Historically and ethnically wide-ranging narratives like the extensively disseminated Brut chronicles in English and Anglo-Norman vibrate with countless, largely implicit voices speaking a range of languages. The kings, their subjects and their enemies who people these works and speak in them – Trojans, Saxons, Danes, Normans, and many others, including people of different social status – do so most often, but not always, in the language of their authors, who themselves were writing at a time (the reign of Edward I) when the variety of languages in use in England was much discussed. The use of French especially had long been associated with political issues such as the hatred of Henry III's Savoyards, the fear of invasion from France, and the beginning of the Hundred Years' War.

This essay presents an investigative survey of the extent to which this variety in language is reflected in six Bruts written between c.1290 and c.1340, three in Middle English and three in Anglo-Norman. I shall be concerned with the extent and effect of switches of language between English and Anglo-Norman or Latin in the utterances of individuals featured in these works, often presented by the author through direct speech. The decision to present an actor on the historical stage offered by these Bruts as switching to a language different from that in which the work itself is written – or alternatively to be consistently monolingual – is never an arbitrary one.