Oil Oe and Oyl. 335 So it is quite another thing when in France, to which we must look for the name Languedoc, we read in ancient docu- mentSj langue de Normandie for the province : (toiite notre terre assise eii ladite langue de Normandie^ says a count of Cressy, in 13485 of his lands situate there. Ducange, Lin- gua) and in the same sense langue Picarde. Tongue for a country is not too bold : on the other hand it would be less usualj though here quite proper, for a word from the language or dialect of Normandy or Picardy to be used to express those provinces Joinville, a contemporary of Dante, has not the name either, even when there was strong induce- ment to employ it. He tells of a hard battle in Syria, in which he was himself in great danger, till two other knights came to his aid : they were Olivier de Termes and Arnoul de Cominges. Both the names, whether of their possessions or birthplace, point to Languedoc, which is also confirmed by historical researches. But the narrative contains the words : '^ il s'^en alia par devers Messire 01. de Termes, et a ses aultres capitaines de la torte langue^ et leur dit ^ The expression is very singular, and difficult to understand. Ducange (Li7igua) proposes to read coyote langue^ lingua ciirta^ as Languedoc is said to be called in some manuscript NotiticB^ but he does not enter further into an explanation of the origin of the name. Le Duchat (in Menage. Langue- doc) retains the reading torte^ and explains it to mean dis- torted^ that is, from the Latin : an epithet, which as it was very appropriate to the language of oc, might he thinks have been applied to it from the beginning. However this be, we see that nothing can be meant here but les autres Capitaines de Languedoc. Yet Joinville does not use the expression, or name, Languedoc, so that we are almost forced to con- clude, that it did not exist in his time. At a later period the expression lingua Occitana occurs in Latin documents, as in a charter of the French king Louis Hutin in 1315, and in one of Edward III. of England in 1347. But this epithet, which seems clearly to point to the word oc, is again rendered doubtful, and may appear to be a mere corruption, from the singular circumstance that at a still earlier period in the reign of Hutin's father, Philip the Handsome, the same country is called lingua Auocitana Vol il No. 5. U u
