ABSTRACT
Ages functioned through the medium of a trilingual culture, the role of each component of that culture is less well understood.1 Nor is it usually recognized to what extent the three languages were in practice intertwined. Two of the constituent elements, English and French, were living vernacu lars; the third, Latin, was a dead construct. Two, Latin and French, had been in widespread use as languages of record for centuries. The third, English, was used increasingly for record purposes from the later four teenth century onward and eventually absorbed the roles of the other two, thus becoming the sole national language.
