Although its impact has been obscured by later waves of borrowing, it is clear that Old Norse had a significant effect on the vocabulary of English; some types of words that are rarely borrowed from one language into another, including pronouns, conjunctions, and prepositions, have been borrowed from Old Norse into English, testifying to the depth and intensity of the language contact relationship between the two languages. Such borrowings are well-attested in Old English, to the extent that loan words from Old Norse comprise the second largest group of loan words in Old English (loan words from Latin make up the largest group). Despite the clear importance of the Norse-English borrowing relationship for the history of English, there are relatively few in-depth studies of the topic. The book reviewed here aims to fill that gap at least partially, by offering a thorough investigation of Norse-derived vocabulary in the works of Archbishop Wulfstan II of York. Wulfstan's works were chosen for the study because "unlike most Old English texts, they are closely dateable and, to a certain extent, localizable" (2). The book is a natural development of earlier research by the author, who has also published on Norse-derived vocabulary in Anglo-Saxon glosses and in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
The book consists of eight main chapters, a brief general introduction and a similar conclusion, and a handy word index. The first two chapters are introductory. Chapter 1, "Wulfstan's Canon and Style" (7-31), gives the reader exactly what its title suggests, namely an overview of Wulfstan's works, both religious (most famously perhaps his homilies) and non-religious (including legal texts and charters), and then a discussion of Wulfstan's style, including devices like repetition (lexical repetition, structural parallelism, word play, etc.) and his weakness for compounds. Chapter 2, "Terminology and Procedural Decisions" (32-67), discusses various terminological issues (e.g. simplexes vs. complexes) and addresses issues like the texts used in the study; linguistic similarities between Old Norse and Old English; and ways to identify words of Norse origin in Wulfstan's works, including phonological, morphological, and cultural evidence.
The study proper gets underway with the third chapter, "Wulfstan's Norse-derived Legal Vocabulary I: The lagu Word-field" (68-124). It first traces the semantic range of words connected to lagu, meaning "law, ordinance, rule," among other things, e.g. regollagu, "monastic law," in the legal, secular, and sacred spheres. Pons-Sanz then points out that as lagu added additional meanings, it began to encroach on the semantic territory of native Old English words, and then discusses various results of this development. For instance, lagu came to be used as a synonym for bebod, "commandment," which is admittedly not very common in the Old English legal codes. The next section of the chapter investigates the etymologies and construction of compounds formed with lagu, and the chapter concludes with the claim that lagu is clearly very well-integrated into Old English, as it is very productive as a base for compounds in Wulfstan's works and is also widely-used in Old English legal vocabulary.
Chapter 4, "Wulfstan's Norse-derived Legal Vocabulary II: The grið Word-field" (125-158), follows a similar pattern. In this chapter, Pons-Sanz looks at grið, generally meaning "peace, protection," as well as its interactions with frið (also mainly meaning "peace, protection"), mund ("peace, protection, fine for the breach of the laws of protection"), and borg ("surety, loan" or less often "protection"). Among other things, Pons-Sanz argues that grið has also become well-established in Wulfstan's works, has a broader meaning in Old English than in the source language Old Norse, shows some semantic proximity to mund, and is also very productive lexically. The third such chapter, "Wulfstan's Norse-derived Legal Vocabulary III: Remaining Terms" (159-172), is something of a catch-all, dealing with words used significantly less often by Wulfstan, e.g. unsac, "not accused, innocent," which is only used once, and then for strictly stylistic reasons, according to Pons-Sanz. Pons-Sanz notes that these words are only attested in Wulfstan's later works, which would suggest that they are less important than some of the other Norse-derived terms considered in the book (their less frequent usage also suggests this, of course), but points out that they do tend to participate in word-formation processes, which may mean that they are no less important than at least some of these other terms. The next chapter, "Other Norse-Derived Technical Terms in Wulfstan's Works" (173-192), segues from legal vocabulary into other areas of Wulfstan's works. It considers terms having to do with social status, e.g. bōnda, "freeman of a low class, householder, free peasant, husband," and money, e.g. ōran, "ora." Pons-Sanz concludes that some of these terms are well-integrated into Wulfstan's vocabulary, as they are used in word-formation processes and/or are used more often than their native equivalents, while others are used less often and therefore only show that Wulfstan "was aware of the social and economic peculiarities of the Scandinavianized areas" (192).
The next two chapters are more general in scope. Chapter 7 looks at "Reasons for the Presence of Norse-Derived Vocabulary in Wulfstan's Works" (193-230). Linguistic borrowings can take place for many reasons, ranging from changes in the physical and/or social environment of the language (as evidenced by the numerous loan words from Native American languages in English) to technological developments (as in the spread of English-language computer terminology into other languages) or simply a desire to be fashionable. In this chapter, Pons-Sanz reviews the factors that have been traditionally cited to account for the presence of Norse-derived vocabulary, namely "his contacts with his archbishopric, his possible East Anglian origin and his addressing a Scandinavianized audience" (229). Pons-Sanz carefully sifts through the evidence for these factors, and concludes that none of them can account for all of the relevant data, that it may be impossible to find one single reason for the use of a loan word instead of a native term, and that further research is necessary before any definitive conclusions along these lines can be drawn. The final thematic chapter of the book, "Wulfstan's Impact on the Legal Language" (231-257), notes that it can be hard to distinguish between developments that can be directly attributed to Wulfstan's influence and developments that result from other ongoing trends in the language. Pons-Sanz does conclude, however, that "it is almost impossible to deny that his influence lies, at least, in the popularization of some terms and collocations thanks to his role as a prominent figure in late Anglo-Saxon England" (256-257).
In many respects, this is an admirable book. Pons-Sanz tackles a complicated subject, works through a sizable amount of data, and normally draws conclusions that seem eminently plausible. Pons-Sanz also normally does a nice job of moving from the general to the more specific, keeping an eye on the details while never losing sight of the big picture. At times the book is somewhat difficult to read; I occasionally found myself getting a bit bogged down in the argumentation and wishing that Pons-Sanz had phrased things on a slightly more basic level for those of us who are not as well-versed in the subject matter as she herself so obviously is. Be that as it may, this book is definitely worth the time necessary to read and digest it, and those interested in language contact, Wulfstan, and the history of English, among other fields, would be well-advised to consult it.