Abstract: 14th century France saw the flowering of translations of the great political texts of Greece and Rome, and the translators, in their work, contributed to the creation of a new vocabulary of politics. Raoul de Presles made the first translation into French of the City of God, and Nicole Oresme addressed the works of Aristotle, Ethics and Politics in particular. Borrowing proved to be one of the main means by which translators introduced new concepts into a vocabulary hitherto dominated by religion. Indeed, as political science emerged, borrowing became an essential resource for coining new words. In this article, a particular case is examined in the tables and glossaries of Nicole Oresme’s works: that of the word démocratie.
