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Ecclesiastical Latin

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Ecclesiastical Latin , also called Church Latin or Liturgical Latin , is a form of Latin developed to discuss Christian thought in Late antiquity and used in Christian liturgy , theology , and church administration to the present day, especially in the Catholic Church . It includes words from Vulgar Latin and Classical Latin (as well as Greek and Hebrew ) re-purposed with Christian meaning. It is less stylized and rigid in form than Classical Latin, sharing vocabulary, forms, and syntax, while at the same time incorporating informal elements which had always been with the language but which were excluded by the literary authors of Classical Latin.

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105-604: Its pronunciation was partly standardized in the late 8th century during the Carolingian Renaissance as part of Charlemagne 's educational reforms, and this new letter-by-letter pronunciation, used in France and England, was adopted in Iberia and Italy a couple of centuries afterwards. As time passed, pronunciation diverged depending on the local vernacular language, giving rise to even highly divergent forms such as

210-826: A Gaulish substrate, although there is some debate. One of these is considered certain, because this fact is clearly attested in the Gaulish-language epigraphy on the pottery found at la Graufesenque ( A.D. 1st century). There, the Greek word paropsid-es (written in Latin) appears as paraxsid-i . The consonant clusters /ps/ and /pt/ shifted to /xs/ and /xt/, e.g. Lat capsa > *kaxsa > caisse ( ≠ Italian cassa ) or captīvus > *kaxtivus > OF chaitif (mod. chétif ; cf. Irish cacht 'servant'; ≠ Italian cattiv-ità , Portuguese cativo , Spanish cautivo ). This phonetic evolution

315-477: A bicycle ( birota ), a cigarette ( fistula nicotiana ), a computer ( instrumentum computatorium ), a cowboy ( armentarius ), a motel ( deversorium autocineticum ), shampoo ( capitilavium ), a strike ( operistitium ), a terrorist ( tromocrates ), a trademark ( ergasterii nota ), an unemployed person ( invite otiosus ), a waltz ( chorea Vindobonensis ), and even a miniskirt ( tunicula minima ) and hot pants ( brevissimae bracae femineae ). Some 600 such terms extracted from

420-421: A definitive influence on the development of Old French, which partly explains why the earliest attested Old French documents are older than the earliest attestations in other Romance languages (e.g. Strasbourg Oaths , Sequence of Saint Eulalia ). It is the result of an earlier gap created between Classical Latin and its evolved forms, which slowly reduced and eventually severed the mutual intelligibility between

525-620: A feudal elite and commerce. The area of Old French in contemporary terms corresponded to the northern parts of the Kingdom of France (including Anjou and Normandy , which in the 12th century were ruled by the Plantagenet kings of England ), Upper Burgundy and the Duchy of Lorraine . The Norman dialect was also spread to England and Ireland , and during the Crusades , Old French

630-459: A few years later, at the Council of Tours , to instruct priests to read sermons aloud in the old way, in rusticam romanam linguam or 'plain roman[ce] speech' (while the liturgy retained the new pronunciation to this day). As there was now no unambiguous way to indicate whether a given text was to be read aloud as Latin or Romance, and native Germanic speakers (such as church singers) numerous in

735-420: A fraindre, Fors Sarragoce qu'est en une montaigne; Li reis Marsilies la tient, ki Deu nen aimet, Mahomet sert ed Apolin reclaimet: Ne·s poet guarder que mals ne l'i ataignet! ˈt͡ʃarləs li ˈre͜is, ˈnɔstr‿empəˈræðrə ˈmaɲəs ˈsɛt ˈant͡s ˈtot͡s ˈple͜ins ˈað esˈtæθ en esˈpaɲə ˈtræs k‿en la ˈmɛr konˈkist la ˈtɛr alˈta͜iɲə t͡ʃasˈtɛl ni ˈaθ ki dəˈvant ˈly͜i rəˈma͜iɲəθ ˈmyrs nə t͡siˈtæθ n‿i ˈɛst rəˈmæs

840-706: A major demand for slaves in the Muslim world , with European slaves particularly prized. As a result of Charlemagne's wars of conquest in Eastern Europe , a steady supply of captured Slavs , Avars , Saxons , and Danes reached merchants in Western Europe, who then exported the slaves via Ampurias , Girona , and the Pyrenees passes to Muslim Spain and other parts of the Arab world. The market for slaves

945-736: A modern language, but the authoritative text, published in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis , is usually in Latin. Some texts may be published initially in a modern language and be later revised, according to a Latin version (or "editio typica"), after this Latin version is published. For example, the Catechism of the Catholic Church was drafted and published, in 1992, in French. The Latin text appeared five years later, in 1997, and

1050-537: A more legible, classicizing script, with clearly distinct capital and minuscule letters. It was the Carolingian minuscule that Renaissance humanists took to be Roman and employed as humanist minuscule , from which has developed early modern Italic script . They also applied rational ideas to social issues for the first time in centuries, providing a common language and writing style that enabled communication throughout most of Europe. As Pierre Riché points out,

1155-1242: A new orthography for the latter; among the earliest examples are parts of the Oaths of Strasbourg and the Sequence of Saint Eulalia . Some Gaulish words influenced Vulgar Latin and, through this, other Romance languages. For example, classical Latin equus was uniformly replaced in Vulgar Latin by caballus 'nag, work horse', derived from Gaulish caballos (cf. Welsh ceffyl , Breton kefel ), yielding ModF cheval , Occitan caval ( chaval ), Catalan cavall , Spanish caballo , Portuguese cavalo , Italian cavallo , Romanian cal , and, by extension, English cavalry and chivalry (both via different forms of [Old] French: Old Norman and Francien ). An estimated 200 words of Gaulish etymology survive in Modern French, for example chêne , 'oak tree', and charrue , 'plough'. Within historical phonology and studies of language contact , various phonological changes have been posited as caused by

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1260-404: A pronunciation based on a fairly literal interpretation of Latin spelling. For example, in a radical break from the traditional system, a word such as ⟨ viridiarium ⟩ 'orchard' now had to be read aloud precisely as it was spelled rather than */verdʒjær/ (later spelled as Old French vergier ). The Carolingian reforms soon brought the new Church Latin from France to other lands where Romance

1365-602: A radical change had the effect of rendering Latin sermons completely unintelligible to the general Romance-speaking public, which prompted officials a few years later, at the Third Council of Tours , to instruct priests to read sermons aloud in the old way, in rusticam romanam linguam or 'plain Roman[ce] speech'. As there was now no unambiguous way to indicate whether a given text was to be read aloud as Latin or Romance, various attempts were made in France to devise

1470-651: A small group of court literati . According to John Contreni , "it had a spectacular effect on education and culture in Francia , a debatable effect on artistic endeavors, and an unmeasurable effect on what mattered most to the Carolingians, the moral regeneration of society". The secular and ecclesiastical leaders of the Carolingian Renaissance made efforts to write better Latin, to copy and preserve patristic and classical texts, and to develop

1575-444: A surplus of primarily grain, wine and salt. In turn, inter-regional trade in these commodities facilitated the expansion of towns. Archaeological data shows the continuation of this upward trend in the early eighth century. The zenith of the early Carolingian economy was reached from 775 to 830, coinciding with the largest surpluses of the period, large-scale building of churches as well as overpopulation and three famines that showed

1680-418: A system based on a new .940-fine silver penny ( Latin : denarius ; French : denier ) weighing 1/240 of a pound ( librum , libra , or lira ; livre ). (The Carolingian pound seems to have been about 489.5  grams , making each penny about 2  grams .) As the debased solidus was then roughly equivalent to 11 of these pennies, the shilling ( solidus ; sol )

1785-505: A very distinctive identity compared to the other future Romance languages. The first noticeable influence is the substitution of the Latin melodic accent with a Germanic stress and its result was diphthongization , differentiation between long and short vowels, the fall of the unaccented syllable and of the final vowels: Additionally, two phonemes that had long since died out in Vulgar Latin were reintroduced: [h] and [w] (> OF g(u)- , ONF w- cf. Picard w- ): In contrast,

1890-530: A vowel is generally pronounced /tsi/ (unless preceded by ⟨s⟩ , ⟨d⟩ or ⟨t⟩ ). Such speakers pronounce consonantal ⟨v⟩ (not written as ⟨u⟩ ) as /v/ as in English, not as Classical /w/ . Like in Classical Latin, double consonants are pronounced with gemination . The distinction in Classical Latin between long and short vowels

1995-505: A ˈfra͜indrə ˈfɔrs saraˈgot͡sə k‿ˈɛst en ˈynə monˈtaɲə li ˈre͜is marˈsiʎəs la ˈti͜ɛnt, ki ˈdɛ͜u nən ˈa͜iməθ mahoˈmɛt ˈsɛrt eð apoˈlin rəˈkla͜iməθ nə‿s ˈpu͜ɛt gwarˈdær kə ˈmals nə l‿i aˈta͜iɲəθ Charles the king, our great emperor, Has been in Spain for seven full years: He has conquered the lofty land up to the sea. No castle remains standing before him; No wall or city is left to destroy Other than Saragossa, which lies atop

2100-490: Is called Vulgar Latin , the common spoken language of the Western Roman Empire . Vulgar Latin differed from Classical Latin in phonology and morphology as well as exhibiting lexical differences; however, they were mutually intelligible until the 7th century when Classical Latin 'died' as a daily spoken language, and had to be learned as a second language (though it was long thought of as the formal version of

2205-609: Is common in its later stages with the shift of the Latin cluster /kt/ in Old French ( Lat factum > fait , ≠ Italian fatto , Portuguese feito , Spanish hecho ; or lactem * > lait , ≠ Italian latte , Portuguese leite , Spanish leche ). This means that both /pt/ and /kt/ must have first merged into /kt/ in the history of Old French, after which this /kt/ shifted to /xt/. In parallel, /ps/ and /ks/ merged into /ks/ before shifting to /xs/, apparently under Gaulish influence. The Celtic Gaulish language

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2310-528: Is ignored, and instead of the ' macron ' or ' apex ', lines to mark the long vowel, an acute accent is used for stress. The first syllable of two-syllable words is stressed; in longer words, an acute accent is placed over the stressed vowel: adorémus 'let us adore'; Dómini 'of the Lord'. The complete text of the Bible in Latin, the revised Vulgate, appears at Nova Vulgata – Bibliorum Sacrorum Editio. New Advent gives

2415-467: Is less and less sought after and is now becoming rare again in most men's minds. A lack of Latin literacy in eighth-century western Europe caused problems for the Carolingian rulers by severely limiting the number of people capable of serving as court scribes in societies where Latin was valued. Of even greater concern to some rulers was the fact that not all parish priests possessed the skill to read

2520-542: Is thought to have survived into the 6th century in France, despite considerable cultural Romanization. Coexisting with Latin, Gaulish helped shape the Vulgar Latin dialects that developed into French, with effects including loanwords and calques (including oui , the word for "yes"), sound changes shaped by Gaulish influence, and influences in conjugation and word order. A computational study from 2003 suggests that early gender shifts may have been motivated by

2625-594: The langue d'oïl as early as the 9th century and is attested as a distinct Gallo-Romance variety by the 12th century. Dialects or variants of Old French include: Some modern languages are derived from Old French dialects other than Classical French, which is based on the Île-de-France dialect. They include Angevin , Berrichon , Bourguignon-Morvandiau , Champenois , Franc-Comtois , Gallo, Lorrain, Norman , Picard, Poitevin , Saintongeais , and Walloon. Beginning with Plautus ' time (254–184 b.c. ), one can see phonological changes between Classical Latin and what

2730-531: The Bibliothèque bleue – that a standardized Classical French spread throughout France alongside the regional dialects. The material and cultural conditions in France and associated territories around the year 1100 triggered what Charles Homer Haskins termed the " Renaissance of the 12th century ", resulting in a profusion of creative works in a variety of genres. Old French gave way to Middle French in

2835-509: The Roman de Fauvel in 1310 and 1314, a satire on abuses in the medieval church, filled with medieval motets , lais , rondeaux and other new secular forms of poetry and music (mostly anonymous, but with several pieces by Philippe de Vitry , who would coin the expression ars nova to distinguish the new musical practice from the music of the immediately preceding age). The best-known poet and composer of ars nova secular music and chansons of

2940-405: The koine Greek , while adapting the meanings of some Latin words to those of the koine Greek originals, which are sometimes themselves translations of Hebrew originals. At first there was no distinction between Latin and the actual Romance vernacular, the former being just the traditional written form of the latter. For instance, in ninth-century Spain ⟨ saeculum ⟩ was simply

3045-1182: The Ave Maria , and the Credo in Latin." In the Anglican Church , the Book of Common Prayer was published in Latin, alongside English. John Wesley , the founder of the Methodist churches , "used Latin text in doctrinal writings", as Martin Luther and John Calvin did in their era. In the training of Protestant clergy in Württemberg , as well as in the Rhineland , universities instructed divinity students in Latin and their examinations were conducted in this language. The University of Montauban, under Reformed auspices, required that seminarians complete two theses, with one being in Latin; thus Reformed ministers were "Latinist by training", comparable to Catholic seminarians. Ecclesiastical Latin continues to be

3150-604: The Early Middle Ages , thanks to which the disciplines of liberal arts were preserved. The 7th century saw the " Isidorian Renaissance " in the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania in which sciences flourished and the integration of Christian and pre-Christian thought occurred , while the spread of Irish monastic schools ( scriptoria ) over Europe laid the groundwork for the Carolingian Renaissance. There were numerous factors in this cultural expansion,

3255-729: The Latin Church , as well as the Western Rite of the Eastern Orthodox Church . It is occasionally used in Anglican Church and Lutheran Church liturgies as well. Today, ecclesiastical Latin is primarily used in official documents of the Catholic Church, in the Tridentine Mass , and it is still learned by clergy. The Ecclesiastical Latin that is used in theological works, liturgical rites and dogmatic proclamations varies in style: syntactically simple in

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3360-835: The Vulgate Bible , hieratic (very restrained) in the Roman Canon of the Mass , terse and technical in Thomas Aquinas 's Summa Theologica , and Ciceronian (syntactically complex) in Pope John Paul II 's encyclical letter Fides et Ratio . The use of Latin in the Church started in the late fourth century with the split of the Roman Empire after Emperor Theodosius in 395. Before this split, Greek

3465-412: The Vulgate Bible . An additional problem was that the vulgar Latin of the later Western Roman Empire had begun to diverge into the regional dialects, the precursors to today's Romance languages , that were becoming mutually unintelligible and preventing scholars from one part of Europe being able to communicate with persons from another part of Europe. To address these problems, Charlemagne ordered

3570-563: The Western Roman Empire . The loss of Greek in the Western half of the Roman Empire, and the loss of Latin in the Eastern half of the Roman Empire were not immediate, but changed the culture of language as well as the development of the Church. What especially differentiates Ecclesiastical Latin from Classical Latin is the consequences of its use as a language for translating, since it has borrowed and assimilated constructions and vocabulary from

3675-525: The chansons de geste is The Song of Roland (earliest version composed in the late 11th century). Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube in his Girart de Vienne set out a grouping of the chansons de geste into three cycles : the Geste du roi centering on Charlemagne, the Geste de Garin de Monglane (whose central character was William of Orange ), and the Geste de Doon de Mayence or the "rebel vassal cycle",

3780-524: The traditional English pronunciation of Latin , which has now been largely abandoned for reading Latin texts. Within the Catholic Church and in certain Protestant churches, such as the Anglican Church , a pronunciation based on modern Italian phonology , known as Italianate Latin , has become common since the late 19th century. Ecclesiastical Latin is the language of liturgical rites in

3885-574: The Carolingian renaissance was Theodulf of Orléans , a refugee from the Umayyad invasion of Spain who became involved in the cultural circle at the imperial court before Charlemagne appointed him bishop of Orléans. Theodulf’s greatest contribution to learning was his scholarly edition of the Vulgate Bible, drawing on manuscripts from Spain, Italy, and Gaul, and even the original Hebrew. The effects of this cultural revival were mostly limited to

3990-624: The Deacon was brought to court in 782 and remained until 787, when Charles nominated him abbot of Montecassino . Theodulf of Orléans was a Spanish Goth who served at court from 782 to 797 when nominated as bishop of Orléans . Theodulf had been in friendly competition over the standardization of the Vulgate with the chief among the Charlemagne's scholars, Alcuin of York . Alcuin was a Northumbrian monk and deacon who served as head of

4095-882: The French text was corrected to match the Latin version, which is regarded as the official text. The Latin-language department of the Vatican Secretariat of State (formerly the Secretaria brevium ad principes et epistolarum latinarum ) is charged with the preparation in Latin of papal and curial documents. Sometimes, the official text is published in a modern language, e.g., the well-known edict Tra le sollecitudini (1903) by Pope Pius X (in Italian) and Mit brennender Sorge (1937) by Pope Pius XI (in German). There are not many differences between Classical Latin and Church Latin. One can understand Church Latin knowing

4200-596: The Gallo-Romance that prefigures French – after the Reichenau and Kassel glosses (8th and 9th centuries) – are the Oaths of Strasbourg (treaties and charters into which King Charles the Bald entered in 842): Pro Deo amur et pro Christian poblo et nostro commun salvament, d'ist di en avant, in quant Deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo, et in aiudha et in cadhuna cosa ... (For

4305-694: The Italian, Portuguese and Spanish words of Germanic origin borrowed from French or directly from Germanic retain /gw/ ~ /g/ , e.g. Italian, Spanish guerra 'war', alongside /g/ in French guerre ). These examples show a clear consequence of bilingualism, that sometimes even changed the first syllable of the Latin words. One example of a Latin word influencing an OLF loan is framboise 'raspberry', from OF frambeise , from OLF *brāmbesi 'blackberry' (cf. Dutch braambes , braambezie ; akin to German Brombeere , English dial. bramberry ) blended with LL fraga or OF fraie 'strawberry', which explains

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4410-500: The Latin West in the 7th and 8th centuries. According to Roger Wright , the Carolingian Renaissance is responsible for the modern-day pronunciation of Ecclesiastical Latin . Up until that point there had been no conceptual distinction between Latin and Romance ; the former was simply regarded as the written form of the latter. For instance in early medieval Spain the word for 'century'—which would have been pronounced */sjeglo/—

4515-867: The Latin of classical texts, as the main differences between the two are in pronunciation and spelling, as well as vocabulary. In many countries, those who speak Latin for liturgical or other ecclesiastical purposes use the pronunciation that has become traditional in Rome by giving the letters the value they have in modern Italian but without distinguishing between open and close ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩ . ⟨ae⟩ and ⟨oe⟩ coalesce with ⟨e⟩ . ⟨c⟩ and ⟨g⟩ before ⟨ae⟩ , ⟨oe⟩ , ⟨e⟩ , ⟨y⟩ and ⟨i⟩ are pronounced /t͡ʃ/ (English ⟨ch⟩ ) and /d͡ʒ/ (English ⟨j⟩ ), respectively. ⟨ti⟩ before

4620-565: The Old French dialects diverged into a number of distinct langues d'oïl , among which Middle French proper was the dialect of the Île-de-France region. During the Early Modern period , French was established as the official language of the Kingdom of France throughout the realm, including the langue d'oc -speaking territories in the south. It was only in the 17th to 18th centuries – with the development especially of popular literature of

4725-742: The Palace School from 782 to 796, except for the years 790 to 793 when he returned to England . After 796, he continued his scholarly work as abbot of St. Martin's Monastery in Tours . Among those to follow Alcuin across the Channel to the Frankish court was Joseph Scottus , an Irishman who left some original biblical commentary and acrostic experiments. After this first generation of non-Frankish scholars, their Frankish pupils, such as Angilbert , would make their own mark. The later courts of Louis

4830-467: The Pious and Charles the Bald had similar groups of scholars many of whom were of Irish origin . The Irish monk Dicuil attended the former court, and the more famous Irishman John Scotus Eriugena attended the latter becoming head of the Palace School at Aachen . One of the primary efforts was the creation of a standardized curriculum for use at the recently created schools. Alcuin led this effort and

4935-497: The Renaissance short story ( conte or nouvelle ). Among the earliest works of rhetoric and logic to appear in Old French were the translations of Rhetorica ad Herennium and Boethius ' De topicis differentiis by John of Antioch in 1282. In northern Italy, authors developed Franco-Italian , a mixed language of Old French and Venetian or Lombard used in literary works in the 13th and 14th centuries. Old French

5040-765: The book appear on a page of the Vatican website. The Latinitas Foundation was superseded by the Pontifical Academy for Latin ( Latin : Pontificia Academia Latinitatis ) in 2012. Latin remains an oft-used language of the Holy See and the Latin liturgical rites of the Catholic Church. Until the 1960s and still later in Roman colleges like the Gregorian, Catholic priests studied theology using Latin textbooks and

5145-482: The classics, both Christian and pagan. The movement occurred mostly during the reigns of Carolingian rulers Charlemagne and Louis the Pious . It was supported by the scholars of the Carolingian court , notably Alcuin of York . Charlemagne's Admonitio generalis (789) and Epistola de litteris colendis served as manifestos. Alcuin wrote on subjects ranging from grammar and biblical exegesis to arithmetic and astronomy. He also collected rare books, which formed

5250-427: The coining of new words while retaining the grammatical rules of Classical Latin . This Medieval Latin became a common language of scholarship and allowed administrators and travellers to make themselves understood in various regions of Europe. The earliest concept of Europe as a distinct cultural region (instead of simply a geographic area) appeared during the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century, and included

5355-556: The construction of 27 new cathedrals, 417 monasteries, and 100 royal residences". Around AD 755, Charlemagne's father Pepin the Short reformed the currency of the Frankish Kingdom . A variety of local systems was standardized. Minor mints were closed and royal control over the remaining bigger mints strengthened, increasing purity. In place of the gold Roman and Byzantine solidus then common, he established

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5460-421: The correct way to spell [sjeɡlo] , meaning 'century'. The writer would not have actually read it aloud as /sɛkulum/ any more than an English speaker today would pronounce ⟨knight⟩ as */knɪxt/ . The spoken version of Ecclesiastical Latin was created later during the Carolingian Renaissance . The English scholar Alcuin , tasked by Charlemagne with improving the standards of Latin writing in France, prescribed

5565-479: The creation of schools in a capitulary known as the Charter of Modern Thought , issued in 787. A major part of his program of reform was to attract many of the leading scholars of the Christendom of his day to his court. Among the first called to court were Italians : Peter of Pisa , who from 776 to about 790 instructed Charlemagne in Latin, and from 776 to 787 Paulinus of Aquileia , whom Charlemagne nominated as patriarch of Aquileia in 787. The Lombard Paul

5670-400: The development of northern French culture in and around Île-de-France , which slowly but firmly asserted its ascendency over the more southerly areas of Aquitaine and Tolosa ( Toulouse ); however, the Capetians ' langue d'oïl , the forerunner of modern standard French, did not begin to become the common speech of all of France until after the French Revolution . In the Late Middle Ages,

5775-422: The elite. By the late 7th century, developed urban settlements had emerged, populated mostly by craftsmen, merchants and boaters and boasting street grids, artisanal production as well as regional and long-distance trade. A prime example of this type of emporium was Dorestad . The development of the Carolingian economy was fueled by the efficient organization and exploitation of labor on large estates, producing

5880-425: The empire might have struggled to read words in Latin orthography according to Romance orthoepy, various attempts were made in France to devise a new orthography for the latter; among the earliest examples are parts of the Oaths of Strasbourg and the Sequence of Saint Eulalia . As the Carolingian Reforms spread the 'proper' Latin pronunciation from France to other Romance-speaking areas, local scholars eventually felt

5985-533: The entire Bible, in the Douay version, verse by verse, accompanied by the Vulgate Latin of each verse. In 1976, the Latinitas Foundation ( Opus Fundatum Latinitas in Latin) was established by Pope Paul VI to promote the study and use of Latin. Its headquarters are in Vatican City . The foundation publishes an eponymous quarterly in Latin. The foundation also published a 15,000-word Italian-Latin Lexicon Recentis Latinitatis ( Dictionary of Recent Latin ), which provides Latin coinages for modern concepts, such as

6090-400: The expression "Carolingian Renaissance" does not imply that Western Europe was barbaric or obscurantist before the Carolingian era. The centuries following the dissolution of the Roman Empire in the West did not see an abrupt disappearance of the ancient schools. Indeed, from them emerged Martianus Capella , Cassiodorus , and Boethius , essential icons of the Roman cultural heritage in

6195-702: The first such text. At the beginning of the 13th century, Jean Bodel , in his Chanson de Saisnes , divided medieval French narrative literature into three subject areas: the Matter of France or Matter of Charlemagne ; the Matter of Rome ( romances in an ancient setting); and the Matter of Britain ( Arthurian romances and Breton lais ). The first of these is the subject area of the chansons de geste ("songs of exploits" or "songs of (heroic) deeds"), epic poems typically composed in ten-syllable assonanced (occasionally rhymed ) laisses . More than one hundred chansons de geste have survived in around three hundred manuscripts. The oldest and most celebrated of

6300-416: The first time to native speakers as well. No longer would, for instance, the word ⟨viridiarium⟩ 'orchard' be read aloud as the equivalent Old French word */verdʒjǽr/. It now had to be pronounced precisely as spelled, with all six syllables: /viridiarium/. Such a radical change had the effect of rendering Latin sermons completely unintelligible to the general Romance-speaking public, which prompted officials

6405-427: The first time, setting the stage for the rise of Romanesque art and eventually Gothic art in the West. Illuminated manuscripts , metalwork , small-scale sculpture , mosaics , and frescos survive from the period. Carolingian architecture is the style of North European architecture promoted by Charlemagne. The period of architecture spans the late eighth and ninth centuries until the reign of Otto I in 936, and

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6510-428: The gender of the corresponding word in Gaulish. The pronunciation, vocabulary, and syntax of the Vulgar Latin spoken in Roman Gaul in late antiquity were modified by the Old Frankish language , spoken by the Franks who settled in Gaul from the 5th century and conquered the future Old French-speaking area by the 530s. The name français itself is derived from the name of the Franks. The Old Frankish language had

6615-479: The incipient Middle French period was Guillaume de Machaut . Discussions about the origins of non-religious theater ( théâtre profane )—both drama and farce—in the Middle Ages remain controversial, but the idea of a continuous popular tradition stemming from Latin comedy and tragedy to the 9th century seems unlikely. Most historians place the origin of medieval drama in the church's liturgical dialogues and "tropes". Mystery plays were eventually transferred from

6720-429: The language of instruction in many seminaries was also Latin, which was seen as the language of the Church Fathers. The use of Latin in pedagogy and in theological research, however, has since declined. Nevertheless, canon law requires for seminary formation to provide for a thorough training in Latin, though "the use of Latin in seminaries and pontifical universities has now dwindled to the point of extinction." Latin

6825-410: The limits of the system. After a period of disruption from 830 to 850, caused by civil wars and Viking raids, economic development resumed in the 850s, with the emporiums disappearing completely and being replaced by fortified commercial towns. One of the major causes of the sudden economic growth was the Arab slave trade . Following the rise of the Arab Muslim caliphates , the Arab elites created

6930-562: The loss of an intervening consonant. Manuscripts generally do not distinguish hiatus from true diphthongs, but modern scholarly transcription indicates it with a diaeresis , as in Modern French: Presented below is the first laisse of The Song of Roland along with a broad transcription reflecting reconstructed pronunciation c.  1050 . Charles li reis, nostre emperedre magnes, Set anz toz pleins at estét en Espaigne. Tres qu'en la mer conquist la tere altaigne, Chastel n'i at ki devant lui remaignet. Murs ne citét n'i est remés

7035-459: The love of God and for the Christian people, and our common salvation, from this day forward, as God will give me the knowledge and the power, I will defend my brother Karlo with my help in everything ...) The second-oldest document in Old French is the Eulalia sequence , which is important for linguistic reconstruction of Old French pronunciation due to its consistent spelling. The royal House of Capet , founded by Hugh Capet in 987, inaugurated

7140-406: The mid-14th century, paving the way for early French Renaissance literature of the 15th century. The earliest extant French literary texts date from the ninth century, but very few texts before the 11th century have survived. The first literary works written in Old French were saints' lives . The Canticle of Saint Eulalie , written in the second half of the 9th century, is generally accepted as

7245-528: The monastery church to the chapter house or refectory hall and finally to the open air, and the vernacular was substituted for Latin. In the 12th century one finds the earliest extant passages in French appearing as refrains inserted into liturgical dramas in Latin, such as a Saint Nicholas (patron saint of the student clercs) play and a Saint Stephen play. An early French dramatic play is Le Jeu d'Adam ( c.  1150 ) written in octosyllabic rhymed couplets with Latin stage directions (implying that it

7350-440: The most famous characters of which were Renaud de Montauban and Girart de Roussillon . A fourth grouping, not listed by Bertrand, is the Crusade cycle , dealing with the First Crusade and its immediate aftermath. Jean Bodel 's other two categories—the "Matter of Rome" and the "Matter of Britain"—concern the French romance or roman . Around a hundred verse romances survive from the period 1150–1220. From around 1200 on,

7455-450: The most obvious of which was that Charlemagne's uniting of most of Western Europe brought about peace and stability, which set the stage for prosperity. This period marked an economic revival in Western Europe, following the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Local economies in the West had degenerated into largely subsistence agriculture by the early 7th century, with towns functioning merely as places of gift-exchange for

7560-628: The need to create distinct spelling systems for their own vernaculars as well, thereby initiating the literary phase of Medieval Romance. Writing in Romance does not appear to have become widespread until the Renaissance of the Twelfth Century , however. Carolingian art spans the roughly hundred-year period from about 800–900. Although brief, it was an influential period. Northern Europe embraced classical Mediterranean Roman art forms for

7665-519: The new pennies, however, they were repeatedly rejected by traders throughout the Carolingian period in favor of the gold coins used elsewhere, a situation that led to repeated legislation against such refusal to accept the king's currency. The Carolingian system was imported to England by Offa of Mercia and other kings, where it formed the basis of English currency until the late 20th century. Old French Old French ( franceis , françois , romanz ; French : ancien français )

7770-507: The nucleus of the library at York Cathedral. His enthusiasm for learning made him an effective teacher. Alcuin writes: In the morning, at the height of my powers, I sowed the seed in Britain, now in the evening when my blood is growing cold I am still sowing in France, hoping both will grow, by the grace of God, giving some the honey of the holy scriptures, making others drunk on the old wine of ancient learning Another prominent figure in

7875-480: The official language of the Catholic Church. The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) decreed that the Mass would be translated into vernacular languages. The Church produces liturgical texts in Latin, which provide a single clear point of reference for translations into all other languages. The same holds for the texts of canon law . Pope Benedict XVI gave his unexpected resignation speech in Latin. The Holy See has for some centuries usually drafted documents in

7980-504: The replacement [b] > [f] and in turn the final -se of framboise added to OF fraie to make freise , modern fraise (≠ Wallon frève , Occitan fraga , Romanian fragă , Italian fragola , fravola 'strawberry'). Mildred Pope estimated that perhaps still 15% of the vocabulary of Modern French derives from Germanic sources. This proportion was larger in Old French, because Middle French borrowed heavily from Latin and Italian. The earliest documents said to be written in

8085-408: The skin of its teeth. However, the use of the term renaissance to describe this period is contested, notably by Lynn Thorndike , due to the majority of changes brought about by this period being confined almost entirely to the clergy , and due to the period lacking the wide-ranging social movements of the later Italian Renaissance . Instead of being a rebirth of new cultural movements, the period

8190-494: The south of France. The mid-14th century witnessed the emergence of Middle French , the language of the French Renaissance in the Île-de-France region; this dialect was a predecessor to Modern French . Other dialects of Old French evolved themselves into modern forms ( Poitevin-Saintongeais , Gallo , Norman , Picard , Walloon , etc.), each with its linguistic features and history. The region where Old French

8295-472: The spoken language). Vulgar Latin was the ancestor of the Romance languages , including Old French. By the late 8th century, when the Carolingian Renaissance began, native speakers of Romance idioms continued to use Romance orthoepy rules while speaking and reading Latin. When the most prominent scholar of Western Europe at the time, English deacon Alcuin , was tasked by Charlemagne with improving

8400-404: The standards of Latin writing in France, not being a native Romance speaker himself, he prescribed a pronunciation based on a fairly literal interpretation of Latin spelling. For example, in a radical break from the traditional system, a word such as ⟨viridiarium⟩ ' orchard ' now had to be read aloud precisely as it was spelled rather than */verdʒjær/ (later spelled as OF 'vergier' ). Such

8505-514: The tendency was increasingly to write the romances in prose (many of the earlier verse romances were adapted into prose versions), although new verse romances continued to be written to the end of the 14th century. The most important romance of the 13th century is the Romance of the Rose , which breaks considerably from the conventions of the chivalric adventure story. Medieval French lyric poetry

8610-428: The territories which practiced Western Christianity at the time. Carolingian workshops produced over 100,000 manuscripts in the 9th century, of which some 6000 to 7000 survive. The Carolingians produced the earliest surviving copies of the works of Cicero , Horace , Martial , Statius , Lucretius , Terence , Julius Caesar , Boethius and Martianus Capella . No copies of the texts of these authors were made in

8715-434: The two. The Old Low Franconian influence is also believed to be responsible for the differences between the langue d'oïl and the langue d'oc (Occitan), being that various parts of Northern France remained bilingual between Latin and Germanic for some time, and these areas correspond precisely to where the first documents in Old French were written. This Germanic language shaped the popular Latin spoken here and gave it

8820-412: The verb trobar "to find, to invent"). By the late 13th century, the poetic tradition in France had begun to develop in ways that differed significantly from the troubadour poets, both in content and in the use of certain fixed forms. The new poetic (as well as musical: some of the earliest medieval music has lyrics composed in Old French by the earliest composers known by name) tendencies are apparent in

8925-478: The vernacular has predominated since the liturgical reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council: liturgical law for the Latin Church states that Mass may be celebrated either in Latin or another language in which the liturgical texts, translated from Latin, have been legitimately approved. The permission granted for continued use of the Tridentine Mass in its 1962 form authorizes use of

9030-805: The vernacular language in proclaiming the Scripture readings after they are first read in Latin. In historic Protestant churches, such as the Anglican Communion and Lutheran churches , Ecclesiastical Latin is occasionally employed in sung celebrations of the Mass . until 75 BC Old Latin 75 BC – 200 AD Classical Latin 200–700 Late Latin 700–1500 Medieval Latin 1300–1500 Renaissance Latin 1300– present Neo-Latin 1900– present Contemporary Latin Carolingian Renaissance The Carolingian Renaissance

9135-582: Was a conscious attempt to create a Roman Renaissance, emulating Roman , Early Christian and Byzantine architecture , with its own innovation, resulting in having a unique character. This syncretic architectural style can be exemplified by the first church of St Mark's in Venice, fusing proto-Romanesque and Byzantine influences. There was a profusion of new clerical and secular buildings constructed during this period, John Contreni calculated that "The little more than eight decades between 768 to 855 alone saw

9240-414: Was able to offer the cultureless and, I might say, almost completely unenlightened territory of the realm which God had entrusted to him, a new enthusiasm for all human knowledge. In its earlier state of barbarousness, his kingdom had been hardly touched at all by any such zeal, but now it opened its eyes to God's illumination. In our own time the thirst for knowledge is disappearing again: the light of wisdom

9345-772: Was also spoken in the Kingdom of Sicily , and in the Principality of Antioch and the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Levant . As part of the emerging Gallo-Romance dialect continuum, the langues d'oïl were contrasted with the langues d'oc , at the time also called "Provençal", adjacent to the Old French area in the southwest, and with the Gallo-Italic group to the southeast. The Franco-Provençal group developed in Upper Burgundy, sharing features with both French and Provençal; it may have begun to diverge from

9450-414: Was constantly changing and evolving; however, the form in the late 12th century, as attested in a great deal of mostly poetic writings, can be considered standard. The writing system at this time was more phonetic than that used in most subsequent centuries. In particular, all written consonants (including final ones) were pronounced, except for s preceding non- stop consonants and t in et , and final e

9555-422: Was established at that value, making it 1/22 of the silver pound. This was later adjusted to 12 and 1/20, respectively. During the Carolingian period, however, neither shillings or pounds were minted, being instead used as notional units of account . (For instance, a "shilling" or "solidus" of grain was a measure equivalent to the amount of grain that 12 pennies could purchase.) Despite the purity and quality of

9660-680: Was indebted to the poetic and cultural traditions in Southern France and Provence —including Toulouse and the Aquitaine region—where langue d'oc was spoken ( Occitan language ); in their turn, the Provençal poets were greatly influenced by poetic traditions from the Hispano-Arab world . Lyric poets in Old French are called trouvères – etymologically the same word as the troubadours of Provençal or langue d'oc (from

9765-474: Was more an attempt to recreate the previous culture of the Roman Empire . The Carolingian Renaissance in retrospect also has some of the character of a false dawn, in that its cultural gains were largely dissipated within a couple of generations, a perception voiced by Walahfrid Strabo (died 849), in his introduction to Einhard 's Life of Charlemagne , summing up the generation of renewal: Charlemagne

9870-590: Was pronounced [ ə ] . The phonological system can be summarised as follows: Notes: In Old French, the nasal vowels were not separate phonemes but only allophones of the oral vowels before a nasal consonant. The nasal consonant was fully pronounced; bon was pronounced [bõn] ( ModF [bɔ̃] ). Nasal vowels were present even in open syllables before nasals where Modern French has oral vowels, as in bone [bõnə] ( ModF bonne [bɔn] ). Notes: Notes: In addition to diphthongs, Old French had many instances of hiatus between adjacent vowels because of

9975-539: Was properly spelled ⟨saeculum⟩, as it had been for the better part of a millennium. The scribe would not have read aloud ⟨saeculum⟩ as /sɛkulum/ any more than an English speaker today would pronounce ⟨knight⟩ as */knɪxt/ rather than /naɪt/. Non-native speakers of Latin, however—such as clergy of Anglo-Saxon or Irish origin—appear to have used a rather different pronunciation, presumably attempting to sound out each word according to its spelling. The Carolingian Renaissance in France introduced this artificial pronunciation for

10080-415: Was responsible for the writing of textbooks, creation of word lists, and establishing the trivium and quadrivium as the basis for education. Another contribution from this period was the development of Carolingian minuscule , a "book-hand" first used at the monasteries of Corbie and Tours that introduced the use of lower-case letters. A standardized version of Latin was also developed that allowed for

10185-704: Was so lucrative that it almost immediately transformed the long-distance trade of the European economies. The slave trade enabled the West to re-engage with the Arab Muslim caliphates and the Eastern Roman Empire , so that other industries, such as textiles, were able to grow in Europe as well. Kenneth Clark was of the view that by means of the Carolingian Renaissance, Western civilization survived by

10290-518: Was spoken natively roughly extended to the northern half of the Kingdom of France and its vassals (including parts of the Angevin Empire ), and the duchies of Upper and Lower Lorraine to the east (corresponding to modern north-eastern France and Belgian Wallonia ), but the influence of Old French was much wider, as it was carried to England and the Crusader states as the language of

10395-581: Was spoken. The use of Latin in the Western Church continued into the Early modern period . One of Martin Luther 's tenets during the Reformation was to have services and religious texts in the common tongue , rather than Latin, a language that at the time, many did not understand. Protestants refrained from using Latin in services, however Protestant clergy had to learn and understand Latin as it

10500-598: Was still spoken in recent international gatherings of Catholic leaders, such as the Second Vatican Council , and it is still used at conclaves to elect a new Pope . The Tenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in 2004 was the most recent to have a Latin-language group for discussions. Although Latin is the traditional liturgical language of the Western (Latin) Church , the liturgical use of

10605-794: Was the first of three medieval renaissances , a period of cultural activity in the Carolingian Empire . Charlemagne 's reign led to an intellectual revival beginning in the 8th century and continuing throughout the 9th century, taking inspiration from ancient Roman and Greek culture and the Christian Roman Empire of the fourth century. During this period, there was an increase of literature , writing , visual arts , architecture , music , jurisprudence , liturgical reforms, and scriptural studies. Carolingian schools were effective centers of education, and they served generations of scholars by producing editions and copies of

10710-759: Was the language of higher learning and theological thought until the 18th century. After the Reformation , in the Lutheran churches , Latin was retained as the language of the Mass for weekdays, although for the Sunday Sabbath, the Deutsche Messe was to be said. In Geneva , among the Reformed churches , "persons called before the consistory to prove their faith answered by reciting the Paternoster ,

10815-423: Was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th and the mid-14th century. Rather than a unified language , Old French was a group of Romance dialects , mutually intelligible yet diverse . These dialects came to be collectively known as the langues d'oïl , contrasting with the langues d'oc , the emerging Occitano-Romance languages of Occitania , now

10920-576: Was the primary language of the Church (the New Testament was written in Greek and the Septuagint – a Greek translation of the Hebrew bible – was in widespread use among both Christians and Hellenized Jews ) as well as the language of the eastern half of the Roman Empire . Following the split, early theologians like Jerome translated Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin, the dominant language of

11025-617: Was written by Latin-speaking clerics for a lay public). A large body of fables survive in Old French; these include (mostly anonymous) literature dealing with the recurring trickster character of Reynard the Fox . Marie de France was also active in this genre, producing the Ysopet (Little Aesop ) series of fables in verse. Related to the fable was the more bawdy fabliau , which covered topics such as cuckolding and corrupt clergy. These fabliaux would be an important source for Chaucer and for

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