During the Middle Ages, Bestiaries were manuscripts using allegories of animal lore to preach mankind’s virtues or vices, imposed on sculptures in churches.
In the prologue to the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer’s prioress is accused of speaking an inferior version of French learned in Stratford rather than in Paris: Frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly, After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe, For Frenssh of Parys was to hire unknowe. (And she spoke.