The English glosses in Walter of Bibbesworth's Tretiz

The "Tretiz" of Walter of Bibbesworth is an Anglo-Norman poem accompanied by English lexical glosses whose composition is dated 1240-1250. It is frequently invoked as a turning point in the history of the French language in England, the first indication that full English-French bilingualism was declining. Knox provides a sketch of the patterns of glossing in the extant body of manuscripts of the "Tretiz", before examining in detail two witnesses that present the poem and its glosses in strikingly different ways. By situating the glosses of these two manuscripts within the wider textual tradition of the "Tretiz", Knox challenges the orthodoxy that Walter's poem must be understood as representing a decline in French literacy in England.