Law and Language in the Middle Ages

At a first glance you would not think that the concept of "privacy" had much to do with the interaction between law and language, but consider for a moment the reality of post-1066 British Isles: while you continued to speak a variety of vernacular languages in the private sphere, the "parler français" of the Norman invaders, alongside with Latin, was mandatory in order to get ahead in the world of law and administration.

Our core scholar at Centre for Privacy Studies Helle Vogt has, together with Jenny Benham from Cardiff University and Matthew McHaffie from King’s College, edited yet another book in the series “Medieval Law and Its Practice”.

This volume is titled “Law and Language in the Middle Ages” (July 2018, Brill) and the essays of the 12 contributors examine, from a linguistic viewpoint, the relation between law and legal practice in the medieval period. How did legal language convey and further power relations, and in which way did it legitimize power? The essays cover a wide range of geographical areas and don’t limit themselves to any brief part of the Middle Ages, hence they are able to paint a large and colourful picture of the interaction between language, power and legitimacy thus giving the discussion a much broader scope than the well know discussions of the formation of nation-states and its identity.

Read more here.