Kelham, Robert, 1717-1808.
Kelham's Law-French Dictionary : English Law
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A Dictionary Of The Norman Or Old French Language |
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| A Dictionary Of The Norman Or Old French Language |
Kelham's Law-French dictionary, a simple vocabulary, was not regarded as a successful work, though there were few books of its kind to rival it. While considered an improvement on the anonymous Law-French dictionary of 1718, the book has been regarded as incomplete and unscholarly, its language barbarous and corrupt. Its phrases were jumbled using simple or inaccurate words, and no quotations or references to authority were given, something for which the author himself apologizes. (In his preface, Kelham complained of the expense of publishing references; however, at the end of the book he managed to include all the laws of William the Conqueror in Law-French, Latin, and English.) Kelham was more interested in old literary works than strictly investigating the language of the law. He included only earlier Law-French terms, so many of the words he listed will not be found in the printed law books in the forms in which he listed them.
Law-French was a corrupt dialect that developed from the declining Anglo-French in roughly the thirteenth century. Considered easy to learn, most English lawyers wrote all their reports and professional notes in Law-French until the reign of Charles II. Most legal literature was written in Law-French or Latin until the seventeenth century. It was more often written than spoken; when spoken, it sounded nothing like the French vernacular, partly because nearly every word was altered or jumbled somehow, and also because English lawyers were determined to pronounce it as if it were English. It could barely be understood by a Frenchman. Hearing calls for reform to English usage, in 1650 Parliament finally issued an order that only English was to be used in law books, but during the Restoration there was a widespread reversion to Law-French. Gradually, though, the use of Law-French dropped away for good in the eighteenth century.
Even as late as 1887, the Selden Society complained that no adequate Law-French dictionary had yet been published, so Kelham remained the only option for some time. Marvin illustrates this point when he notes, "though far from being complete it is the best work of the kind" (p. 435). Indeed, Alexander Burrill found himself turning to Kelham's work as the only source for such translations as he was writing his own dictionary in the U.S. during the mid-nineteenth century. Kelham's work was often reprinted and appended with Bouvier's Law Dictionary.
Much of the preceding is taken from J. H. Baker's Manual of Law French, 2nd ed. (Hants, England: Scolar Press 1990); in addition, Percy H. Winfield discusses this book in his work, The Chief Sources of English Legal History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925). See also John G. Marvin, Legal Bibliography, or a Thesaurus of American, English, Irish, and Scotch Law Books (Philadelphia: T. & J. W. Johnson, 1847).
Bibliography
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