Episode 2 of 2
Mandate for French Language
- When
- August 10, 1539
- Where
- Villers-Cotterêts
Articles 110 and 111 required French for legal acts and official legislation to avoid confusion.
The ordinance called for the use of French in all legal acts, notarized contracts, and official legislation. This provision aimed to avoid linguistic confusion in the complex systems of justice and administration, although it left uncertainty by failing to define the French mother tongue.
Sources
- Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts Wikipedia, revision of 2026-06-16
- Francis I of France Wikipedia
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.