Volume I Part 34 (1/2)

[5] As examples of these Italianisms: ”_Et ont del_ olio _de la lanpe dou_ sepolchro _de Crist_”; ”_L'Angel ven en vision pour mesajes de Deu a un_ Veschevo _qe mout estoient home de_ sante vite”; ”_E certes il estoit bien_ beizongno”; ”_ne trop caut ne trop_ fredo”; ”_la_ crense”

(_credenza_); ”remort” for noise (_rumore_) ”inverno”; ”jorno”; ”dementique” (_dimenticato_); ”enferme” for sickly; ”leign” (_legno_); ”devisce” (_dovizia_); ”ammalaide” (_ammalato_), etc. etc.

Professor Bianconi points out that there are also traces of _Venetian_ dialect, as _Pare_ for _pere_; _Mojer_ for wife; _Zabater_, cobbler; _cazaor_, huntsman, etc.

I have not been able to learn to what extent books in this kind of mixed language are extant. I have observed one, a romance in verse called _Macaire_ (_Altfranzosische Gedichte aus Venez. Handschriften_, von _Adolf Mussafia_, Wien, 1864), the language of which is not unlike this jargon of Rustician's, e.g.:--

”'Dama,' fait-il, 'molto me poso merviler De ves enfant quant le fi batecer De un signo qe le vi sor la spal'a droiturer Qe non ait nul se no filz d'inperer.'”--(p. 41)

[6] As examples of such Orientalisms: _Bonus_, ”ebony,” and _calamanz_, ”pencases,” seem to represent the Persian abnus and kalamdan; the dead are mourned by _les meres et les_ Araines, the _Harems_; in speaking of the land of the Ismaelites or a.s.sa.s.sins, called _Mulhete_, i.e. the Arabic _Mulahidah_, ”Heretics,” he explains this term as meaning ”des _Aram_” (_Haram_, ”the reprobate”). Speaking of the Viceroys of Chinese Provinces, we are told that they rendered their accounts yearly to the _Safators_ of the Great Kaan. This is certainly an Oriental word. Sir H. Rawlinson has suggested that it stands for _dafatir_ (”registers or public books”), pl. of _daftar_. This seems probable, and in that case the true reading may have been _dafators_.

[7] Luces du Gast, one of the first of these, introduces himself thus:-- ”Je Luces, Chevaliers et Sires du Chastel du Gast, voisins prochain de Salebieres, comme chevaliers amoureus enprens a translater du Latin en Francois une partie de cette estoire, non mie pour ce que je sache gramment de Francois, ainz apartient plus ma langue et ma parleure a la maniere de l'Engleterre que a celle de France, comme cel qui fu en Engleterre nez, mais tele est ma volentez et mon propos.e.m.e.nt, que je en langue francoise le translaterai.” (_Hist. Litt. de La France_, xv.

494.)

[8] _Hist. Litt. de la France_, xv. 500.

[9] Ibid. 508.

[10] _Tyrwhitt's Essay on Lang., etc., of Chaucer_, p. xxii. (Moxon's Ed.

1852.)

[11] _Chroniques Etrangeres_, p. 502.

[12] ”_Loquuntur linguam quasi Gallicam, scilicet quasi de Cipro_.”

(See _Cathay_ p. 332.)

[13] Page 138.

[14] _Hammers Ilchan_, II. 148.

[15] After the capture of Acre, Richard orders 60,000 Saracen prisoners to be executed:--

”They wer brought out off the toun, Save twenty, he heeld to raunsoun.

They wer led into the place ful evene: _Ther they herden Aungeles off Hevene_:

_They sayde_: 'SEYNYORS, TUEZ, TUEZ!

'Spares hem nought! Behedith these!'

Kyng Rychard herde the Aungelys voys, And thankyd G.o.d, and the Holy Croys.”

--_Weber_, II. 144.

Note that, from the rhyme, the Angelic French was apparently p.r.o.nounced ”_Too-eese! Too-eese!_”

[16] [Refer to the edition of Mr. George F. Warner, 1889, for the Roxburghe Club, and to my own paper in the _T'oung Pao_, Vol. II., No.

4, regarding the compilation published under the name of Maundeville.

Also _App. L_. 13--H. C.]

[17] _L'Ystoire de li Normand_, etc., edited by M. Champollion-Figeac, Paris, 1835, p. v.