Katana VentraIP

Medieval Latin

Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned as the main medium of scholarly exchange, as the liturgical language of the Church, and as the working language of science, literature, law, and administration.

Medieval Latin

Numerous small states

Developed from Late Latin between 4th and 10th centuries; replaced by Renaissance Latin from the 14th century

De facto in most Catholic and/or Romance-speaking states during the Middle Ages[a]

Medieval Latin represented a continuation of Classical Latin and Late Latin, with enhancements for new concepts as well as for the increasing integration of Christianity. Despite some meaningful differences from Classical Latin, its writers did not regard it as a fundamentally different language. There is no real consensus on the exact boundary where Late Latin ends and Medieval Latin begins. Some scholarly surveys begin with the rise of early Ecclesiastical Latin in the middle of the 4th century, others around 500,[1] and still others with the replacement of written Late Latin by written Romance languages starting around the year 900.


The terms Medieval Latin and Ecclesiastical Latin are sometimes used synonymously, though some scholars draw distinctions. Ecclesiastical Latin refers specifically to the form that has been used by the Roman Catholic Church (even before the Middle Ages in Antiquity), whereas Medieval Latin refers to all of the (written) forms of Latin used in the Middle Ages. The Romance languages spoken in the Middle Ages were often referred to as Latin, since the Romance languages were all descended from Vulgar Latin itself.[2] Medieval Latin would be replaced by educated humanist Renaissance Latin, otherwise known as Neo-Latin.

Influences[edit]

Christian Latin[edit]

Medieval Latin had an enlarged vocabulary, which freely borrowed from other sources. It was heavily influenced by the language of the Vulgate, which contained many peculiarities alien to Classical Latin that resulted from a more or less direct translation from Greek and Hebrew; the peculiarities mirrored the original not only in its vocabulary but also in its grammar and syntax. Greek provided much of the technical vocabulary of Christianity. The various Germanic languages spoken by the Germanic tribes, who invaded southern Europe, were also major sources of new words. Germanic leaders became the rulers of parts of the Roman Empire that they conquered, and words from their languages were freely imported into the vocabulary of law. Other more ordinary words were replaced by coinages from Vulgar Latin or Germanic sources because the classical words had fallen into disuse.

Word order usually tended towards that of the vernacular language of the author, not the artificial and polished word order of Classical Latin. Conversely, an erudite scholar might attempt to "show off" by intentionally constructing a very complicated sentence. Because Latin is an inflected language, it is technically possible to place related words at opposite ends of a paragraph-long sentence, and owing to the complexity of doing so, it was seen by some as a sign of great skill.

Typically, prepositions are used much more frequently (as in modern Romance languages) for greater clarity, instead of using the ablative case alone. Furthermore, in Classical Latin the subject of a verb was often left implied, unless it was being stressed: videt = "he sees". For clarity, Medieval Latin more frequently includes an explicit subject: is videt = "he sees" without necessarily stressing the subject.

Various changes occurred in vocabulary, and certain words were mixed into different declensions or conjugations. Many new compound verbs were formed. Some words retained their original structure but drastically changed in meaning: animositas specifically means "wrath" in Medieval Latin while in Classical Latin, it generally referred to "high spirits, excited spirits" of any kind.

Owing to heavy use of biblical terms, there was a large influx of new words borrowed from Greek and Hebrew and even some grammatical influences. That obviously largely occurred among priests and scholars, not the laity. In general, it is difficult to express abstract concepts in Latin, as many scholars admitted. For example, Plato's abstract concept of "the Truth" had to be expressed in Latin as "what is always true". Medieval scholars and theologians, translating both the Bible and Greek philosophers into Latin out of the Koine and Classical Greek, cobbled together many new abstract concept words in Latin.

Following the Carolingian reforms of the 9th century, was widely adopted, leading to a clear differentiation between capital and lowercase letters.

Carolingian minuscule

A partial or full differentiation between v and u, and between j and i.

The diphthong ae is usually collapsed and simply written as e (or , ę); for example, puellae might be written puelle (or puellę). The same happens with the diphthong oe, for example in pena, Edipus, from poena, Oedipus. This feature is already found on coin inscriptions of the 4th century (e.g. reipublice for reipublicae). Conversely, an original e in Classical Latin was often represented by ae or oe (e.g. aecclesia and coena), also reflected in English spellings such as foetus.

e caudata

Because of a severe decline in the knowledge of Greek, in loanwords and foreign names from or transmitted through Greek, y and i might be used more or less interchangeably: Ysidorus, Egiptus, from Isidorus, Aegyptus. This is also found in pure Latin words: ocius ("more swiftly") appears as ocyus and silva as sylva, this last being a form which survived into the 18th century and so became embedded in modern (also cf. Pennsylvania).

botanical Latin

h might be lost, so that habere becomes abere, or mihi becomes mi (the latter also occurred in Classical Latin); or mihi may be written michi, indicating that the h had come to be pronounced as [k] or perhaps [x]. This pronunciation is not found in Classical Latin, but had existed very early in vulgar speech.

The loss of h in pronunciation also led to the addition of h in writing where it did not previously belong, especially in the vicinity of r, such as chorona for corona, a tendency also sometimes seen in Classical Latin.

-ti- before a vowel is often written as -ci- [tsi], so that divitiae becomes diviciae (or divicie), tertius becomes tercius, vitium vicium.

The combination mn might have another plosive inserted, so that alumnus becomes alumpnus, somnus sompnus.

Single consonants were often doubled, or vice versa, so that tranquillitas becomes tranquilitas and Africa becomes Affrica.

Syncopation became more frequent: vi, especially in verbs in the perfect tense, might be lost, so that novisse becomes nosse (this occurred in Classical Latin as well but was much more frequent in Medieval Latin).

Many striking differences between classical and Medieval Latin are found in orthography. Perhaps the most striking difference is that medieval manuscripts used a wide range of abbreviations by means of superscripts, special characters etc.: for instance the letters "n" and "s" were often omitted and replaced by a diacritical mark above the preceding or following letter. Apart from this, some of the most frequently occurring differences are as follows. Clearly many of these would have been influenced by the spelling, and indeed pronunciation,[6] of the vernacular language, and thus varied between different European countries.


These orthographical differences were often due to changes in pronunciation or, as in the previous example, morphology, which authors reflected in their writing. By the 16th century, Erasmus complained that speakers from different countries were unable to understand each other's form of Latin.[7]


The gradual changes in Latin did not escape the notice of contemporaries. Petrarch, writing in the 14th century, complained about this linguistic "decline", which helped fuel his general dissatisfaction with his own era.

Medieval Latin literature[edit]

The corpus of Medieval Latin literature encompasses a wide range of texts, including such diverse works as sermons, hymns, hagiographical texts, travel literature, histories, epics, and lyric poetry.


The first half of the 5th century saw the literary activities of the great Christian authors Jerome (c. 347–420) and Augustine of Hippo (354–430), whose texts had an enormous influence on theological thought of the Middle Ages, and of the latter's disciple Prosper of Aquitaine (c. 390 – c. 455). Of the later 5th century and early 6th century, Sidonius Apollinaris (c. 430 – after 489) and Ennodius (474–521), both from Gaul, are well known for their poems, as is Venantius Fortunatus (c. 530 – c. 600). This was also a period of transmission: the Roman patrician Boethius (c. 480–524) translated part of Aristotle's logical corpus, thus preserving it for the Latin West, and wrote the influential literary and philosophical treatise De consolatione Philosophiae; Cassiodorus (c. 485 – c. 585) founded an important library at the monastery of Vivarium near Squillace where many texts from Antiquity were to be preserved. Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636) collected all scientific knowledge still available in his time into what might be called the first encyclopedia, the Etymologiae.


Gregory of Tours (c. 538–594) wrote a lengthy history of the Frankish kings. Gregory came from a Gallo-Roman aristocratic family, and his Latin, which shows many aberrations from the classical forms, testifies to the declining significance of classical education in Gaul. At the same time, good knowledge of Latin and even of Greek was being preserved in monastic culture in Ireland and was brought to England and the European mainland by missionaries in the course of the 6th and 7th centuries, such as Columbanus (543–615), who founded the monastery of Bobbio in Northern Italy. Ireland was also the birthplace of a strange poetic style known as Hisperic Latin. Other important Insular authors include the historian Gildas (c. 500 – c. 570) and the poet Aldhelm (c. 640–709). Benedict Biscop (c. 628–690) founded the monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow and furnished it with books which he had taken home from a journey to Rome and which were later used by Bede (c. 672–735) to write his Ecclesiastical History of the English People.


Many Medieval Latin works have been published in the series Patrologia Latina, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum and Corpus Christianorum.

Medieval Latin and everyday life[edit]

Medieval Latin was separated from Classical Latin around 800 and at this time was no longer considered part of the everyday language. The speaking of Latin became a practice used mostly by the educated high class population. Even then it was not frequently used in casual conversation. An example of these men includes the churchmen who could read Latin, but could not effectively speak it. Latin's use in universities was structured in lectures and debates, however, it was highly recommended that students use it in conversation. This practice was kept up only due to rules.[8] One of Latin's purposes, writing, was still in practice; the main uses being charters for property transactions and to keep track of the pleadings given in court. Even then, those of the church still used Latin more than the rest of the population. At this time, Latin served little purpose to the regular population but was still used regularly in ecclesiastical culture.[8]

(c. 480 – 525)

Boëthius

(c. 485 – c. 585)

Cassiodorus

(d. c. 570)

Gildas

(d. c. 570)

Flavius Cresconius Corippus

(c. 530 – c. 600)

Venantius Fortunatus

(c. 538–594)

Gregory of Tours

(c. 540 – 604)

Pope Gregory I

(c. 560–636)

Isidore of Seville

(c. 672–735)

Bede

(c. 672 - 754)

St. Boniface

(d. 766)

Chrodegang of Metz

(c. 720s – c. 799)

Paul the Deacon

(c. 730 – c. 800)

Beatus of Liébana

(d. 799)

Peter of Pisa

(730s - 802)

Paulinus of Aquileia

(c. 735–804)

Alcuin

Goliards

Hiberno-Latin

Medieval Roman law

Riddle poems

(11th - 12th century)

Carmina Burana

(ca.1250)

Pange Lingua

(ca.1270)

Summa Theologiae

(ca.600)

Etymologiae

(ca.1260)

Dies Irae

(ca.1150)

Decretum Gratiani

(ca.1180)

De Ortu Waluuanii Nepotis Arturi

(ca.1215)

Magna Carta

Chavannes-Mazel, Claudine A., and Margaret M. Smith, eds. 1996. Medieval Manuscripts of the Latin Classics: Production and Use; Proceedings of the Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Leiden, 1993. Los Altos Hills, CA: Anderson-Lovelace.

Lapidge, Michael. 1993. Anglo-Latin Literature 900–1066. London and Rio Grande, OH: Hambledon.

--. 1996. Anglo-Latin Literature 600–899. London and Rio Grande, OH: Hambledon.

Mann, Nicholas, and Birger Munk Olsen, eds. 1997. Medieval and Renaissance Scholarship: Proceedings of the Second European Science Foundation Workshop on the Classical Tradition in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, London: Warburg Institute, 27–28 November 1992. New York: Brill.

Mantello, F. A. C., and George Rigg. 1996. Medieval Latin: An Introduction and Bibliographical Guide. Washington, DC: Catholic University of American Press.

Pecere, Oronzo, and Michael D. Reeve. 1995. Formative Stages of Classical Traditions: Latin Texts from Antiquity to the Renaissance; Proceedings of a Conference Held at Erice, 16–22 October 1993, as the 6th Course of International School for the Study of Written Records. Spoleto, Italy: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’alto Medioevo.

Raby, F. J. E. 1957. A History of Secular Latin Poetry in the Middle Ages. 2 vols. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon.

Rigg, A. G. 1992. A History of Anglo-Latin Literature A.D. 1066–1422. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Walde, Christine, ed. 2012. Brill's New Pauly Supplement 5: The Reception of Classical Literature. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill.

Ziolkowski, Jan M., 1993. Talking Animals: Medieval Latin Beast Poetry, 750-1150. Philadelphia, PA, University of Pennsylvania Press.

Raby, F.J.E., 1959. The Oxford Book of Medieval Latin Verse. Amen House, London, Oxford University Press.

Harrington, Karl Pomeroy, 1942. Mediaeval Latin. Norwood, MA, USA, Norwood Press.

Dronke, Peter, vol. 1, 1965. Medieval Latin and the Rise of European Love-Lyric. Oxford, UK, Clarendon Press.

Bacci, Antonii. Varia Latinitatis Scripta II, Inscriptiones Orationes Epistvlae. Rome, Italy, Societas Librania Stvdivm.

Beeson, Charles H., 1925. A Primer of Medieval Latin: An Anthology of Prose and Poetry. Chicago, United States, Scott, Foresman and Company.

Curtius, Ernst Roberts, 1953. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. New York, New York, United States, Inc.

Bollingen Foundation

Auerbach, Erich, 1965. Literary Language & Its Public: in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages. New York, NY, USA, Bollingen Foundation.

at the UK National Archives.

In-depth Guides to Learning Latin

The Journal of Medieval Latin

Wright, Thomas, ed. A Selection of Latin Stories, from Manuscripts of the Thirteenth and Founteenth Centuries: A Contribution to the History of Fiction During the Middle Ages. (London: The Percy Society. 1842.)

(mlat.uzh.ch)

Corpus Corporum

(corpusthomisticum.org)

Corpus Thomisticum

(penelope.uchicago.edu)

LacusCurtius