National Archives, E 163/22/2/24. For discussion, see Alban, “Sources in the Norfolk Record Office which Relate to the History of Norfolk and the Low Countries,” 101–115; and Putter, “A Fragment of Boendale’s Melibeus in England,” 143–169.

67. London, Guildhall Library, MS 15,838. Together With Shannon McSheffrey I am working on a study of this fraternity and an edition of the manuscript this migrant community left behind.

68. Dentz, “Hollandsche Bierbrouwerijen in Engeland,” 7. Dentz reproduces an image of the gravestone, which has allowed me to correct his transcription. Dentz gives the date of Cornelis’s death as 1465. The gravestone is dated to the early sixteenth century on the church’s own website, https://sussexparishchurches.org/church/playden-st-michael/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ad Putter

Ad Putter is Professor of Medieval English Literature at the University of Bristol and Fellow of the British Academy. He is the author of Gawain and the Green Knight and French Arthurian Romance (OUP, 1995), editor, with Elizabeth Archibald, of the Cambridge Companion to Arthurian Literature (CUP, 2012) and (with Myra Stokes) he edited The Works of the Gawain Poet for Penguin (2014). His most recent book, North Sea Crossings: The Literary Heritage of Anglo-Dutch Relations, co-authored with Sjoerd Levelt, is in press with Bodleian Library Publishing. The research presented here is part of a larger project on Anglo-Dutch relations, funded by the Leverhulme Trust.