Abstract
The study of the variety of languages used during the Middle Ages is still under the spell of medieval literary histories narrated from national perspectives which have concentrated on the gradual rise of vernacular languages, and which provide a simplified picture in many different respects: they treat medieval languages are distinct, easily separable entities fully developed long before appearing in writing, tend to promote a single vernacular within a particular area, and suppress Latin as a sort of externally imposed enemy. The study concentrates on the material aspects of late medieval multilingualism.
To balance the geographical scope of the volume, examples from late medieval Bohemia are used. Depending on the focus selected, it is possible to trace co-habitation of languages within a particular spacial and temporal frame (e.g. a medieval monastic library), search for multilingual competences of a particular scribe, or inspect language switching and mixing within a single codex.
As far as the manuscript page is concerned, languages do not seem to compete. Yet, when interpreting language choice of medieval scribes, it needs to be kept in mind that the preserved manuscripts are not all ""successful communication acts"" but there is a great deal of randomness in manuscript survival.