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Article: Sugar and spice and all things nice: From Oriental Bazar to English cloister in Anglo-French.
- Article from:
- The Modern Language Review
- Article date:
- July 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Modern Humanities Research Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In May of 1436 the George of Seaton came into the port of Southampton: its entry was logged in French. In the same month a boat came in from Portugal: it too was logged in French. (1) These were just two out of many vessels, some from British ports, others from all over continental Europe, whose comings and goings were all recorded in French. Naturally, the year 1436 was not an exception to the rule: from the time of the Oak Book in about 1300 (2) French was the working language of the port. At around this same period, the early decades of the fifteenth century, the Grocers' Company, the Merchant Taylors, the Goldsmiths, the Mercers, and other mercantile corporations based ...