The late Middle Ages or late medieval period was the period of European history lasting from AD 1300 to 1500. The late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Europe, the Renaissance ).
196-550: Pontius Pilate ( Latin : Pontius Pilatus ; Greek : Πόντιος Πιλᾶτος , romanized : Póntios Pilátos ) was the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea , serving under Emperor Tiberius from 26/27 to 36/37 AD. He is best known for being the official who presided over the trial of Jesus and ultimately ordered his crucifixion . Pilate's importance in Christianity is underscored by his prominent place in both
392-801: A tributary state of the Ottoman Empire , centered on the city of Constantinople and a few enclaves in Greece . With the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Byzantine Empire was permanently extinguished. The Bulgarian Empire was in decline by the 14th century, and the ascendancy of Serbia was marked by the Serbian victory over the Bulgarians in the Battle of Velbazhd in 1330. By 1346,
588-744: A change which Ann Wroe suggests reflects the fact that, following the legalization of Christianity in the Roman Empire by the Edict of Milan (312), it was no longer necessary to deflect criticism of Pilate (and by extension of the Roman Empire) for his role in Jesus's crucifixion onto the Jews. Bart Ehrman , on the other hand, argues that the tendency in the Early Church to exonerate Pilate and blame
784-414: A complete biography for him and portrayed him as villainous and cowardly. Many of these legends connected Pilate's place of birth or death to particular locations around Western Europe , such as claiming his body was buried in a particularly dangerous or cursed local area. Pilate has frequently been a subject of artistic representation. Medieval art frequently portrays scenes of Pilate and Jesus, often in
980-526: A faster pace. It is characterised by greater use of prepositions, and word order that is closer to modern Romance languages, for example, while grammatically retaining more or less the same formal rules as Classical Latin. Ultimately, Latin diverged into a distinct written form, where the commonly spoken form was perceived as a separate language, for instance early French or Italian dialects, that could be transcribed differently. It took some time for these to be viewed as wholly different from Latin however. After
1176-743: A few in German , Dutch , Norwegian , Danish and Swedish . Latin is still spoken in Vatican City, a city-state situated in Rome that is the seat of the Catholic Church . The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part, in substantial works or in fragments to be analyzed in philology . They are in part the subject matter of the field of classics . Their works were published in manuscript form before
1372-404: A few. Famous and well regarded writers included Petrarch, Erasmus, Salutati , Celtis , George Buchanan and Thomas More . Non fiction works were long produced in many subjects, including the sciences, law, philosophy, historiography and theology. Famous examples include Isaac Newton 's Principia . Latin was also used as a convenient medium for translations of important works first written in
1568-785: A follower of Christ. His beheading is accompanied by a voice from heaven calling him blessed and saying he will be with Jesus at the Second Coming . The Evangelium Gamalielis , possibly of medieval origin and preserved in Arabic, Coptic, and Ge'ez , says Jesus was crucified by Herod, whereas Pilate was a true believer in Christ who was martyred for his faith; similarly, the Martyrium Pilati , possibly medieval and preserved in Arabic, Coptic, and Ge'ez, portrays Pilate, as well as his wife and two children, as being crucified twice, once by
1764-571: A golden age during the 14th century. In particular the reigns of the Angevin kings Charles Robert (1308–42) and his son Louis the Great (1342–82) were marked by success. The country grew wealthy as the main European supplier of gold and silver. Louis the Great led successful campaigns from Lithuania to Southern Italy, and from Poland to Northern Greece. He had the greatest military potential of
1960-522: A great victory against the Golden Horde at the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380. The victory did not end Tartar rule in the region, however, and its immediate beneficiary was the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , which extended its influence eastwards. Under the reign of Ivan the Great (1462–1505), Moscow became a major regional power, and the annexation of the vast Republic of Novgorod in 1478 laid
2156-653: A halt. A series of famines and plagues , including the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the Black Death , reduced the population to around half of what it had been before the calamities. Along with depopulation came social unrest and endemic warfare . France and England experienced serious peasant uprisings, such as the Jacquerie and the Peasants' Revolt , as well as over a century of intermittent conflict,
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#17327731822372352-459: A king who was skilled in astrology and named Atus lived in Mainz . The king reads in the stars that he will bear a son who will rule over many lands, so he has a miller's daughter named Pila brought to him whom he impregnates; Pilate's name thus results from the combination of the names Pila with Atus . A few years later, Pilate is brought to his father's court where he kills his half-brother. As
2548-629: A majority of modern treatments of Pilate dating to after the Second World War. Pilate has also frequently been portrayed in film. Sources on Pontius Pilate are limited, although modern scholars know more about him than about other Roman governors of Judaea . The most important sources are the Embassy to Gaius (after the year 41) by contemporary Jewish writer Philo of Alexandria, the Jewish Wars ( c. 74 ) and Antiquities of
2744-510: A military command before becoming prefect of Judaea; historian Alexander Demandt speculates that this could have been with a legion stationed at the Rhine or Danube . Although it is therefore likely Pilate served in the military, it is nevertheless not certain. Pilate was the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea, during the reign of the emperor Tiberius . The post of governor of Judaea
2940-700: A military leader changed the course of war in favour of the French, and the initiative was carried further by King Louis XI . Meanwhile, Charles the Bold , Duke of Burgundy , met resistance in his attempts to consolidate his possessions, particularly from the Swiss Confederation formed in 1291. When Charles was killed in the Burgundian Wars at the Battle of Nancy in 1477, the Duchy of Burgundy
3136-560: A native language, Medieval Latin was used across Western and Catholic Europe during the Middle Ages as a working and literary language from the 9th century to the Renaissance , which then developed a classicizing form, called Renaissance Latin . This was the basis for Neo-Latin which evolved during the early modern period . In these periods Latin was used productively and generally taught to be written and spoken, at least until
3332-405: A pattern of naming buildings about Roman emperors. Bond argues that we cannot be sure what kind of building this referred to. G. Alföldy argued that it was some sort of secular building, namely a lighthouse, while Joan Taylor and Jerry Vardaman argue that it was a temple dedicated to Tiberius. A second inscription, which has since been lost, has historically been associated with Pontius Pilate. It
3528-483: A police than a military force, and Pilate's duties extended beyond military matters. As Roman governor, he was head of the judicial system. He had the power to inflict capital punishment , and was responsible for collecting tributes and taxes, and for disbursing funds, including the minting of coins. Because the Romans allowed a certain degree of local control, Pilate shared a limited amount of civil and religious power with
3724-403: A policy of promoting the imperial cult , which may have caused some of the friction with his Jewish subjects. Schwartz suggests that Pilate's entire tenure was characterized by "continued underlying tension between governor and governed, now and again breaking out in brief incidents." According to Josephus in his The Jewish War (2.9.2) and Antiquities of the Jews (18.3.1), Pilate offended
3920-433: A portrait of the emperor, though they included some pagan designs. E. Stauffer and E. M. Smallwood argued that the coins' use of pagan symbols was deliberately meant to offend the Jews and connected changes in their design to the fall of the powerful Praetorian prefect Sejanus in 31. This theory was rejected by Helen Bond, who argued that there was nothing particularly offensive about the designs. Joan Taylor has argued that
4116-508: A presumed original. At the turn of the 20th century, it was generally held to be fake, a forgery in support of a local legend that Pontius Pilate died in exile in Ameria. The more recent scholars Alexander Demandt and Henry MacAdam both believe that the inscription is genuine, but attests to a person who simply had the same cognomen as Pontius Pilate. MacAdam argues that "[i]t is far easier to believe that this very fragmentary inscription prompted
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#17327731822374312-425: A result, he is sent as a hostage to Rome, where he kills another hostage. As punishment he is sent to the island of Pontius, whose inhabitants he subjugates, thus acquiring the name Pontius Pilate. King Herod hears of this accomplishment and asks him to come to Palestine to aid his rule there; Pilate comes but soon usurps Herod's power. The trial and judgment of Jesus then happens as in the gospels. The emperor in Rome
4508-567: A result, the list has variants, as well as alternative names. In addition to the historical phases, Ecclesiastical Latin refers to the styles used by the writers of the Roman Catholic Church from late antiquity onward, as well as by Protestant scholars. The earliest known form of Latin is Old Latin, also called Archaic or Early Latin, which was spoken from the Roman Kingdom , traditionally founded in 753 BC, through
4704-407: A separate language, existing more or less in parallel with the literary or educated Latin, but this is now widely dismissed. The term 'Vulgar Latin' remains difficult to define, referring both to informal speech at any time within the history of Latin, and the kind of informal Latin that had begun to move away from the written language significantly in the post-Imperial period, that led ultimately to
4900-476: A single amnesty in the year of Jesus's crucifixion. The Gospels' portrayal of Pilate is "widely assumed" to diverge greatly from that found in Josephus and Philo, as Pilate is portrayed as reluctant to execute Jesus and pressured to do so by the crowd and Jewish authorities. John P. Meier notes that in Josephus, by contrast, "Pilate alone [...] is said to condemn Jesus to the cross." Some scholars believe that
5096-709: A small number of Latin services held in the Anglican church. These include an annual service in Oxford, delivered with a Latin sermon; a relic from the period when Latin was the normal spoken language of the university. In the Western world, many organizations, governments and schools use Latin for their mottos due to its association with formality, tradition, and the roots of Western culture . Canada's motto A mari usque ad mare ("from sea to sea") and most provincial mottos are also in Latin. The Canadian Victoria Cross
5292-429: A sort of informal language academy dedicated to maintaining and perpetuating educated speech. Philological analysis of Archaic Latin works, such as those of Plautus , which contain fragments of everyday speech, gives evidence of an informal register of the language, Vulgar Latin (termed sermo vulgi , "the speech of the masses", by Cicero ). Some linguists, particularly in the nineteenth century, believed this to be
5488-572: A spoken and written language by the scholarship by the Renaissance humanists . Petrarch and others began to change their usage of Latin as they explored the texts of the Classical Latin world. Skills of textual criticism evolved to create much more accurate versions of extant texts through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and some important texts were rediscovered. Comprehensive versions of authors' works were published by Isaac Casaubon , Joseph Scaliger and others. Nevertheless, despite
5684-432: A strictly left-to-right script. During the late republic and into the first years of the empire, from about 75 BC to AD 200, a new Classical Latin arose, a conscious creation of the orators, poets, historians and other literate men, who wrote the great works of classical literature , which were taught in grammar and rhetoric schools. Today's instructional grammars trace their roots to such schools , which served as
5880-513: A title also held by the Jewish kings Herod Agrippa I and Herod Agrippa II and by close advisors to the emperor. Both Daniel Schwartz and Alexander Demandt do not think this especially likely. Various disturbances during Pilate's governorship are recorded in the sources. In some cases, it is unclear if they may be referring to the same event, and it is difficult to establish a chronology of events for Pilate's rule. Joan Taylor argues that Pilate had
6076-524: A type called a "perutah", measured between 13.5 and 17mm, were minted in Jerusalem, and are fairly crudely made. Earlier coins read ΙΟΥΛΙΑ ΚΑΙΣΑΡΟΣ on the obverse and ΤΙΒΕΡΙΟΥ ΚΑΙΣΑΡΟΣ on the reverse, referring to the emperor Tiberius and his mother Livia (Julia Augusta). Following Livia's death, the coins only read ΤΙΒΕΡΙΟΥ ΚΑΙΣΑΡΟΣ . As was typical of Roman coins struck in Judaea, they did not have
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6272-640: A vernacular, such as those of Descartes . Latin education underwent a process of reform to classicise written and spoken Latin. Schooling remained largely Latin medium until approximately 1700. Until the end of the 17th century, the majority of books and almost all diplomatic documents were written in Latin. Afterwards, most diplomatic documents were written in French (a Romance language ) and later native or other languages. Education methods gradually shifted towards written Latin, and eventually concentrating solely on reading skills. The decline of Latin education took several centuries and proceeded much more slowly than
6468-411: Is Veritas ("truth"). Veritas was the goddess of truth, a daughter of Saturn, and the mother of Virtue. Switzerland has adopted the country's Latin short name Helvetia on coins and stamps, since there is no room to use all of the nation's four official languages . For a similar reason, it adopted the international vehicle and internet code CH , which stands for Confoederatio Helvetica ,
6664-640: Is a reversal of the original phrase Non terrae plus ultra ("No land further beyond", "No further!"). According to legend , this phrase was inscribed as a warning on the Pillars of Hercules , the rocks on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar and the western end of the known, Mediterranean world. Charles adopted the motto following the discovery of the New World by Columbus, and it also has metaphorical suggestions of taking risks and striving for excellence. In
6860-596: Is exiled by the emperor Nero , after which he commits suicide. A similar narrative plays out in the Vindicta Salvatoris (8th century). In the Mors Pilati (perhaps originally 6th century, but recorded c. 1300 CE ), Pilate was forced to commit suicide and his body thrown in the Tiber. However, the body is surrounded by demons and storms, so that it is removed from the Tiber and instead cast into
7056-552: Is found in any widespread language, the languages of Spain, France, Portugal, and Italy have retained a remarkable unity in phonological forms and developments, bolstered by the stabilising influence of their common Christian (Roman Catholic) culture. It was not until the Muslim conquest of Spain in 711, cutting off communications between the major Romance regions, that the languages began to diverge seriously. The spoken Latin that would later become Romanian diverged somewhat more from
7252-540: Is given by the Christian apologist Justin Martyr around 160. Tibor Grüll believes that this could be a reference to Pilate's actual records, but other scholars argue that Justin has simply invented the records as a source on the assumption that they existed without ever having verified their existence. Beginning in the fourth century, a large body of Christian apocryphal texts developed concerning Pilate, making up one of
7448-483: Is known about his life before he became governor of Judaea, and nothing is known about the circumstances that led to his appointment to the governorship. Coins that he minted have survived from Pilate's governorship, as well as a single inscription, the so-called Pilate stone . The Jewish historian Josephus , the philosopher Philo of Alexandria, and the Gospel of Luke all mention incidents of tension and violence between
7644-473: Is largely stereotyped and rhetorical, portraying Pilate with the same words as other opponents of Jewish law, while portraying Tiberius as just and supportive of Jewish law. It is unclear why the shields offended against Jewish law: it is likely that they contained an inscription referring to Tiberius as divi Augusti filius (son of divine Augustus). Bond dates the incident to 31, sometime after Sejanus's death in 17 October. In another incident recorded in both
7840-689: Is modelled after the British Victoria Cross which has the inscription "For Valour". Because Canada is officially bilingual, the Canadian medal has replaced the English inscription with the Latin Pro Valore . Spain's motto Plus ultra , meaning "even further", or figuratively "Further!", is also Latin in origin. It is taken from the personal motto of Charles V , Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain (as Charles I), and
8036-480: Is nevertheless forced to execute Jesus by the increasingly angry crowd, but Jesus tells Pilate that he does not hold him responsible. This book enjoys "a quasi-canonical status" among Ethiopian Christians to this day and continues to be read beside the canonical gospels during Holy Week . Seven of the Pilate texts mention Pilate's fate after the crucifixion: in three, he becomes a very positive figure, while in four he
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8232-514: Is often avoided entirely within Italian historiography. The term "Renaissance" is still considered useful for describing certain intellectual, cultural, or artistic developments but not as the defining feature of an entire European historical epoch. The period from the early 14th century up until – and sometimes including – the 16th century is rather seen as characterized by other trends: demographic and economic decline followed by recovery,
8428-561: Is presented as diabolically evil. A fifth-century Syriac version of the Acts of Pilate explains Pilate's conversion as occurring after he has blamed the Jews for Jesus' death in front of Tiberius; prior to his execution, Pilate prays to God and converts, thereby becoming a Christian martyr. In the Greek Paradosis Pilati (5th century), Pilate is arrested for the crime of executing Jesus, although he has since converted to be
8624-411: Is rare, so the ring could be associated with Pontius Pilate; however, given the cheap material, it is unlikely that he would have owned it. It is possible that the ring belonged to another individual named Pilate, or that it belonged to someone who worked for Pontius Pilate. Due to his role in Jesus' trial, Pilate became an important figure in both pagan and Christian propaganda in late antiquity. Perhaps
8820-402: Is suffering from a terrible disease at this time, and hearing of Christ's healing powers, sends for him only to learn from Saint Veronica that Christ has been crucified, but she possesses a cloth with the image of his face. Pilate is taken as a prisoner with her to Rome to be judged, but every time the emperor sees Pilate to condemn him, his anger dissipates. This is revealed to be because Pilate
9016-956: Is taught at many high schools, especially in Europe and the Americas. It is most common in British public schools and grammar schools, the Italian liceo classico and liceo scientifico , the German Humanistisches Gymnasium and the Dutch gymnasium . Occasionally, some media outlets, targeting enthusiasts, broadcast in Latin. Notable examples include Radio Bremen in Germany, YLE radio in Finland (the Nuntii Latini broadcast from 1989 until it
9212-476: Is unclear whether any hearing took place, as new emperors often dismissed outstanding legal matters from previous reigns. The only sure outcome of Pilate's return to Rome is that he was not reinstated as governor of Judaea, either because the hearing went badly, or because Pilate did not wish to return. J. P. Lémonon argues that the fact that Pilate was not reinstated by Caligula does not mean that his trial went badly, but may simply have been because after ten years in
9408-403: Is unknown; his cognomen Pilatus might mean "skilled with the javelin ( pilum )", but it could also refer to the pileus or Phrygian cap , possibly indicating that one of Pilate's ancestors was a freedman . If it means "skilled with the javelin", it is possible that Pilate won the cognomen for himself while serving in the Roman military ; it is also possible that his father acquired
9604-528: Is wearing Jesus's coat; when the coat is removed, the Emperor condemns him to death, but Pilate commits suicide first. The body is first thrown in the Tiber, but because it causes storms it is then moved to Vienne, and then thrown in a lake in the high Alps. One important version of the Pilate legend is found in the Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine (1263–1273 CE), one of the most popular books of
9800-543: The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL). Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same: volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance and relevant information. The reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy . About 270,000 inscriptions are known. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. In
9996-437: The Acts of Pilate ), Pilate is portrayed as forced to execute Jesus by the Jews and as distraught at having done so. One version claims to have been discovered and translated by a Jewish convert named Ananias, portraying itself as the official Jewish records of the crucifixion. Another claims that the records were made by Pilate himself, relying on reports made to him by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea . Some Eastern versions of
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#173277318223710192-471: The Americas in 1492 and Vasco da Gama 's voyage to Africa and India in 1498. Their discoveries strengthened the economy and power of European nations. The changes brought about by these developments have led many scholars to view this period as the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modern history and of early modern Europe . However, the division is somewhat artificial, since ancient learning
10388-670: The Apostles' and Nicene Creeds . Because the gospels portray Pilate as reluctant to execute Jesus, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church believes that Pilate became a Christian and venerates him as both a martyr and a saint , a belief which is historically shared by the Coptic Church , with a feast day on 19 or 25 June, respectively. Although Pilate is the best-attested governor of Judaea, few sources regarding his rule have survived. Nothing
10584-716: The Atlantic Ocean to America . As Genoese and Venetian merchants opened up direct sea routes with Flanders , the Champagne fairs lost much of their importance. At the same time, English wool export shifted from raw wool to processed cloth, resulting in losses for the cloth manufacturers of the Low Countries. In the Baltic and North Sea , the Hanseatic League reached the peak of their power in
10780-554: The Balkans fell under the dominance of the Ottoman Empire . Meanwhile, the remaining nations of the continent were locked in almost constant international or internal conflict. The situation gradually led to the consolidation of central authority and the emergence of the nation state . The financial demands of war necessitated higher levels of taxation, resulting in the emergence of representative bodies – most notably
10976-591: The Black Death . Meanwhile, the Norse colony in Greenland died out, probably under extreme weather conditions in the 15th century. These conditions might have been the effect of the Little Ice Age . The death of Alexander III of Scotland in 1286 threw the country into a succession crisis , and the English king, Edward I , was brought in to arbitrate. Edward claimed overlordship over Scotland, leading to
11172-406: The Czechs , but both the Catholic Church and the German element within the country were weakened. Martin Luther , a German monk, started the German Reformation by posting 95 theses on the castle church of Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. The immediate provocation spurring this act was Pope Leo X 's renewal of the indulgence for the building of the new St. Peter's Basilica in 1514. Luther
11368-447: The Embassy to Gaius , although he is writing only a few years after Pilate's tenure as governor. A single inscription by Pilate has survived in Caesarea, on the " Pilate Stone ". The (partially reconstructed) inscription is as follows: Vardaman "freely" translates it as follows: "Tiberium [?of the Caesareans?] Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea [ ... has given?]". The fragmentary nature of the inscription has led to some disagreement about
11564-464: The English aristocracy, such as John of Gaunt , the movement was not allowed to survive. Though Wycliffe himself was left unmolested, his supporters, the Lollards , were eventually suppressed in England. The marriage of Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia established contacts between the two nations and brought Lollard ideas to her homeland. The teachings of the Czech priest Jan Hus were based on those of John Wycliffe, yet his followers,
11760-411: The English Parliament . The growth of secular authority was further aided by the decline of the papacy with the Western Schism and the coming of the Protestant Reformation . After the failed union of Sweden and Norway of 1319–1365, the pan-Scandinavian Kalmar Union was instituted in 1397. The Swedes were reluctant members of the Danish -dominated union from the start. In an attempt to subdue
11956-465: The Hiberno-Norman lords in Ireland were becoming gradually more assimilated into Irish society, and the island was allowed to develop virtual independence under English overlordship. The French House of Valois , which followed the House of Capet in 1328, was at its outset marginalized in its own country, first by the English invading forces of the Hundred Years' War and later by the powerful Duchy of Burgundy . The emergence of Joan of Arc as
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#173277318223712152-399: The Holy See , the primary language of its public journal , the Acta Apostolicae Sedis , and the working language of the Roman Rota . Vatican City is also home to the world's only automatic teller machine that gives instructions in Latin. In the pontifical universities postgraduate courses of Canon law are taught in Latin, and papers are written in the same language. There are
12348-455: The House of Habsburg in 1438, where it remained until its dissolution in 1806. Yet in spite of the extensive territories held by the Habsburgs , the Empire itself remained fragmented, and much real power and influence lay with the individual principalities. In addition, financial institutions, such as the Hanseatic League and the Fugger family, held great power, on both economic and political levels. The Kingdom of Hungary experienced
12544-424: The Hundred Years' War . To add to the many problems of the period, the unity of the Catholic Church was temporarily shattered by the Western Schism . Collectively, those events are sometimes called the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages . Despite the crises, the 14th century was also a time of great progress in the arts and sciences. Following a renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman texts that took root in
12740-431: The Hussites , were to have a much greater political impact than the Lollards. Hus gained a great following in Bohemia , and in 1414, he was requested to appear at the Council of Constance to defend his cause. When he was burned as a heretic in 1415, it caused a popular uprising in the Czech lands. The subsequent Hussite Wars fell apart due to internal quarrels and did not result in religious or national independence for
12936-450: The Italic branch of the Indo-European languages . Latin was originally spoken by the Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio ), the lower Tiber area around Rome , Italy. Through the expansion of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian Peninsula and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire . By the late Roman Republic , Old Latin had evolved into standardized Classical Latin . Vulgar Latin refers to
13132-416: The Jewish Wars (2.9.4) and the Antiquities of the Jews (18.3.2), Josephus relates that Pilate offended the Jews by using up the temple treasury ( korbanos ) to pay for a new aqueduct to Jerusalem. When a mob formed while Pilate was visiting Jerusalem, Pilate ordered his troops to beat them with clubs; many perished from the blows or from being trampled by horses, and the mob was dispersed. The dating of
13328-424: The Jews and Jewish Christians . Others have tried to explain Pilate's behavior in the Gospels as motivated by a change of circumstances from that shown in Josephus and Philo, usually presupposing a connection between Pilate's caution and the death of Sejanus. Yet other scholars, such as Brian McGing and Bond, have argued that there is no real discrepancy between Pilate's behavior in Josephus and Philo and that in
13524-406: The Jews , who were often blamed for the calamities. Anti-Jewish pogroms were carried out all over Europe; in February 1349, 2,000 Jews were murdered in Strasbourg . States were also guilty of discrimination against the Jews. Monarchs gave in to the demands of the people, and the Jews were expelled from England in 1290, from France in 1306, from Spain in 1492, and from Portugal in 1497. While
13720-450: The Middle Ages , borrowing from Latin occurred from ecclesiastical usage established by Saint Augustine of Canterbury in the 6th century or indirectly after the Norman Conquest , through the Anglo-Norman language . From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed " inkhorn terms ", as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by
13916-404: The Roman Rite of the Catholic Church at the Vatican City . The church continues to adapt concepts from modern languages to Ecclesiastical Latin of the Latin language. Contemporary Latin is more often studied to be read rather than spoken or actively used. Latin has greatly influenced the English language , along with a large number of others, and historically contributed many words to
14112-569: The Romance languages . During the Classical period, informal language was rarely written, so philologists have been left with only individual words and phrases cited by classical authors, inscriptions such as Curse tablets and those found as graffiti . In the Late Latin period, language changes reflecting spoken (non-classical) norms tend to be found in greater quantities in texts. As it
14308-578: The Samnites in the third and first centuries BC, respectively, before their full incorporation to the Roman Republic . Like all but one other governor of Judaea, Pilate was of the equestrian order , a middle rank of the Roman nobility. As one of the attested Pontii, Pontius Aquila (an assassin of Julius Caesar ) was a tribune of the plebs ; the family must have originally been of plebeian origin and later became ennobled as equestrians. Pilate
14504-665: The Talmud ( Lamentations Rabbah 4.4) records the destruction of an aqueduct from Solomon's Pools by the Sicarii , a group of fanatical religious Zealots , during the First Jewish-Roman War (66–73); he suggests that if the aqueduct had been funded by the temple treasury as recorded in Josephus, this might explain the Sicarii's targeting of this particular aqueduct. However, more recent research, published in 2021, dates
14700-703: The Wars of Scottish Independence . The English were eventually defeated, and the Scots were able to develop a stronger state under the Stewarts . From 1337, England's attention was largely directed towards France in the Hundred Years' War . Henry V's victory at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 briefly paved the way for a unification of the two kingdoms, but his son Henry VI soon squandered all previous gains. The loss of France led to discontent at home. Soon after
14896-636: The Western Roman Empire fell in 476 and Germanic kingdoms took its place, the Germanic people adopted Latin as a language more suitable for legal and other, more formal uses. While the written form of Latin was increasingly standardized into a fixed form, the spoken forms began to diverge more greatly. Currently, the five most widely spoken Romance languages by number of native speakers are Spanish , Portuguese , French , Italian , and Romanian . Despite dialectal variation, which
15092-403: The bill of exchange and other forms of credit that circumvented the canonical laws for gentiles against usury and eliminated the dangers of carrying bullion ; and new forms of accounting , in particular double-entry bookkeeping , which allowed for better oversight and accuracy. With the financial expansion, trading rights became more jealously guarded by the commercial elite. Towns saw
15288-578: The condottieri of the Italian city-states. All over Europe, Swiss mercenaries were in particularly high demand. At the same time, the period also saw the emergence of the first permanent armies. It was in Valois France, under the heavy demands of the Hundred Years' War, that the armed forces gradually assumed a permanent nature. Parallel to the military developments emerged also a constantly more elaborate chivalric code of conduct for
15484-563: The temple treasury to construct an aqueduct , as recorded by Josephus, without the cooperation of the priests. Similarly, Helen Bond argues that Pilate is depicted working closely with the Jewish authorities in the execution of Jesus. Jean-Pierre Lémonon argues that official cooperation with Pilate was limited to the Sadducees, noting that the Pharisees are absent from the gospel accounts of Jesus's arrest and trial. Daniel Schwartz takes
15680-543: The 14th and 15th centuries, the central theme was the Renaissance , with its rediscovery of ancient learning and the emergence of an individual spirit. The heart of this rediscovery lies in Italy, where, in the words of Jacob Burckhardt , "Man became a spiritual individual and recognized himself as such." This proposition was later challenged, and it was argued that the 12th century was a period of greater cultural achievement. As economic and demographic methods were applied to
15876-482: The 14th century but started going into decline in the fifteenth. In the late 13th and early 14th centuries, a process took place – primarily in Italy but partly also in the Empire ;– that historians have termed a "commercial revolution". Among the innovations of the period were new forms of partnership and the issuing of insurance , both of which contributed to reducing the risk of commercial ventures;
16072-540: The 14th century with his enormous armies (often over 100,000 men). Meanwhile, Poland 's attention was turned eastwards, as the Commonwealth with Lithuania created an enormous entity in the region. The union, and the conversion of Lithuania, also marked the end of paganism in Europe. Louis did not leave a son as heir after his death in 1382. Instead, he named as his heir the young prince Sigismund of Luxemburg . The Hungarian nobility did not accept his claim, and
16268-637: The British Crown. The motto is featured on all presently minted coinage and has been featured in most coinage throughout the nation's history. Several states of the United States have Latin mottos , such as: Many military organizations today have Latin mottos, such as: Some law governing bodies in the Philippines have Latin mottos, such as: Some colleges and universities have adopted Latin mottos, for example Harvard University 's motto
16464-533: The Elder , the governor of Syria (term 35–39), who had Pilate recalled to Rome to be judged by Tiberius . Tiberius, however, had died before his arrival. This dates the end of Pilate's governorship to 36/37. Tiberius died in Misenum on 16 March in 37, in his seventy-eighth year (Tacitus, Annals VI.50 , VI.51 ). Following Tiberius's death, Pilate's hearing would have been handled by the new emperor Caligula : it
16660-677: The English lexicon , particularly after the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons and the Norman Conquest . Latin and Ancient Greek roots are heavily used in English vocabulary in theology , the sciences , medicine , and law . A number of phases of the language have been recognized, each distinguished by subtle differences in vocabulary, usage, spelling, and syntax. There are no hard and fast rules of classification; different scholars emphasize different features. As
16856-407: The English became acquainted with, and adopted, the highly efficient longbow . Once properly managed, this weapon gave them a great advantage over the French in the Hundred Years' War. The introduction of gunpowder affected the conduct of war significantly. Though employed by the English as early as the Battle of Crécy in 1346, firearms initially had little effect in the field of battle. It
17052-435: The European population to regain similar levels of 1300. As the European population was severely reduced, land became more plentiful for the survivors, and labour was consequently more expensive. Attempts by landowners to forcibly reduce wages, such as the English 1351 Statute of Laborers , were doomed to fail. These efforts resulted in nothing more than fostering resentment among the peasantry, leading to rebellions such as
17248-657: The French Jacquerie in 1358 and the English Peasants' Revolt in 1381. The long-term effect was the virtual end of serfdom in Western Europe. In Eastern Europe, on the other hand, landowners were able to exploit the situation to force the peasantry into even more repressive bondage. The upheavals caused by the Black Death left certain minority groups particularly vulnerable, especially
17444-481: The Gospel accounts are completely untrustworthy: S. G. F. Brandon argued that in reality, rather than vacillating on condemning Jesus, Pilate unhesitatingly executed him as a rebel. Paul Winter explained the discrepancy between Pilate in other sources and Pilate in the gospels by arguing that Christians became more and more eager to portray Pontius Pilate as a witness to Jesus' innocence, as persecution of Christians by
17640-469: The Gospel of Nicodemus claim that Pilate was born in Egypt, which likely aided his popularity there. The Christian Pilate literature surrounding the Gospel of Nicodemus includes at least fifteen late antique and early medieval texts, called the " Pilate cycle ", written and preserved in various languages and versions and dealing largely with Pontius Pilate. Two of these include purported reports made by Pilate to
17836-499: The Gospels' portrayal of Pilate cannot be considered historical, since Pilate is always described in other sources ( The Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews of Josephus and Embassy to Gaius of Philo ) as a cruel and obstinate man. Brown also rejects the historicity of Pilate washing his hands and of the blood curse , arguing that these narratives, which only appear in the Gospel of Matthew , reflect later contrasts between
18032-589: The Gospels. Warren Carter argues that Pilate is portrayed as skillful, competent, and manipulative of the crowd in Mark, Matthew, and John, only finding Jesus innocent and executing him under pressure in Luke. N. T. Wright and Craig A. Evans argue that Pilate's hesitation was due to the fear of causing a revolt during Passover , when large numbers of pilgrims were in Jerusalem . According to Josephus' Antiquities of
18228-416: The Great petitioned him to remove the shields, but Pilate refused. Herod's sons then threatened to petition the emperor, an action which Pilate feared would expose the crimes he had committed in office. He did not prevent their petition. Tiberius received the petition and angrily reprimanded Pilate, ordering him to remove the shields. Helen Bond, Daniel Schwartz, and Warren Carter argue that Philo's portrayal
18424-719: The Great Schism had done irreparable damage. The internal struggles within the Church had impaired her claim to universal rule and promoted anti-clericalism among the people and their rulers, paving the way for reform movements. Though many of the events were outside the traditional time period of the Middle Ages, the end of the unity of the Western Church (the Protestant Reformation ) was one of
18620-599: The Grinch Stole Christmas! , The Cat in the Hat , and a book of fairy tales, " fabulae mirabiles ", are intended to garner popular interest in the language. Additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissner's Latin Phrasebook . Some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series,
18816-743: The High Middle Ages, the Italian Renaissance began. The absorption of Latin texts had started before the Renaissance of the 12th century through contact with Arabs during the Crusades , but the availability of important Greek texts accelerated with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks , when many Byzantine scholars had to seek refuge in the West, particularly Italy. Combined with this influx of classical ideas
19012-688: The Iberian peninsula, but there were also some in France, the Empire, and the Low Countries, as well as London in England. Through battles such as Courtrai (1302), Bannockburn (1314), and Morgarten (1315), it became clear to the great territorial princes of Europe that the military advantage of the feudal cavalry was lost and that a well equipped infantry was preferable. Through the Welsh Wars ,
19208-494: The Jewish Sanhedrin . Pilate was subordinate to the legate of Syria ; however, for the first six years in which he held office, Syria's legate Lucius Aelius Lamia was absent from the region, something which Helen Bond believes may have presented difficulties to Pilate. He seems to have been free to govern the province as he wished, with intervention by the legate of Syria only coming at the end of his tenure, after
19404-488: The Jewish population and Pilate's administration. Many of these incidents involve Pilate acting in ways that offended the religious sensibilities of the Jews. The Christian gospels record that Pilate ordered the crucifixion of Jesus at some point during his time in office; Josephus and the Roman historian Tacitus also record this information. According to Josephus, Pilate was removed from office because he violently suppressed an armed Samaritan movement at Mount Gerizim . He
19600-548: The Jews ( c. 94 ) by the Jewish historian Josephus , as well as the four canonical Christian gospels , Mark (composed between 66 and 70), Luke (composed between 85 and 90), Matthew (composed between 85 and 90), and John (composed between 90 and 110), each authored anonymously; he is also mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (composed between 85 and 90) and in the First Epistle to Timothy (written in
19796-564: The Jews (18.4.1–2), Pilate's removal as governor occurred after Pilate slaughtered a group of armed Samaritans at a village called Tirathana near Mount Gerizim , where they hoped to find artifacts that had been buried there by Moses . Alexander Demandt suggests that the leader of this movement may have been Dositheos , a messiah -like figure among the Samaritans who was known to have been active around this time. The Samaritans, claiming not to have been armed, complained to Lucius Vitellius
19992-490: The Jews and not Pilate were responsible for Jesus' death; he therefore also assumed that Pilate did not die a shameful death. Pilate's supposed suicide is also left unmentioned in Josephus, Philo, and Tacitus. Maier argues that "[i]n all probability, then, the fate of Pontius Pilate lay clearly in the direction of a retired government official, a pensioned Roman ex-magistrate, than in anything more disastrous." Taylor notes that Philo discusses Pilate as though he were already dead in
20188-512: The Jews and once by Tiberius, for his faith. In addition to the report on Pilate's suicide in Eusebius, Grüll notes three Western apocryphal traditions about Pilate's suicide. In the Cura sanitatis Tiberii (dated variously 5th to 7th century), the emperor Tiberius is healed by an image of Jesus brought by Saint Veronica , Saint Peter then confirms Pilate's report on Jesus's miracles, and Pilate
20384-467: The Jews by moving imperial standards with the image of Caesar into Jerusalem. This resulted in a crowd of Jews surrounding Pilate's house in Caesarea for five days. Pilate then summoned them to an arena , where the Roman soldiers drew their swords. But the Jews showed so little fear of death, that Pilate relented and removed the standards. Bond argues that the fact that Josephus says that Pilate brought in
20580-479: The Jews nor Herod do so. The Gospel includes a scene in which the centurions who had been guarding Jesus' tomb report to Pilate that Jesus has been resurrected. The fragmentary third-century Manichaean Gospel of Mani has Pilate refer to Jesus as "the Son of God" and telling his centurions to "[k]eep this secret". In the most common version of the passion narrative in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus (also called
20776-411: The Jews prior to this time reflects an increasing "anti-Judaism" among Early Christians. The earliest attestation of a positive tradition about Pilate comes from the late first-, early second-century Christian author Tertullian , who, claiming to have seen Pilate's report to Tiberius, states Pilate had "become already a Christian in his conscience." An earlier reference to Pilate's records of Jesus's trial
20972-683: The Jews were suffering persecution, one group that probably experienced increased empowerment in the late Middle Ages was women. The great social changes of the period opened up new possibilities for women in the fields of commerce, learning, and religion. Yet at the same time, women were also vulnerable to incrimination and persecution, as belief in witchcraft increased. The accumulation of social, environmental, and health-related problems also led to an increase in interpersonal violence in most parts of Europe. Population increase, religious intolerance, famine, and disease led to an increase in violent acts in vast parts of medieval society. One exception to this
21168-530: The Middle Ages (1919). To Huizinga, whose research focused on France and the Low Countries rather than Italy, despair and decline were the main themes, not rebirth. Modern historiography on the period has reached a consensus between the two extremes of innovation and crisis. It is now generally acknowledged that conditions were vastly different north and south of the Alps, and the term "late Middle Ages"
21364-491: The Rhone, where the same thing happens. Finally, the corpse is taken to Lausanne in modern Switzerland and buried in an isolated lake (perhaps Lake Lucerne ), where demonic visitations continue to occur. Beginning in the eleventh century, more extensive legendary biographies of Pilate were written in Western Europe, adding details to information provided by the bible and apocrypha. The legend exists in many different versions and
21560-460: The Roman authorities increased. Bart Ehrman argues that the Gospel of Mark , the earliest one, shows the Jews and Pilate to be in agreement about executing Jesus (Mark 15:15), while the later gospels progressively reduce Pilate's culpability, culminating in Pilate allowing the Jews to crucify Jesus in John (John 19:16). He connects this change to increased "anti-Judaism". Raymond E. Brown argued that
21756-493: The Roman provinces and applied to non-Roman citizens that provided the prefect with greater flexibility in handling the case. All four gospels also mention that Pilate had the custom of releasing one captive in honor of the Passover festival; this custom is not attested in any other source. Historians disagree on whether or not such a custom is a fictional element of the gospels, reflects historical reality, or perhaps represents
21952-719: The Serbian king Stefan Dušan had been proclaimed emperor. Yet Serbian dominance was short-lived; the Serbian army led by the Lazar Hrebeljanovic was defeated by the Ottoman Army at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, where most of the Serbian nobility was killed and the south of the country came under Ottoman occupation , as much of southern Bulgaria had become Ottoman territory in the Battle of Maritsa 1371. Northern remnants of Bulgaria were finally conquered by 1396, Serbia fell in 1459, Bosnia in 1463, and Albania
22148-473: The Sicilian Vespers had by the early 14th century divided southern Italy into an Aragon Kingdom of Sicily and an Anjou Kingdom of Naples . In 1442, the two kingdoms were effectively united under Aragonese control. The 1469 marriage of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon and the 1479 death of John II of Aragon led to the creation of modern-day Spain . In 1492, Granada
22344-709: The Spanish kingdoms supported the Avignon Papacy, France's enemy England stood behind the pope in Rome, together with Portugal, Scandinavia, and most of the German princes. At the Council of Constance (1414–1418), the Papacy was once more united in Rome. Even though the unity of the Western Church was to last for another hundred years, and though the Papacy was to experience greater material prosperity than ever before,
22540-617: The Swedes, King Christian II of Denmark had large numbers of the Swedish aristocracy killed in the Stockholm Bloodbath of 1520. Yet this measure only led to further hostilities, and Sweden broke away for good in 1523. Norway, on the other hand, became an inferior party of the union and remained united with Denmark until 1814. Iceland benefited from its relative isolation and was the last Scandinavian country to be struck by
22736-467: The United States the unofficial national motto until 1956 was E pluribus unum meaning "Out of many, one". The motto continues to be featured on the Great Seal . It also appears on the flags and seals of both houses of congress and the flags of the states of Michigan, North Dakota, New York, and Wisconsin. The motto's 13 letters symbolically represent the original Thirteen Colonies which revolted from
22932-563: The University of Kentucky, the University of Oxford and also Princeton University. There are many websites and forums maintained in Latin by enthusiasts. The Latin Misplaced Pages has more than 130,000 articles. Italian , French , Portuguese , Spanish , Romanian , Catalan , Romansh , Sardinian and other Romance languages are direct descendants of Latin. There are also many Latin borrowings in English and Albanian , as well as
23128-527: The appointment of Lucius Vitellius to the post in 35. Like other Roman governors of Judaea, Pilate made his primary residence in Caesarea , going to Jerusalem mainly for major feasts to maintain order. He also would have toured around the province in order to hear cases and administer justice. As governor, Pilate had the right to appoint the Jewish High Priest and also officially controlled
23324-490: The author and then forgotten, but some useful ones survived, such as 'imbibe' and 'extrapolate'. Many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French . Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and Dutch vocabularies. Those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Late Middle Ages Around 1350, centuries of prosperity and growth in Europe came to
23520-484: The author attributes Jesus's persecution under Pilate's governorship. Ignatius further dates Jesus's birth, passion, and resurrection during Pilate's governorship in his epistle to the Magnesians (11.1). Ignatius stresses all these events in his epistles as historical facts. Bond argues that Jesus's arrest was made with Pilate's prior knowledge and involvement, based on the presence of a 500-strong Roman cohort among
23716-425: The benefit of those who do not understand Latin. There are also songs written with Latin lyrics . The libretto for the opera-oratorio Oedipus rex by Igor Stravinsky is in Latin. Parts of Carl Orff 's Carmina Burana are written in Latin. Enya has recorded several tracks with Latin lyrics. The continued instruction of Latin is seen by some as a highly valuable component of a liberal arts education. Latin
23912-409: The careful work of Petrarch, Politian and others, first the demand for manuscripts, and then the rush to bring works into print, led to the circulation of inaccurate copies for several centuries following. Neo-Latin literature was extensive and prolific, but less well known or understood today. Works covered poetry, prose stories and early novels, occasional pieces and collections of letters, to name
24108-415: The classicised Latin that followed through to the present are often grouped together as Neo-Latin , or New Latin, which have in recent decades become a focus of renewed study , given their importance for the development of European culture, religion and science. The vast majority of written Latin belongs to this period, but its full extent is unknown. The Renaissance reinforced the position of Latin as
24304-424: The cognomen through military skill. In the Gospels of Mark and John, Pilate is only called by his cognomen, which Marie-Joseph Ollivier takes to mean that this was the name by which he was generally known in common speech. The name Pontius suggests that an ancestor of his came from Samnium in central, southern Italy, and he may have belonged to the family of Gavius Pontius and Pontius Telesinus , two leaders of
24500-517: The construction of another one of the aqueducts providing water to Solomon's Pools, namely the Biar Aqueduct (also known as Wadi el-Biyar Aqueduct), to the mid-first century AD, probably during the time of Pilate. In 2018, an inscription on a thin copper-alloy sealing ring that had been discovered at Herodium was uncovered using modern scanning techniques. The inscription reads ΠΙΛΑΤΟ(Υ) ( Pilato(u) ), meaning "of Pilate". The name Pilatus
24696-410: The correct reconstruction, so that "apart from Pilate's name and title the inscription is unclear." Originally, the inscription would have included an abbreviated letter for Pilate's praenomen (e.g., T. for Titus or M. for Marcus). The stone attests Pilate's title of prefect and the inscription appears to refer to some kind of building called a Tiberieum , a word otherwise unattested but following
24892-412: The country's full Latin name. Some film and television in ancient settings, such as Sebastiane , The Passion of the Christ and Barbarians (2020 TV series) , have been made with dialogue in Latin. Occasionally, Latin dialogue is used because of its association with religion or philosophy, in such film/television series as The Exorcist and Lost (" Jughead "). Subtitles are usually shown for
25088-434: The death rate caused by this epidemic range from one third to as much as sixty percent. By around 1420, the accumulated effect of recurring plagues and famines had reduced the population of Europe to perhaps no more than a third of what it was a century earlier. The effects of natural disasters were exacerbated by armed conflicts; this was particularly the case in France during the Hundred Years' War . It took 150 years for
25284-503: The decline in written Latin output. Despite having no native speakers, Latin is still used for a variety of purposes in the contemporary world. The largest organisation that retains Latin in official and quasi-official contexts is the Catholic Church . The Catholic Church required that Mass be carried out in Latin until the Second Vatican Council of 1962–1965 , which permitted the use of the vernacular . Latin remains
25480-485: The discovery of the Americas in 1492. Around 1300–1350, the Medieval Warm Period gave way to the Little Ice Age . The colder climate resulted in agricultural crises, the first of which is known as the Great Famine of 1315–1317 . The demographic consequences of this famine , however, were not as severe as the plagues that occurred later in the century, particularly the Black Death . Estimates of
25676-547: The distinguishing characteristics of the medieval period. The Catholic Church had long fought against heretic movements, but during the late Middle Ages, it started to experience demands for reform from within. The first of these came from Oxford professor John Wycliffe in England. Wycliffe held that the Bible should be the only authority in religious questions, and he spoke out against transubstantiation , celibacy , and indulgences . In spite of influential supporters among
25872-804: The earliest apocryphal texts attributed to Pilate are denunciations of Christianity and of Jesus that claim to be Pilate's report on the crucifixion. According to Eusebius ( Church History 9.2.5), these texts were distributed during the persecution of Christians conducted by the emperor Maximinus II (reigned 308–313). None of these texts survive, but Tibor Grüll argues that their contents can be reconstructed from Christian apologetic texts. Positive traditions about Pilate are frequent in Eastern Christianity, particularly in Egypt and Ethiopia, whereas negative traditions predominate in Western and Byzantine Christianity. Additionally, earlier Christian traditions portray Pilate more positively than later ones,
26068-520: The early 16th century, when the King Louis II of Hungary was killed in the Battle of Mohács in 1526 against the Ottoman Empire . Hungary then fell into a serious crisis and was invaded, ending its significance in central Europe during the medieval era. The state of Kievan Rus' fell during the 13th century in the Mongol invasion . The Grand Duchy of Moscow rose in power thereafter, winning
26264-528: The educated and official world, Latin continued without its natural spoken base. Moreover, this Latin spread into lands that had never spoken Latin, such as the Germanic and Slavic nations. It became useful for international communication between the member states of the Holy Roman Empire and its allies. Without the institutions of the Roman Empire that had supported its uniformity, Medieval Latin
26460-547: The emperor (the Anaphora Pilati to Emperor Tiberius and the Letter of Pilate to Claudius to Claudius ) on the crucifixion, in which Pilate recounts Jesus' death and resurrection, blaming the Jews. Another purports to be an angry reply by Tiberius, condemning Pilate for his role in Jesus' death, the Letter of Tiberius to Pilate . Another early text is an apocryphal letter attributed to "Herod" (a composite character of
26656-428: The end of Western religious unity and the subsequent emergence of the nation-state , and the expansion of European influence onto the rest of the world. The limits of Christian Europe were still being defined in the 14th and 15th centuries. While the Grand Duchy of Moscow was beginning to repel the Mongols , and the Iberian kingdoms completed the Reconquista of the peninsula and turned their attention outwards,
26852-404: The end of the war in 1453, the dynastic struggles of the Wars of the Roses (c. 1455–1485) began, involving the rival dynasties of the House of Lancaster and House of York . The war ended in the accession of Henry VII of the House of Tudor , who continued the work started by the Yorkist kings of building a strong, centralized monarchy. While England's attention was thus directed elsewhere,
27048-452: The foundations for a Russian national state. After the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Russian princes started to see themselves as the heirs of the Byzantine Empire . They eventually took on the imperial title of Tzar , and Moscow was described as the Third Rome . The Byzantine Empire had for a long time dominated the eastern Mediterranean in politics and culture. By the 14th century, however, it had almost entirely collapsed into
27244-406: The founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment..." (Tacitus, Annals 15.44). Josephus also mentioned Jesus 's execution by Pilate at the request of prominent Jews ( Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3); the text may have been altered by Christian interpolation , but
27440-525: The gospels in particular providing a theological rather than historical perspective on Pilate. Besides these texts, dated coins in the name of emperor Tiberius minted during Pilate's governorship have survived, as well as a fragmentary short inscription that names Pilate, known as the Pilate Stone , the only inscription about a Roman governor of Judaea predating the Jewish–Roman wars to survive. The sources give no indication of Pilate's life prior to his becoming governor of Judaea. His praenomen (first name)
27636-451: The gospels, the Pilate cycle . Attitudes split by region: in texts from the Eastern Roman Empire , Pilate was portrayed as a positive figure. He and his wife are portrayed as Christian converts and sometimes martyrs. In Western Christian texts, he was instead portrayed as a negative figure and villain, with traditions surrounding his death by suicide featuring prominently. Pilate was also the focus of numerous medieval legends, which invented
27832-451: The growing power of guilds , while on a national level, special companies would be granted monopolies on particular trades, like the English wool Staple . The beneficiaries of these developments would accumulate immense wealth. Families like the Fuggers in Germany, the Medicis in Italy, and the de la Poles in England and individuals like Jacques Cœur in France would help finance the wars of kings, achieving great political influence in
28028-403: The incident is unknown, but Bond argues that it must have occurred between 26 and 30 or 33, based on Josephus's chronology. The Gospel of Luke mentions in passing Galileans "whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices" ( Luke 13 :1). This reference has been variously interpreted as referring to one of the incidents recorded by Josephus, or to an entirely unknown incident. Bond argues that
28224-504: The invention of printing and are now published in carefully annotated printed editions, such as the Loeb Classical Library , published by Harvard University Press , or the Oxford Classical Texts , published by Oxford University Press . Latin translations of modern literature such as: The Hobbit , Treasure Island , Robinson Crusoe , Paddington Bear , Winnie the Pooh , The Adventures of Tintin , Asterix , Harry Potter , Le Petit Prince , Max and Moritz , How
28420-412: The language of the Roman Rite . The Tridentine Mass (also known as the Extraordinary Form or Traditional Latin Mass) is celebrated in Latin. Although the Mass of Paul VI (also known as the Ordinary Form or the Novus Ordo) is usually celebrated in the local vernacular language, it can be and often is said in Latin, in part or in whole, especially at multilingual gatherings. It is the official language of
28616-440: The large areas where it had come to be natively spoken. However, even after the fall of Western Rome , Latin remained the common language of international communication , science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the early 19th century, by which time modern languages had supplanted it in common academic and political usage. Late Latin is the literary language from the 3rd century AD onward. No longer spoken as
28812-424: The largest groups of surviving New Testament Apocrypha . Originally, these texts served both to unburden Pilate of guilt for the death of Jesus as well as to provide more complete records of Jesus's trial. The apocryphal Gospel of Peter completely exonerates Pilate for the crucifixion, which is instead performed by Herod Antipas . Moreover, the text makes explicit that while Pilate washes his hands of guilt, neither
29008-412: The late seventeenth century, when spoken skills began to erode. It then became increasingly taught only to be read. Latin grammar is highly fusional , with classes of inflections for case , number , person , gender , tense , mood , voice , and aspect . The Latin alphabet is directly derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets . Latin remains the official language of the Holy See and
29204-425: The later Middle Ages. In the Golden Legend , Pilate is portrayed as closely associated with Judas , first coveting the fruit in the orchard of Judas's father Ruben, then granting Judas Ruben's property after Judas has killed his own father. Latin language Latin ( lingua Latina , pronounced [ˈlɪŋɡʷa ɫaˈtiːna] , or Latinum [ɫaˈtiːnʊ̃] ) is a classical language belonging to
29400-431: The later part of the Roman Republic , up to 75 BC, i.e. before the age of Classical Latin . It is attested both in inscriptions and in some of the earliest extant Latin literary works, such as the comedies of Plautus and Terence . The Latin alphabet was devised from the Etruscan alphabet . The writing later changed from what was initially either a right-to-left or a boustrophedon script to what ultimately became
29596-436: The legend of Pontius Pilate's association with the Italian village of Ameria [...] than it is to posit someone forging the inscription two centuries ago—quite creatively, it would seem—to provide substance for the legend." As governor, Pilate was responsible for minting coins in the province: he appears to have struck them in 29/30, 30/31, and 31/32, thus the fourth, fifth, and sixth years of his governorship. The coins belong to
29792-421: The less prestigious colloquial registers , attested in inscriptions and some literary works such as those of the comic playwrights Plautus and Terence and the author Petronius . While often called a "dead language", Latin did not undergo language death . By the 6th to 9th centuries, natural language change eventually resulted in Latin as a vernacular language evolving into distinct Romance languages in
29988-412: The narrative [...] Despite extensive differences, however, there is a certain agreement amongst the evangelists regarding the basic facts, an agreement which may well go beyond literary dependency and reflect actual historical events. Pilate's role in condemning Jesus to death is also attested by the Roman historian Tacitus , who, when explaining Nero 's persecution of the Christians, explains: "Christus,
30184-422: The note in the Gospel of Luke ( Luke 23 :12) that Pilate had a difficult relationship with the Galilean Jewish king Herod Antipas as potentially historical. He also finds historical the information that their relationship mended following the execution of Jesus. Based on John 19 :12, it is possible that Pilate held the title "friend of Caesar" ( Latin : amicus Caesaris , Ancient Greek : φίλος τοῦ Kαίσαρος ),
30380-398: The number of Galileans killed does not seem to have been particularly high. In Bond's view, the reference to "sacrifices" likely means that this incident occurred at Passover at some unknown date. She argues that "[i]t is not only possible but quite likely that Pilate's governorship contained many such brief outbreaks of trouble about which we know nothing. The insurrection in which Barabbas
30576-413: The other varieties, as it was largely separated from the unifying influences in the western part of the Empire. Spoken Latin began to diverge into distinct languages by the 9th century at the latest, when the earliest extant Romance writings begin to appear. They were, throughout the period, confined to everyday speech, as Medieval Latin was used for writing. For many Italians using Latin, though, there
30772-426: The party that arrests Jesus in John 18:3. Demandt dismisses the notion that Pilate was involved. It is generally assumed, based on the unanimous testimony of the gospels, that the crime for which Jesus was brought to Pilate and executed was sedition, founded on his claim to be king of the Jews . Pilate may have judged Jesus according to the cognitio extra ordinem , a form of trial for capital punishment used in
30968-419: The position it was time for him to take a new posting. Joan Taylor, on the other hand, argues that Pilate seems to have ended his career in disgrace, using his unflattering portrayal in Philo, written only a few years after his dismissal, as proof. The church historian Eusebius ( Church History 2.7.1), writing in the early fourth century, claims that "tradition relates that" Pilate committed suicide after he
31164-403: The potential fate of Pontius Pilate can be gleaned from other sources. The second-century pagan philosopher Celsus polemically asked why, if Jesus was God, God had not punished Pilate, indicating that he did not believe that Pilate shamefully committed suicide. Responding to Celsus, the Christian apologist Origen , writing c. 248 AD , argued that nothing bad happened to Pilate, because
31360-587: The powerful Praetorian Prefect Sejanus , who was executed for treason in 31. Other scholars have cast doubt on any link between Pilate and Sejanus. Daniel R. Schwartz and Kenneth Lönnqvist both argue that the traditional dating of the beginning of Pilate's governorship is based on an error in Josephus; Schwartz argues that he was appointed instead in 19, while Lönnqvist argues for 17/18. These proposed dates have not been widely accepted by other scholars. Pilate's title of prefect implies that his duties were primarily military; however, Pilate's troops were meant more as
31556-441: The process. Though there is no doubt that the demographic crisis of the 14th century caused a dramatic fall in production and commerce in absolute terms, there has been a vigorous historical debate over whether the decline was greater than the fall in population. While the older orthodoxy held that the artistic output of the Renaissance was a result of greater opulence, more recent studies have suggested that there might have been
31752-403: The reference to the execution is generally considered authentic. Discussing the paucity of extra-biblical mentions of the crucifixion, Alexander Demandt argues that the execution of Jesus was probably not seen as a particularly important event by the Romans, as many other people were crucified at the time and forgotten. In Ignatius 's epistles to the Trallians (9.1) and to the Smyrnaeans (1.2),
31948-565: The reforming movements with what has been called the Catholic Reformation, or Counter-Reformation . Europe became split into northern Protestant and southern Catholic parts, resulting in the Religious Wars of the 16th and 17th centuries. The increasingly dominant position of the Ottoman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean presented an impediment to trade for the Christian nations of the west, who in turn started looking for alternatives. Portuguese and Spanish explorers found new trade routes – south of Africa to India , as well as across
32144-424: The result was an internal war. Sigismund eventually achieved total control of Hungary and established his court in Buda and Visegrád. Both palaces were rebuilt and improved, and were considered the richest of the time in Europe. Inheriting the throne of Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire, Sigismund continued conducting his politics from Hungary, but he was kept busy fighting the Hussites and the Ottoman Empire , which
32340-523: The return of the Pope to Rome in 1378, the Papal State developed into a major secular power, culminating in the morally corrupt papacy of Alexander VI . Florence grew to prominence amongst the Italian city-states through financial business, and the dominant Medici family became important promoters of the Renaissance through their patronage of the arts. Other city-states in northern Italy also expanded their territories and consolidated their power, primarily Milan , Venice , and Genoa . The War of
32536-567: The scene where he washes his hands of guilt for Jesus's death. In the art of the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance , Pilate is often depicted as a Jew. He plays an important role in medieval passion plays , where he is often a more prominent character than Jesus. His characterization in these plays varies greatly, from weak-willed and coerced into crucifying Jesus to being an evil person who demands Jesus's crucifixion. Modern authors who feature Pilate prominently in their works include Anatole France , Mikhail Bulgakov , and Chingiz Aitmatov , with
32732-494: The second half of the 1st century). Ignatius of Antioch mentions him in his epistles to the Trallians , Magnesians , and Smyrnaeans (composed between 105 and 110). He is also briefly mentioned in Annals of the Roman historian Tacitus (early 2nd century), who simply says that he put Jesus to death. Two additional chapters of Tacitus's Annals that might have mentioned Pilate have been lost. The written sources provide only limited information, and each has its own biases, with
32928-655: The standards by night, shows that he knew that the images of the emperor would be offensive. She dates this incident to early in Pilate's tenure as governor. Daniel Schwartz and Alexander Demandt both suggest that this incident is in fact identical with "the incident with the shields" reported in Philo's Embassy to Gaius , an identification first made by the early church historian Eusebius . Lémonon, however, argues against this identification. According to Philo's Embassy to Gaius ( Embassy to Gaius 38), Pilate offended against Jewish law by bringing golden shields into Jerusalem, and placing them on Herod's Palace . The sons of Herod
33124-427: The study of history, the trend was increasingly to see the late Middle Ages as a period of recession and crisis. Belgian historian Henri Pirenne continued the subdivision of Early , High , and late Middle Ages in the years around World War I . Yet it was his Dutch colleague, Johan Huizinga , who was primarily responsible for popularising the pessimistic view of the late Middle Ages, with his book The Autumn of
33320-489: The symbolism on the coins shows how Pilate attempted to promote the Roman imperial cult in Judaea, in spite of local Jewish and Samaritan religious sensitivities. Attempts to identify the aqueduct that is attributed to Pilate in Josephus date to the 19th century. In the mid-20th century, A. Mazar tentatively identified it as the Arrub aqueduct that brought water from Solomon's Pools to Jerusalem, an identification supported in 2000 by Kenneth Lönnqvist. Lönnqvist notes that
33516-560: The three periods of the Middle Ages , along with the early Middle Ages and the High Middle Ages. Leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodization in his History of the Florentine People (1442). Flavio Biondo used a similar framework in Decades of History from the Deterioration of the Roman Empire (1439–1453). Tripartite periodization became standard after the German historian Christoph Cellarius published Universal History Divided into an Ancient, Medieval, and New Period (1683). For 18th-century historians studying
33712-624: The various Herods in the Bible), which claims to respond to a letter from Pilate in which Pilate spoke of his remorse for Jesus' crucifixion and of having had a vision of the risen Christ; "Herod" asks Pilate to pray for him. In the so-called Book of the Cock , a late-antique apocryphal passion Gospel only preserved in Ge'ez (Ethiopic) but translated from Arabic, Pilate attempts to avoid Jesus's execution by sending him to Herod and writing further letters arguing with Herod not to execute Jesus. Pilate's family become Christians after Jesus miraculously cures Pilate's daughters of their deaf-muteness. Pilate
33908-421: The vestments of the High Priest in the Antonia Fortress . Unlike his predecessor, Valerius Gratus , Pilate retained the same high priest, Joseph ben Caiaphas , for his entire tenure. Caiaphas would be removed following Pilate's own removal from the governorship. This indicates that Caiaphas and the priests of the Sadducee sect were reliable allies to Pilate. Moreover, Maier argues that Pilate could not have used
34104-409: The warrior class. This newfound ethos can be seen as a response to the diminishing military role of the aristocracy, and it gradually became almost entirely detached from its military origin. The spirit of chivalry was given expression through the new ( secular ) type of chivalric orders ; the first of these was the Order of St. George , founded by Charles I of Hungary in 1325, while the best known
34300-600: Was North-Eastern Europe, whose population managed to maintain low levels of violence due to a more organized society resulting from extensive and successful trade. Up until the mid-14th century, Europe had experienced steadily increasing urbanization . Cities were also decimated by the Black Death, but the role of urban areas as centres of learning, commerce, and government ensured continued growth. By 1500, Venice, Milan, Naples, Paris, and Constantinople each probably had more than 100,000 inhabitants. Twenty-two other cities were larger than 40,000; most of these were in Italy and
34496-435: Was a fragmentary, undated inscription on a large piece of marble recorded in Ameria , a village in Umbria , Italy. The inscription read as follows: The only clear items of text are the names "Pilate" and the title quattuorvir ("IIII VIR"), a type of local city official responsible for conducting a census every five years. The inscription was formerly found outside the church of St. Secundus, where it had been copied from
34692-454: Was a particularly brutal and ineffective governor, others believe that his long time in office implies reasonable competence. According to one prominent post-World War II theory, Pilate's mistreatment of the Jews was motivated by antisemitism , but most contemporary historians do not accept this theory. In Late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages , Pilate became the focus of a large group of New Testament apocrypha expanding on his role in
34888-399: Was becoming a menace to Europe in the beginning of the 15th century. King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary led the largest army of mercenaries of the time, the Black Army of Hungary , which he used to conquer Moravia and Austria and to fight the Ottoman Empire . After Italy, Hungary was the first European country where the Renaissance appeared. However, the glory of the Kingdom ended in
35084-420: Was captured from the Moors , thereby completing the Reconquista . Portugal had during the 15th century – particularly under Henry the Navigator – gradually explored the coast of Africa , and in 1498, Vasco da Gama found the sea route to India . The Spanish monarchs met the Portuguese challenge by financing the expedition of Christopher Columbus to find a western sea route to India, leading to
35280-520: Was caught up, if historical, may well be another example." At the Passover of most likely 30 or 33, Pontius Pilate condemned Jesus of Nazareth to death by crucifixion in Jerusalem. The main sources on the crucifixion are the four canonical Christian Gospels , the accounts of which vary. Helen Bond argues that the evangelists' portrayals of Pilate have been shaped to a great extent by their own particular theological and apologetic concerns. [...] Legendary or theological additions have also been made to
35476-410: Was challenged to recant his heresy at the Diet of Worms in 1521. When he refused, he was placed under the ban of the Empire by Charles V . Receiving the protection of Frederick the Wise , he was then able to translate the Bible into German . To many secular rulers, the Protestant Reformation was a welcome opportunity to expand their wealth and influence. The Catholic Church met the challenges of
35672-430: Was extremely widespread in both Latin and the vernacular, and each version contains significant variation, often relating to local traditions. The earliest extant legendary biography is the De Pilato of c. 1050 , with three further Latin versions appearing in the mid-twelfth century, followed by many vernacular translations. Howard Martin summarizes the general content of these legendary biographies as follows:
35868-406: Was finally subordinated in 1479 only a few years after the death of Skanderbeg . Belgrade , a Hungarian domain at the time, was the last large Balkan city to fall under Ottoman rule, in the siege of Belgrade of 1521. By the end of the medieval period, the entire Balkan peninsula was annexed by, or became vassal to, the Ottomans. Avignon was the seat of the papacy from 1309 to 1376. With
36064-413: Was free to develop on its own, there is no reason to suppose that the speech was uniform either diachronically or geographically. On the contrary, Romanised European populations developed their own dialects of the language, which eventually led to the differentiation of Romance languages . Late Latin is a kind of written Latin used in the 3rd to 6th centuries. This began to diverge from Classical forms at
36260-419: Was likely educated, somewhat wealthy, and well-connected politically and socially. He was probably married, but the only extant reference to his wife , in which she tells him not to interact with Jesus after she has had a disturbing dream ( Matthew 27 :19), is generally dismissed as legendary. According to the cursus honorum established by Augustus for office holders of equestrian rank, Pilate would have had
36456-496: Was much more liberal in its linguistic cohesion: for example, in classical Latin sum and eram are used as auxiliary verbs in the perfect and pluperfect passive, which are compound tenses. Medieval Latin might use fui and fueram instead. Furthermore, the meanings of many words were changed and new words were introduced, often under influence from the vernacular. Identifiable individual styles of classically incorrect Latin prevail. Renaissance Latin, 1300 to 1500, and
36652-418: Was never entirely absent from European society. As a result, there was developmental continuity between the ancient age (via classical antiquity ) and the modern age . Some historians, particularly in Italy, prefer not to speak of the late Middle Ages at all but rather see the high period of the Middle Ages transitioning to the Renaissance and the modern era. The term "late Middle Ages" refers to one of
36848-441: Was no complete separation between Italian and Latin, even into the beginning of the Renaissance . Petrarch for example saw Latin as a literary version of the spoken language. Medieval Latin is the written Latin in use during that portion of the post-classical period when no corresponding Latin vernacular existed, that is from around 700 to 1500 AD. The spoken language had developed into the various Romance languages; however, in
37044-441: Was of relatively low prestige and nothing is known of how Pilate obtained the office. Josephus states that Pilate governed for ten years ( Antiquities of the Jews 18.4.2), and these are traditionally dated from 26 to 36/37, making him one of the two longest-serving governors of the province. As Tiberius had retired to the island of Capri in 26, scholars such as E. Stauffer have argued that Pilate may have actually been appointed by
37240-452: Was probably the English Order of the Garter , founded by Edward III in 1348. The French crown's increasing dominance over the Papacy culminated in the transference of the Holy See to Avignon in 1309. When the Pope returned to Rome in 1377, this led to the election of different popes in Avignon and Rome, resulting in the Western Schism (1378–1417). The Schism divided Europe along political lines; while France, her ally Scotland, and
37436-485: Was recalled to Rome due to the disgrace he was in. Eusebius dates this to 39. Paul Maier notes that no other surviving records corroborate Pilate's suicide, which is meant to document God's wrath for Pilate's role in the crucifixion, and that Eusebius explicitly states that "tradition" is his source, "indicating that he had trouble documenting Pilate's presumed suicide". Daniel Schwartz, however, argues that Eusebius's claims "should not lightly be dismissed." More information on
37632-443: Was reclaimed by France. At the same time, the County of Burgundy and the wealthy Burgundian Netherlands came into the Holy Roman Empire under Habsburg control, setting up conflict for centuries to come. Bohemia prospered in the 14th century, and the Golden Bull of 1356 made the king of Bohemia first among the imperial electors , but the Hussite revolution threw the country into crisis. The Holy Roman Empire passed to
37828-523: Was sent back to Rome by the legate of Syria to answer for this incident before Tiberius, but the emperor died before Pilate arrived in Rome. Nothing is known about what happened to him after this event. On the basis of events which were documented by the second-century pagan philosopher Celsus and the Christian apologist Origen , most modern historians believe that Pilate simply retired after his dismissal. Modern historians have differing assessments of Pilate as an effective ruler: while some believe that he
38024-431: Was shut down in June 2019), and Vatican Radio & Television, all of which broadcast news segments and other material in Latin. A variety of organisations, as well as informal Latin 'circuli' ('circles'), have been founded in more recent times to support the use of spoken Latin. Moreover, a number of university classics departments have begun incorporating communicative pedagogies in their Latin courses. These include
38220-426: Was the invention of printing, which facilitated the dissemination of the printed word and democratized learning. Those two things would later lead to the Reformation . Toward the end of the period, the Age of Discovery began. The expansion of the Ottoman Empire cut off trading possibilities with the East. Europeans were forced to seek new trading routes, leading to the Spanish expedition under Christopher Columbus to
38416-446: Was through the use of cannons as siege weapons that major change was brought about; the new methods would eventually change the architectural structure of fortifications . Changes also took place within the recruitment and composition of armies. The use of the national or feudal levy was gradually replaced by paid troops of domestic retinues or foreign mercenaries . The practice was associated with Edward III of England and
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