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How did the Oath of Strasbourg become an early landmark of French literature?

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Open copy of Voltaire's Candide showing pages 242 and 243, with text in French and rough, untrimmed page edges, bound in its original blue-paper wrapper. — French literature An early version of Voltaire's *Candide* printed in London, 1759.

The Oath of Strasbourg, sworn in 842 CE, is recognized as an early landmark of French literature because it is the oldest surviving written document in Old French.12

During the Middle Ages, Latin was the standard language for almost all written texts. The Oath of Strasbourg, however, contains a Romance version of the vows exchanged between Louis the German and Charles the Bald during the partitioning of Charlemagne’s empire. Because it represents one of the first instances where the vernacular language—the speech of the people—was recorded in writing, it serves as a foundational text for the study of the French language's evolution from Vulgar Latin.13

While some scholars debate whether the text reflects the authentic spoken language of the time or was a later construction, its status as a primary linguistic artifact remains central to understanding the origins of French literature.13