It started with some scribbling in the margins or between the lines, to clarify the meaning of Latin – the language that dominated our writing culture well into the Middle Ages. The first written ‘translations’ into Old Dutch were therefore intended as reading aids. It was not until the end of the 12th century that the production of translations into the vernacular really got going, partly because the nobility and urban elite also started to buy books – a matter of prestige – and they simply did not know Latin very well.
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