Please excuse the need for horizontal scrolling, but that is just what shape the document is. If I made it smaller, we couldn't read it.  
There are many differences in spelling between the words in this vernacular document and modern French. One difference is the lack of accents, but who would have thought the modern French word sous would be spelled soubz. (Lucky my chum Tania knows a thing or two about medieval French!) The ink is quite brown in colour. The cursive script, although fairly legible once you get your eye in, is very uneven and a tad messy.

There is an interesting reference in the text to money, which is given primarily in livres and solz tournois, the medieval money of Tours. The franc only came into use in 1365, so there is a note in the middle of a sentence that a franc is equivalent to 20 solz tournois.

  
Acquittance of 1383, from the collection of Rob Schäfer. All images © Rob Schäfer.  

| overview | seal | text | alphabet | abbreviations | structure | exercises |

| transcript | translation |

  
Click on each of the above to walk your way through the text. The transcript will appear in a separate window so that you can use it for reference at any time. These exercises are designed to guide you through the text, not test you, so you can cheat as much as you like.  
Medieval Writing
  
Script sample for this example  
Index of Exercises  
Index of Scripts  
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This site is created and maintained by Dr Dianne Tillotson, freelance researcher and compulsive multimedia and web author. Comments are welcome. Material on this web site is copyright, but some parts more so than others. Please check here for copyright status and usage before you start making free with it. This page last modified 19/5/2005.