Richard Ingham, The Maintenance of French in Later Medieval England, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 115, 2014 : p. 425-448

[Abstract Following recent work on the French of England, also known as Anglo-Norman (Butterfield 2009; Wogan-Browne et al. 2009; Ingham 2010; Trotter 2012; Ingham 2012), this article conducts a detailed re-examination of earlier claims on the learning of French in medieval England. Texts claimed to provide evidence of its instructed status are critically discussed, and shown not to offer support for it. An alternative means by which the insular variety of French was maintained in England is put forward, and is argued to dovetail well with linguistic analysis of changes in the phonology and grammar of later Anglo-Norman. This account lends support to recent proposals that emphasise the effect of a multilingual language context in England at this time, and its significance for the development of English.]