Wace, author of Roman do Rou, which extolled the virtues of Duke Rollo, the founder of the Norman line, write:
Je parol a la riche gent
Ki unt les rentes er l’argent
Kar pur eus sunt li livre fait.
(I write for the rich people, who have the rents and the money, for it is for them that books are made.)
… for which increasing substitute “the supermarkets”, and you’re just about there….
(From A Short History of French Literature by Geoffrey Brereton)
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