Volume 141, Issue 4

In our article, we propose a philological and linguistic analysis of the relationship between the Codi , a legal compilation in Old Occitan, and its main Latin source, the Summa Trecensis (ST). While the influence of the ST on the Codi is recognized, particularly in the historiography of law, an in-depth textual and linguistic comparison has yet to be carried out. The study is based on the known manuscripts of the ST as well as on a little-studied source, the Bamberg can. 17 manuscript, which allows for a better understanding of the primitive state of the text. Through the analysis of selected passages, we highlight both the textual fidelity of the Codi and its processes of vernacular reformulation. The study reveals an active adaptation of Roman law in terms of syntax and lexicon and a discursive strategy aimed at greater accessibility. The Codi therefore does not appear to be a simple translation, but an essential milestone in the development of a Romance legal language. These preliminary results pave the way for a broader study on the textual genesis of the Codi and its contribution to the emergence of Occitan scripturality.

Each text must be subjected to a philological and socio-historical analysis (Preamble). Every research must be based on the knowledge gained, applying the methodic doubt (Conclusion: wonderful wonder). Law non scriptum and scriptum , natural and positive, roman / canon and customary are categories used by jurists; in the practice of jurisconsults these elements are juxtaposed or superimposed. The customs of Normandy are a complex result of these conditions, the elements of which can still be identified in current law. The analysis, concept by concept, word by word, of the Grand Coutumier de Normandie will serve future research.

The Codes an romanz (Southern France, ca 1250), the Old French translation of the occitan Codi , has survived within three manuscripts: Paris, BnF, fr. 1069 ( F ), Paris, BnF, fr. 1070 ( G ), and Paris, BnF, fr. 1933 (H ). In our article, we propose a linguistic study of the scripta contained in these three witnesses while focusing in greater depth on the convoluted question of pinpointing the location of their usage between Southern and Northern France. Our scriptological and stratigraphic investigation is accompanied and complemented by a stemmatic analysis, which is carried out to isolate linguistic characteristics that can be traced back to the translator and to identify the historical context that gave rise to this Old French juridical translation.

The Livre des mestiers de Paris , attributed to the provost Étienne Boileau (1200/1210–1270), was edited twice in the 19 th century (Depping 1837; Lespinasse/Bonnardot 1879), yet it has primarily attracted the attention of historians. Philologists and linguists, by contrast, have shown less interest in both its content and the history of its textual tradition. This study aims to re-examine the textual transmission of Boileau’s Livre from a philological perspective. A reassessment of the manuscript tradition now expands our knowledge to ten manuscripts, including both complete copies and various excerpts. Particular attention is given to the places of manuscript production, such as the prévôté at the Châtelet in Paris, the prévôté des marchands at the Hôtel de Ville, and the Abbey of Sainte-Geneviève. Marginal annotations, additions, and omissions provide further insight into the relationships between these witnesses. Lastly, this study will offer a critical reflection on the concepts of error, variant, and textual reading within this type of documentary text.

The present study aims to examine the Livre des métiers written by Étienne Boileau, provost of Paris during 1261–1270, also in comparison with the written production provided by the prévôté of Paris (14 documents written under Étienne Boileau between 1261 and 1270 and 354 produced during the subsequent period up to 1290). A synthetic analysis of the formal structure of the work (1) will be followed by a scriptological analysis (2), focusing primarily on the scripta of manuscript BnF fr. 24069 – the oldest extant copy, which appears to have been written in the 1280 s, around fifteen years after Étienne Boileau’s tenure as provost of Paris. Finally, we will turn to the analysis of certain lexemes specific to Paris (or the surrounding regions) as transmitted by the Livre des métiers (3).

The article aims to examine the language of the Statutes of Sassari through a comparison between the two versions in which the text is preserved, namely Latin and Sardinian Logudorese. The rare occurrence of such an ancient bilingual statute (late 13th century) offers an opportunity to observe how the language of law has, on the one hand, remained firmly rooted in Latin, and on the other, developed a degree of autonomy in the vernacular, with forms that, in some cases, are still of current use in specialized legal terminology.

This article examines the term tenore , whose meaning is ambiguous, as found in the manuscript of the Carta de Logu d’Arborea, a late 14th-century Sardinian legal text. Through a comparison of the manuscript and incunabulum editions, it is argued that the reading preserved in the manuscript results from a palaeographic error. As proposed in this study, the correct term belongs to the Tuscan legal tradition, which was, in all likelihood, introduced to Sardinia during Pisa’s domination of the island. This hypothesis is supported by a comparison with contemporary legal sources, highlighting the cultural and linguistic interplay between the two regions. By clarifying the term’s meaning and legal context, this investigation hopes to contribute to a deeper understanding of lexical evolution and medieval legal practices in Sardinia, while offering an alternative interpretation of a pivotal text in the island’s juridical history.

The Marciana National Library in Venice preserves a manuscript known as Codex Comanicus (Cod. Marc. Lat. Z. 549=1597). It consists of three fascicules that were compiled in the first half of the 14th century in the context of colonial trade and missionary expeditions on the Black Sea. The first part is a copy, dated 1330, of a trilingual Low Latin-Persian-Cuman glossary that was probably written by Italian merchants in the Crimea just a few years before. The lexicon of the Latin column, especially that related to the material culture of everyday life, shows typical linguistic traits of the ancient Genoese vernacular. This article proposes a lexical analysis of 90 words of the Latin vocabulary.

This paper deals with three language samples taken from previously unpublished interviews with Italian migrants living in Argentina. These excerpts are particularly interesting on account of the speakers’ linguistic varieties, which, to different degrees, display consistent interference phenomena between Spanish and (southern) Italian dialects. As a further point of interest, the interviews were recorded in different periods and places (1986 in Buenos Aires, 2019 in Santa Fe), as well as with speakers coming from various Italian regions (Calabria, Campania, Sicily). This offers valuable insights into the different degrees and forms of language mixing in the community of Italian migrants in Argentina. The wide variety of data collected and examined by the authors enriches our grammatical and sociolinguistic knowledge of language contact in Argentina and delves into the problem of the so-called Cocoliche .