ABSTRACT
The hybrid text and illustrated scrolls in the French-language Yale Missal reveal complex boundary negotiations between laity and clergy, while problematising the relationship between authoritative exemplars and vernacular translations. In Yale Missal miniatures with Latin-language dialogue scrolls, Latin is to speech what French is to the written word. The Yale Missal presents its viewer-reader with more than one elite language: Latin is the spoken tongue of the official, priestly rite and French is a written record of mass texts. A medieval French-language missal exists in limbo, between being a functioning mass book and an unofficial sacramental aid. Script in the Yale Missal suggests both the hybrid and elite status of the vernacular mass book via consciously stylised fonts. Surveying the incipits of two French-language missals made over a 150 year period demonstrates shifts in boundaries allowing laity access to verbal and visual components of the priestly mass book.
