VOL. LXVr.l PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 15 



time, and of their little knowledge of the Teutonic, which being the native 

 tongue of Lewis, would certainly have been used by him in this oath, had it 

 been understood by the French to whom he addressed himself. But Nithardus, 

 a cotemporary writer, and near relation to the contracting parties, informs us, 

 that Lewis took the oath in the Romance language, that it might be understood 

 by the French nobility, who were the subjects of Charles ; and that they, in 

 their turn, entered into reciprocal engagements in their own language, which 

 the same author again declares to have been the Romance, and not the Teutonic; 

 though one would imagine that, had they at all understood this latter tongue, 

 they could not but have used it on this occasion, in return for the condescension 

 of Lewis. 



While the Orisons neglected to improve their language, and rejected, or 

 indeed were out of the reach of every refinement it might have derived from 

 polished strangers, the taste and fertile genius of the Troubadours, fostered by 

 the countenance and elegance of the brilliant courts and splendid nobility of 

 Provence, did not long leave theirs in the rough state in which we find it in the 

 @th century. But the change having been gradual and almost imperceptible, the 

 French historians have fixed no epocha for the transition of the Romance into 

 the Provencal. That the former language had not received any considerable 

 alteration in the 12th century, may be gathered from a comparison of the two: 

 and that it still bore the same name, appears from the titles of several books 

 which are said to have been written in, or translated into the Romance. But 

 though mention is made of that name even after this era, yet on examining im- 

 partially what is given us for that language in this period, it will be found so 

 different from the Romance of the gth century, that to trace it any further 

 would be both a vain and an extravagant pursuit. 



Admitting however the universal use of the Romance all over France down to 

 the 12th century, which no French author has yet doubted or denied ; and 

 allowing that what the writers of those times say of the Gallic is to be under- 

 stood of those of the Romance, as appears from chronological proofs, and the 

 expressions of several authors prior to the 5th century ; who, by distinguishing 

 the Gallic, both from the Latin and the Celtic, plainly indicate that they 

 thereby mean the Romance, those being the only 3 languages which, before the 

 invasion of the Franks, could possibly have been spoken, or even understood in 

 Gaul : admitting these premises then, it necessarily follows, that the language 

 introduced into England under Alfred, and afterwards more universally esta- 

 blished by Edward the Confessor, and William the Conqueror, must have been 

 an emanation of the Romance, very near akin to that of the abovementioned 

 oath, and consequently to that which is now spoken in the Alps. 



The intercourse between Britain and Gaul is known to have been of a very 



