Joyce Boro’s research while affiliated with Université de Montréal and other places

This essay discusses the many possible neologisms coined by Lord Berners (c.1467–1533) in his romance Castell of Love which are not recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary. Copious examples of Berners' linguistic inventiveness are recognised by the Oxford English Dictionary; however, this essay argues that he ought to be recognised for many additional terms and usages which he employs prior to their first-documented instances. These include many common lexemes, including affirmation, foliage, importunate, to put down (denoting to put to death), to put case and blackamoor, order of battle and braying. After briefly contextualising Berners' efforts within the sixteenth-century climate of linguistic expansion, this essay examines the eight possible neologisms in Castell as well as the instances in which he may be expanding upon the lexical field of an already-existing term. Berners seemingly adopted various strategies to expand his vocabulary in order to convey the semantic nuances and the ideas that he found in his sources. His source materials provided him with a rich linguistic field of inspiration; not only does he borrow and anglicise certain Spanish and French terms, he also combines lexemes already found in his native language and expands upon their current definitions, thus widening their semantic range. These techniques attest to his linguistic creativity, and they are consistent with the strategies that were adopted by his fellow translators and by contemporary writers in all genres. It is argued that through borrowing, affixation and compounding, Berners augmented his own language, creating the terms he needed to express his required meaning or his desired poetic effect. Not only did his originality enrich the textual fabric of Castell and of early modern English, but traces of his efforts may persist in contemporary English: Berners' innovations have conceivably enhanced our daily language.

Few printed copies, and only one manuscript, of the work of John Bourchier, Lord Berners, now survive. In "Lord Berners and His Books: A New Survey," Joyce Boro considers new evidence about his career, from the romances Huon and Arthur to Froissart's Chronycles to the Castell of Love and The Golden Boke. Berners was one of the first to translate Spanish texts into English - in some cases, he apparently worked simultaneously from Spanish and French sources to create an entirely new English version - and he was also among the last to compose prose romances before the English Reformation. Boro fills out the sporadic record of this transitional figure with recent discoveries - including a manuscript fragment of the Chronycles, Continental printed editions that served as source texts, and evidence for the dispersal of Berners' library. © 2004 by the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery. All rights reserved.