Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 

Abstract: THE presence of more than one language in daily use in any particular region can create delicate problems of interpretation for linguists and historians alike. A case in point is the well-known dispute, many years ago, about the date at which the inhabitants of Gaul ceased to speak Latin and began to use French. Argument was rife for a long time as to whether Latin had given way to French in the early centuries of the Christian era or whether it had gone on being spoken right up into the seventh or even eighth century. In all this controversy one sure date stood out brightly against all the shadows that surround such an early period of history: that date was 813. In that year the Church recognized officially at the Council of Tours that the gap between the Latin of the Mass and the language spoken by the laity had now grown so wide as to render the people's understanding of the sacred mysteries difficult, if not impossible, and so it was decreed that in future the homily should be delivered in the vernacular of the laity. This decree constitutes a linguistic pronouncement of the greatest importance, although made by men whose minds were working on a spiritual rather than a linguistic plane. This old controversy and the paramount importance of a contemporary statement made in ignorance of its linguistic implications is brought to mind by the almost simultaneous appearance in recent months of two widely differing articles concerned with the use of French in England at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Towards the end of 1973 there appeared in the volume of tributes presented to M. Felix Lecoy a short and amusing article by M. Yves Lefevre : \" De 1'usage du francais en Grande-Bretagne a la fin du XI Ie siecle \" (pp. 301-5) ;

Abstract: L'A. veut dissiper les malentendus qui existent autour des termes vocabulaire de Winchester et vieil anglais standard. Il retrace les origine du vieil anglais standard et analyse les relations entre la montee du nouvel ordre politique et la forme d'anglais qui a ete preservee dans les manuscrits anglais de la fin du 10 e au debut du 12 e siecle. Il cherche a mettre en evidence des liens possibles entre la culture anglo-latine et les travaux des chercheurs sur la langue vernaculaire au 10 e siecle

Abstract: L'A. appelle a depasser le modele traditionnel a propos des controverses christologiques du V e siecle, c'est-a-dire les Nestoriens heretiques, les monophysites heretiques et les orthodoxes chalcedoniens. Au lieu de cela, l'A. propose un modele avec sept categories. Pour lui, Abdiso et Mar Dinkha etaient entierement dans le vrai; l'association entre Eglise orientale et nestorianisme ne tient a rien. Continuer d'appeler cette Eglise nestorienne est tout a fait incorrect du point de vue de l'histoire. Les chretiens d'Orient ne se sentent absolument pas concernes par Nestorius qui etait un Grec