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IMC 2016: Sessions

Session 512: Languages and Literacy in the Early Medieval West, I: Multilingualism in Carolingian and Ottonian Texts

Tuesday 5 July 2016, 09.00-10.30

Sponsor:Project 'The Languages of Early Medieval Charters', Universidad del País Vasco
Organisers:Edward Roberts, Department of History, University of Liverpool / Departamento de Historia Medieval, Moderna y de América, Universidad del País Vasco
Francesca Tinti, Departamento de Historia Medieval, Moderna y de América, Universidad del País Vasco - Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, Vitoria-Gasteiz
Moderator/Chair:Francesca Tinti, Departamento de Historia Medieval, Moderna y de América, Universidad del País Vasco - Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, Vitoria-Gasteiz
Paper 512-aCarolingian Old High German Texts Embedded in Multilingual Situations: OHG Isidor, Straßburg Oaths, Ludwigslied, Pariser Gespräche, Kassel Glosses
(Language: English)
Wolfgang Haubrichs, Fachbereich Germanistik, Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken
Index terms: Language and Literature - German, Literacy and Orality, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Social History
Paper 512-bQuestions on Carolingian Vernacular Legislation
(Language: English)
Jens Schneider, Laboratoire 'Analyse Comparée des Pouvoirs', Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée
Index terms: Language and Literature - German, Literacy and Orality, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Social History
Paper 512-cWriting Old Saxon in Early Medieval Manorial Administration: The Cases of Werden and Essen
(Language: English)
Stefan Esders, Geschichte der Spätantike und des frühen Mittelalters, Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin
Index terms: Language and Literature - German, Literacy and Orality, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Social History
Abstract

In the Anglo-Saxon and eastern Frankish worlds, Latin was not the language of everyday speech; it needed to be learned as a second or foreign language. Multilingual and vernacular texts from these regions thus enable us to pose questions about literacy, the relationship between written and oral communication, language choice, and code-switching. The papers in this first session examine the multilingual contexts of a series of 9th-century sources for written Old High German, the impact of discourses on vernacular normative texts at the Carolingian court, and two 10-century vernacular manorial texts which departed from an overwhelmingly Latin administrative tradition.