[79] "Afin qu'ils puissent entrecomuner bonement ove lour voisin c'est a dire les bones gens du roiaume de France, et ainsi pour ce que les leys d'Engleterre pour le graigneur partie et ainsi beaucoup de bones choses sont misez en François, et aussi bien pres touz les sirs et toutes les dames en mesme roiaume d'Engleterre volentiers s'entrescrivent en romance—tresnecessaire je cuide estre aus Englois de scavoir la nature de François."
[80] Which no doubt became more numerous, as English, rather than Latin, became the medium through which French was learnt. Thus we find pour honte written for 'for shame'; il est haut temps, for 'it is high time'; quoi ('why') for pourquoi; de les for des, and so on.
[81] Edited from a unique MS. in Trinity College, Cambridge, by W. Aldis Wright, for the Roxburghe Club, 1909 (Camb. Univ. Press). G. Hickes published part of the first chapter, with remarks on its philological value, in his Linguarum Veterum Septentrionalium Thesaurus Grammatico-Criticus et Archaeologicus, Oxford, 1705, i. pp. 144-151.
[82] "Liber iste vocatur femina quia sicut femina docet infantem loqui maternam, sic docet iste liber iuvenes rethorice loqui Gallicum prout infra patebit."
[83] P. Meyer, Romania, xxxii. pp. 43 et seq.
[84] The English spelling, very corrupt in the original, is here modernized.
[85] These MSS. have been described and classified by J. Stürzinger, Altfranzösische Bibliothek, viii. pp. v-x.
[86] Brit. Mus. Harl. MS. 4971; Addit. MS. 11716, and Camb. Univ. Libr. MS. Ee 4, 20.
[87] Camb. Univ. Libr. MSS. Dd 12, 23. and Gg 6, 44.
[88] P. Meyer, Romania, xv. p. 262.