Mandeville's Travels a fictitious travel guide to the Holy Land and the Far East was one of the most popular books in the Middle Ages. It was compiled in French around 1356 and translated into English and eight other languages shortly afterwards. Its unknown translator was thought to have written the book himself. He enjoyed great popularity and was considered as "the father of English of topics, which makes it an ideal tool for vocabulary study.
Relying on text editions, dictionaries and language histories, Orsi subjects the Cotton Version in Middle English and the Insular Version in Anglo-French to rigorous scrutiny. His work combines the traditional philological method with the use of the latest electronic and online editions of historical dictionaries. He discusses in detail the procedural difficulties that arise throughout this type of work. The clear-cut distinction between French-derived and Latin-derived elements in Middle English proves impossible. Instead of attempting the proportional break-down of native and foreign lexis, he investigates particular areas in detail. He identifies eight procedures that allowed the translator to introduce a French word into English. He goes on to discuss thoroughly the earliest occurrences of borrowings from French, unique attestations, the most frequent attestations, learned phrases with adjectives. The chapter devoted to French phraseological influence explores a particularly neglected area of language contact. The lavish use of native and French synonyms in the English Version constitutes a significant addition to the French text. Another major innovation of the Middle English translation is what he terms as lexical disagreement: the words of French origin in the English version fairly often differ from the corresponding ones in the French original. The book concludes with the distinction between two fundamentally different channels of French influence at work when the Cotton Version was translated. The book makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of the
vocabulary and the development of the English and French languages. Clearly
organized and accessibly written, it will appeal to students of linguistics and
academics alike. The author is a senior lecturer at the French Department of Eszterházy Károly
College in Eger, Hungary.
The cover illustration shows Sir John Mandeville writing his book. (from an early fifteenth-century Czech manuscript, British Library, Add. MS.
24189 folio 4r.)

The aim of the present work is to study French lexical influence in the Middle English translation of a fourteenth century French prose work. It is well known that the Norman Conquest created an entirely new linguistic situation in England. We do not wish to discuss all the linguistic effects of the Conquest but fully adhere to Lass (1987: 54-61). Most of our findings are based on the direct analysis of our corpus texts.
The choice of Mandeville's Travels is the result of a deliberate search. For our pur- poses we needed a prose work written in French and translated into English in prose shortly afterwards. As a considerable part of the literature in Old French was produced in octosyllabic rhyming couplets, prose texts are very scarce. Old French prose works like Mort Artu or Queste del Saint Graal were translated into English either in rhyming couplets or in alliterative verse, and only rarely in prose. This further restricts the number of available texts, which must also meet the criterion of being accessible in a recent critical edition, possibly in both languages. As we will see, only the English edition fulfils this criterion. In the last analysis, Mandeville's Travels proved to be a happy choice. It is a work of great importance that survives in hundreds of manuscripts. Due to its encyclopedic character it discusses a variety of topics, which makes it suitable for vocabulary study.
We adopted the traditional philological method. We rely on dictionaries, text edi- tions, language histories, but above all we subject the Cotton Version in Middle English and the Insular Version in Anglo-French to rigorous scrutiny. At the beginning of the discussion of each particular lexical item we quote the two basic manuscripts. When- ever the item examined presents difficulty, we may also include two more manuscripts in our investigation, one in Middle English and one in Middle French. These additional manuscripts are most frequently referred to in the discussion of the most delicate areas: earliest occurrences, unique occurrences, phraseological influence. The parallel quota- tions are followed by the presentation of the available information on a given word or phrase. These data are then contrasted with the evidence obtained from the Mandeville- texts. A summary concludes the treatment of each individual word or phrase.
Before entering into the detailed discussion of French influence, we devote a chapter to Sir John Mandeville and his Travels. We then examine the Travels from a linguistic point of view and describe the manuscripts we use. Another chapter discusses the prob- lems that arise in our work. Then we classify the techniques that allowed French words to enter English. Foreign influence is most easily measured by the number of borrowed lexical items. Instead of attempting a proportional breakdown of native and foreign lexis, we prefer to choose particular areas that we discuss in detail. Special emphasis is laid on the earliest occurrences of borrowings from French. A small number of words are recorded in one single attestation in the Cotton Version. A closer look at them may