One
of the natural consequences of the power of the Norman upper
classes was that most of the terms pertaining to the law were of
French origin. The medieval English lawyer took everyday
Anglo-Norman words and gradually developed legal terminology out
of them. By the middle of the thirteenth century legal French
took undisputed hold of the courts, becoming the language of a
new legal literature.
The
French trend in the law was contrary to the English trend of the
times. There is no simple explanation for this. It was rather a
combination of circumstances that resulted in the rise of law
French. According to David Mellinkoff (The Language of the
Law, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1963), inertia and
self-interest must be listed prominently among those
circumstances:
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For
years French had been the language of education... The more English
became the common currency of all classes of society, the more
French became the mark of the noble and the wealthy. And it was
precisely these two groups who sent their sons to the law. No others
could afford it. No others had the same interest in knowing the
intricacies of the land law. Like other medieval arts organized into
guilds, the law was a mystery. And there is no reason to believe
that the ruling cliques of England were eager to share the legal
mysteries with plebeians. |
Seeking to preserve their professional monopoly, lawyers locked
up their trade secrets in the safe of the unknown tongue. They
made French their langue de métier – a highly specialized
group-language of a closed professional circle – intelligible
only to denizens of the law-courts.
