ABSTRACT
Current notions of how Latin was used in England in the late Middle Ages come from a combination of three mistakes. 1 One is the enduring stereotype, originating in the Middle Ages and taken at face value by many moderns, of Latin as the exclusive language of scholarly men. Writing in the third quarter of the fourteenth century – that is to say, during Margery Kempe’s childhood – William of Nassyngton begins his Speculum vitae with an unqualified statement of one of his reasons for writing it in English:
Latyn, as I trowe, can nane
But þo, þat haueth it in scole tane … 2
