I have not been able to learn to what extent books in this kind of mixed language are extant. I have observed one, a romance in verse called Macaire (Altfranzosische Gedichte aus Venez. Handschriften, von Adolf Mussafia, Wien, 1864), the language of which is not unlike this jargon of Rustician’s, e.g.:—
“‘Dama,’
fait-il, ’molto me poso merviler
De ves enfant
quant le fi batecer
De un signo qe
le vi sor la spal’a droiturer
Qe non ait nul
se no filz d’inperer.’”—(p.
41)
[6] As examples of such Orientalisms: Bonus,
“ebony,” and calamanz,
“pencases,” seem
to represent the Persian abnus and kalamdan; the dead
are mourned by les
meres et les Araines, the Harems; in speaking
of the land of the Ismaelites
or Assassins, called Mulhete, i.e. the
Arabic Mulahidah, “Heretics,”
he explains this term as meaning “des
Aram” (Haram,
“the reprobate"). Speaking of the Viceroys
of
Chinese Provinces, we are
told that they rendered their accounts
yearly to the Safators
of the Great Kaan. This is certainly an
Oriental word. Sir H.
Rawlinson has suggested that it stands for
dafatir ("registers
or public books"), pl. of daftar. This
seems
probable, and in that case
the true reading may have been dafators.
[7] Luces du Gast, one of the first of these, introduces
himself thus:—
“Je Luces, Chevaliers
et Sires du Chastel du Gast, voisins prochain de
Salebieres, comme chevaliers
amoureus enprens a translater du Latin en
Francois une partie de cette
estoire, non mie pour ce que je sache
gramment de Francois, ainz
apartient plus ma langue et ma parleure a
la maniere de l’Engleterre
que a celle de France, comme cel qui fu en
Engleterre nez, mais tele
est ma volentez et mon proposement, que je
en langue francoise le translaterai.”
(Hist. Litt. de La France, xv.
494.)
[8] Hist. Litt. de la France, xv. 500.
[9] Ibid. 508.
[10] Tyrwhitt’s Essay on Lang., etc., of
Chaucer, p. xxii. (Moxon’s Ed.
1852.)
[11] Chroniques Etrangeres, p. 502.
[12] “Loquuntur linguam quasi Gallicam, scilicet
quasi de Cipro.”
(See Cathay p. 332.)
[13] Page 138.
[14] Hammers Ilchan, II. 148.
[15] After the capture of Acre, Richard orders 60,000
Saracen prisoners to
be executed:—
“They wer brought out off the toun, Save twenty, he heeld to raunsoun. They wer led into the place ful evene: Ther they herden Aungeles off Hevene:
They sayde:
’SEYNYORS, TUEZ, TUEZ!
‘Spares
hem nought! Behedith these!’
Kyng Rychard herde
the Aungelys voys,
And thankyd God,
and the Holy Croys.”
—Weber,
II. 144.