Three Frenchmen Abroad: De La Rue, Michel, and Meyer in England

Since French was spoken and written in England in the Middle Ages, early French medievalists were obliged to travel abroad to consult manuscripts in repositories there. This article discusses the English trips of Gervais De La Rue, Francisque Michel, and Paul Meyer from the end of the eighteenth through the end of the nineteenth century. It is shown how their respective attitudes towards insular French and medieval literature in general are representative of different stages in the evolution of scholarship and that they are closely linked to contemporary political concerns. (KB) [And La Rue, Gervais de; Meyer, Paul; relationship to England.]