The intercourse between Britain and Gaul is known to have been of a very
early date; for even in the first century we find, that the British
lawyers derived the greatest part of their knowledge from those of the
continent;[AT] while on the other hand, the Gallic Druids are known to
have resorted to Britain for instruction in their mysterious rites. The
Britons, therefore, could not be totally ignorant of the Gallic
language. And hence it will appear, that Grimbald, John, and the other
doctors introduced by Alfred,[AU] could find no great difficulty in
propagating their native tongue in this island; which tongue, at that
interval of time, could only be the true Romance, since they were
contemporaries with Lewis the Germanic.
That the Romance was almost universally understood in this kingdom under
Edward the Confessor, it being not only used at court, but frequently at
the bar, and even sometimes in the pulpit, is a fact too well known and
attested[AV] to need my further authenticating it with superfluous
arguments and testimonies.
Duclos, in his History of the Gallic' Romance,[AW] gives the
abovementioned oath of Lewis as the first monument of that language. The
second he mentions is the code of laws of William the Conqueror,[AX]
whom the least proficient in the English history knows to have rendered
his language almost universal in this kingdom.
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