Spoken Latin in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance
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Spoken Latin in the Late
Middle Ages and Renaissance
by Jerome Moran
D id educated people in the late
Middle Ages and Renaissance use
Latin routinely (Medieval Latin and
texts). And the kind of Latin that is
spoken in the classroom, an attempt to
render a spoken form of Classical Latin,
and in what contexts would vary. There
were probably a good many churchmen
who could adequately follow a sermon or
Neo-Latin), rather than a regional however ‘correct’ it may be grammatically a speech delivered in Latin but who could not
vernacular, to conduct real-life conversations and phonologically (and the grammar and have carried on a conversation. In the
about ordinary, everyday matters? Were they phonology even of Classical Latin universities of the later Middle Ages it
taught how to do this in the schools of changed over time), is most unlikely to was naturally used in lectures and debates,
the day with the help of specimen written have been spoken routinely in the same but its use as the language for chatter between
dialogues (colloquia)? Did their teachers kind of informal situations by an students at mealtimes had to be artificially
use a Renaissance equivalent of the ‘direct educated (one who is adept in Classical maintained by rules. The value of speaking
method’, and did they teach Latin in the Latin) native speaker of Latin. In fact, the and understanding spoken Latin was
way that modern foreign languages are more ‘correct’ it is, the less likely it is to preserved, but as a learned tongue, most often
taught today? Or was spoken Latin, with a resemble authentic everyday spoken used for formal purposes and never with the
simulacrum of practical relevance to Latin, even of the educated elite that same colloquial fluency as the vernacular
everyday life, a way of ‘bringing the learned Classical Latin. This is even more languages.’ (Richard Sharpe, Medieval
subject to life’, an enjoyable diversion the case after Classical Latin came Latin: An Introduction and Bibliographical
from the standard pedagogical fare (the increasingly to be different from the Guide (1996), p. 315)
‘grammar grind’)? These are the questions contemporary Latin that anyone spoke, [The extract maintains that if spoken
that this article addresses. I argue that and had increasingly to be learned from Latin was used in the Middle Ages for
Latin was not generally used for everyday grammar books as if it were a second ‘casual conversation’ it was only by
conversations, and that students were not language. What Quintilian says of written educated people, and that it was beyond
taught how to conduct them outside the Latin may be said of educated spoken the capability of most of them. There is
classroom any more than they are today, Latin too: aliud est Latine, aliud grammatice no suggestion that spoken Latin was used
though spoken Latin was used as a scribere. routinely for the same purposes, and with
medium for teaching and learning Latin, I continue with some extracts (the the same competence, as the vernacular
as it is to some extent today. Since Latin italics are mine), to which I append my languages. My belief is that most people,
was not the first language of any native comments: even highly educated people, would not
speaker, and since it was learned as a ‘When, around AD 800, Medieval have conducted most conversations in
language primarily for reading and Latin came to be clearly differentiated by Latin.] 1
writing, comparisons with the teaching of speakers of Romance languages from the As for the scant use of spoken
modern foreign languages are specious. I Late Latin assemblage of various written Neo-Latin generally, and reasons for this,
also argue that spoken Latin today, as a and spoken forms, it ceased to be perceived as see the chapter on Neo-Latin by David
pedagogical tool, is best kept out of the a language spoken for everyday purposes. Spoken Butterfield in the Blackwell-Wiley A
classroom and used, if it must be used, as Latin was hereafter used only by the most Companion to the Latin Language (2011).
a hobby or a pastime. It has limited educated classes, even though it might still be used (See also what he has to say about the
usefulness as a means of learning Latin to by them in casual conversation. It was still ‘Direct Method’ of teaching Latin.)
a meaningful level (a level at which the spoken by such men until the end of the ‘Latin has come to epitomise a
learner can engage with original Latin Middle Ages and after, though how often language of hard work, analysis, and logic.
The Journal of Classics Teaching 20 (40) p.20-24 © The Classical Association 2019. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of
the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and
20from https://www.cambridge.org/core.
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23 May cited. subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms
2021 at 16:19:53,
. https://doi.org/10.1017/S205863101900028XThe humanists, by contrast, did of ‘real Romans’, even elite Romans, scintilla of intrinsic interest is more
everything they could to make Latin a including Cicero himself. As I say later, demanding than written prose
living language learned primarily by Classical Latin was a form of the language composition. And the less spontaneous it
hearing and speaking, like any other mother that was developed and elaborated (as is the more stilted and artificial it becomes
tongue. In their emphasis on using the opposed to evolved, as spoken languages — hardly ‘conversational’ Latin.
language in life situations, the humanists do) essentially for writing literature and Before the end of the first
came remarkably close to the practices certain types of subliterary documents. millennium Latin had been spoken by
used to teach foreign languages in the Except for certain formal occasions, the everyone for whom it was a first or a
twentieth century: to the extent possible, Latin that was spoken was not Classical second language. Most of these people
learning a foreign language should Latin, nor any later derivative of it, were illiterate or had basic literacy only. A
replicate the way children learn their including Neo-Latin.] minority was literate, of whom an
mother tongue in the first place.’ (Jürgen We must distinguish between (a) indeterminate proportion was highly
Leonhardt, Latin: Story of a World Language literary sketches in Latin of characters literate and wrote the literature that we
(2013), p. 224 engaged in conversations about everyday read today. We do not know how the
[Note ‘any other’, implying that Latin matters; (b) students reading such Latin actually spoken by these different
was a mother tongue, not just like one. sketches as a novel aid to learning Latin; groups of Latin-speakers differed, but we
Latin was no longer a ‘mother tongue’ in (c) students engaging in conversational know that the written Latin of the (barely)
the age of the humanists, nor had it been Latin as a (more enjoyable?) aid to literate differed from that of the highly
for centuries. And when it was a mother learning Latin; (d) students simulating literate. We assume that the spoken Latin
tongue it was not the Latin of the real-life conversations in Latin as an aid to of the highly literate differed to some
humanists nor the Latin that their conducting such conversations outside extent from that of the literate and the
Neo-Latin was based on, i.e. written the schoolroom; (e) educated people in illiterate. To what extent we don’t know,
Classical Latin. It is safe to say that no general (the conversations are in Latin, but we assume, arguing sociolinguistically
child acquired this form of Latin from its now a learned language) holding actual by analogy with other language
mother, literally or metaphorically.] real-life conversations in Latin about communities for which we have actual
‘Collections of dialogues, which, for everyday matters; (f) educated people evidence, that there was constant
students, served as models of conversational holding conversations in Latin about interaction between the spoken Latin of
Latin, were among the more interesting weightier matters; (g) people in general, all these groups. Things were to change by
innovations of Renaissance pedagogy. including educated people, holding the end of the first millennium, for the
The best known of such works was conversations in a vernacular about vast majority of Latin speakers would no
Erasmus’s Colloquia Familiaria …’ everyday matters; (h) the use of spoken longer speak Latin at all, leaving only
(Leonhardt, p. 219) 2 Latin as a medium of instruction by those who were able to keep Latin alive,
‘…one has to admire Erasmus’s way teachers (especially Jesuits) in the teaching or at least in use, by learning it as a second
with words. However, one question of Latin (the Renaissance equivalent of language. What sort of Latin did these
remains: for what actual conversational the ‘direct method’). people speak, and for what purposes?
encounter was it preparing students?’ It is easy to get one’s wires crossed! Bear in mind that Latin was no longer a
(Leonhardt, p. 219) There is no doubt that (a) existed, and we first language, and that whatever kind of
[The same question could be asked know of other writers of such sketches Latin they spoke must have been a form
of all the dialogues, not just of the apart from Erasmus. We also know that of the Latin they learned as a second
present one between the two female (f) existed, both regionally and language, with no input from, or
characters, Xanthippe and Eulalia. I don’t supraregionally. It is probable that (b) interaction with, any other kind of Latin
think Erasmus envisaged students, existed, and we know that pupils of speakers.
especially schoolchildren, conversing Erasmus himself were the intended When Latin ceased to be a first
outside the classroom like the characters readership of the earliest dialogues. It is language with native speakers it continued
in his dialogues] likely that (c) existed, and we know that to be learned as a second language, as
‘In short, Latin was taught as if it (h) existed. I find it very difficult to accept Medieval Latin and later from about 1300
were a completely normal language and that (d) and (e) existed. If I am right about as Neo-Latin. Both were based on and
students were preparing to meet real (e), then (g) existed, for educated people derivative of written Classical Latin,
Romans (of course, only Classical Romans as well as uneducated. The only scenarios Neo-Latin more so than Medieval Latin.
from Cicero’s times …)’ (Leonhardt, p. 223) that resemble the modern practices of Throughout this period Latin was also
[Note ‘as if ’: it wasn’t actually a teaching Latin through the medium of spoken as well as written. But the Latin
‘completely normal language’, meaning spoken Latin are (c) and (h), to which I that was spoken was no longer the first
presumably a first language used mainly return later. I suggest above that (c) may language of anyone, but a form of the
for speaking. The reason is precisely that have been a more enjoyable way of written language that was learned as a
the language and style of Neo-Latin (the learning Latin, but that is not the universal second language. For centuries Latin had
language that was taught by the experience of present-day students, who been the only language used (apart from
humanists) was (ultimately) from Cicero’s also find conversational Latin just as hard, Greek and a few minority languages that
times. And Ciceronian Latin, even the if not harder, than more traditional survived) in most parts of the empire and
Latin of Cicero’s letters, was hardly the methods. After all, composing correct former empire. But by the end of the first
language of actual everyday conversations Latin orally and spontaneously that has a millennium other languages had emerged
Spokenon
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to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms
. https://doi.org/10.1017/S205863101900028Xin these areas, especially the Romance educated people whatever their vernacular when speaking with friends and wives
vernaculars, acquired as first languages, might be. If you wanted to command a (and with slaves, note), and that this
spoken at first and later both spoken and wide audience for your work, it was language is different in its nature from
written, and eventually with literatures of essential to write in Latin. And the texts that of an eloquent man, i.e. a highly
their own alongside Latin literature. The that were studied were studied as much educated person like himself: quae sit
people who learned Latin as a second for their usefulness as models of cotidiano sermoni simillima, quo cum amicis,
language — a minority of the population, composition as for their literary value. coniugibus, liberis, servis loquamur … nam mihi
of course — now had an acquired first The focus of learning Latin was therefore aliam quandam videtur habere naturam sermo
language as well, and were effectively on the ability to read and to write it, not to vulgaris, aliam viri eloquentis oratio. (And
bilingual, if not wholly so (not all would speak it, certainly not to speak it in Tacitus (Dialogus 32.3 — a work probably
have been equally competent in both). situations where the vernacular would published within a few years of
One might suppose that, given a choice, have been a more appropriate medium of Quintilian’s), has Messalla saying of
the language of choice for ordinary, communication. The need to converse cotidianus sermo that it contains foeda ac
everyday conversation would be the first with one’s peers supraregionally, therefore pudenda vitia.) In the late Middle Ages and
language vernacular, not a learned lingua in Latin, was not widespread if it is true Renaissance, educated people, i.e. people
franca learned principally for the purposes that most people, even highly educated who had learned Latin, presumably
of reading and writing works of literature, ones, did not tend to travel frequently or carried out conversations with
scholarship, science, law and extensively outside their own language uneducated people in the vernacular —
administration. As such a lingua franca, area. Erasmus was the/an exception in the everyday language of the ordinary
there would have been occasions when this respect. people. I find it bizarre to suppose that
the spoken form was useful, even So what was the spoken Latin of the they would have carried out the same
necessary, though few practitioners of Middle Ages and Renaissance used for? kinds of conversation in (learned) Latin
this spoken lingua franca were as Was it really used routinely as an with other educated people. Obviously,
competent as Erasmus, or as much- alternative to a vernacular for everyday conversations about weightier matters
travelled in lands with different conversations, a kind of secondary first would have been carried out in the lingua
vernaculars where a common language language, as some people seem to think? franca of Latin, regionally where the
was an asset.3 But this is a far cry from And was spoken Latin used in schools as a vernacular was deficient, ultraregionally
using such a language as a means of means of teaching Latin, which had to be where the vernaculars were different as
everyday spoken communication in one’s learned as a second language of course? well as deficient.
own country, for which the regional (See the extracts at the beginning of this Writings such as the Colloquia
vernacular would have been adequate for piece.) If so, was it used only to enable Familiaria of Erasmus are literary sketches
all but recherché conversations. children to acquire basic literacy in Latin, written in Neo-Latin, not in some
The educated people of the Middle perhaps in a more attractive and agreeable non-existent ‘colloquial’ Latin that might
Ages and Renaissance learned Latin for way than the conventional grammar have been learned orally by a Renaissance
the same reason that we do, to read what grind? We must remember though that schoolboy and used as a model for
had been written in Latin from about 200 Latin, however learned and for whatever real-life conversations. I doubt whether
BCE onwards, insofar as texts were purpose, was a second language, even anybody had real-life conversations like
available for them to read (most texts of (eventually) for Italians. those of the characters in Erasmus’s
the better known writers from classical Was the learned Medieval Latin and dialogues. The only way in which the
antiquity, and many of the lesser known Neo-Latin (the only forms of Latin now sketches differed from other, more
writers, were available after about 1500). available: the Latin of the ordinary people conventional writings in Neo-Latin was in
But, unlike us, they also learned Latin in no longer existed) used for everyday novelty of subject matter and
order to write it, especially to write works conversation any more than Classical accompanying vocabulary, and of course
of literature (as well as many other genres Latin had been? On the whole, we do not the grace and playful humour of Erasmus.
of writing, formal and less formal). If we know on what sort of occasions and in The fact that the dialogues show ordinary
want to write a novel or a collection of what contexts the spoken form of characters having conversations about
poems, we write it in our given language, Classical Latin was used in the Classical this, that, and the other in polished
not in Latin; and if our given language is a period; nor in what way and to what Neo-Latin does not mean that they are
world language, we can be assured of a extent it differed from the written form snapshots of real conversations between
large audience capable of reading it. The with which we are familiar; nor how it real people. They are no more real in this
given language of educated people in the differed from the spoken Latin of the respect than the plays of Aristophanes or
pre-modern era was not Latin but a mass of the people, most of whom did Plautus or the sketches of Lucian.
regional vernacular. Apart from the fact not have access to written Classical Latin. Reading or reciting the dialogues might
that Latin was a ready-made language for It is questionable though whether the have been one way (perhaps a more
writing literature, the only one available at Classical Latin that we are familiar with agreeable way) that helped students to
a time when the vernaculars were not was used much in everyday conversations, learn Neo-Latin; it would not have helped
sufficiently developed to encompass all even among the educated elite. them to hold real conversations, the vast
the genres of Latin, Latin, if not a world ‘’Quintilian at least (12.10.40-43) remarks majority of which, if I am right, were not
language, was a supraregional one, the that people like him tend to use the held in Latin at all, anyway, but in the
only language that was understood by everyday language of the ordinary people regional vernacular. The reason they were
22 Spoken
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to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms
. https://doi.org/10.1017/S205863101900028Xwritten in Latin and not a (surely more languages to life. They convey the Latin spontaneously and fluently. Why would
lifelike) vernacular that more closely misleading impression of presenting you use such a language when you had a much
mirrored real conversations is that, like learners with re-creations of authentic more convenient alternative (the vernacular),
unless it was expected of you for some reason,
Erasmus’s other writings, they were aimed spoken exchanges, based as they are on
or as a status marker perhaps, or unless you
at a supraregional audience (an educated Classical Latin and on the assumption that had to because only Latin was capable of
one, of course) for which only Latin was everyday conversations were carried out expressing what you wanted to say or could be
available. In fact, beneath a thin veneer of in the kind of elite written Latin with understood by someone with a different
realism they are as artificial as can be, not which we are familiar. One is put in mind vernacular? To use such a language routinely
least because they are written in Latin, by of slaves and other lower-class characters about mundane matters with another educated
then a wholly artificial language, a ‘cultural speaking flawless Classical Latin in the person who shared your vernacular seems to
me to be unspeakably arch.
artefact’ (Clackson). Cambridge Latin Course, a course that
How exactly were these dialogues of prides itself on putting its users in touch We do not know how easy or difficult it was
Erasmus used in a classroom? Were they with the historical and cultural reality of for first language speakers of Latin to speak
read aloud by pairs of students? Were the ancient Roman world. Classical Latin in the Classical period on those
they memorised and acted out as playlets? The written representations of occasions when it was considered appropriate.
They could not be classed as exercises in spoken Latin and Greek in the mouths of Perhaps the quote from Quintilian earlier
‘conversational Latin’ if that entails literary characters should not, in the absence suggests that it was not easy even for him and
his friends, which is one reason why they used
spontaneous oral composition. Were they of independent evidence, be taken as
a form of the language that was more of a
used rather as models for conversational necessarily representative of the actual spoken register than a written one (context
Latin exercises? Or were they written language used by real people in real-life and content, not befitting the use of formal
simply as a language learning aid, to be situations. Literary language did not on Latin, may have been another reason).
read privately like other texts? Erasmus, the whole conform to ordinary spoken 2Presumably, these dialogues of Erasmus (50
like other Humanists, had reservations language, even of the elite. This is as true
in all, written 1490-1533) were not used for
about traditional pedagogy and favoured of a Renaissance humanist as of a Greek any purpose in Catholic schools (therefore in
innovative methods (spoken and or Latin writer in antiquity. Jesuit schools, where more innovatory
conversational Latin) and materials (texts teaching methods and materials were to be
that depicted vignettes of contemporary Jerome Moran is a retired teacher found), after the Catholic Church had placed
life) that he thought would encourage the of Classics and Philosophy then on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (first
more active involvement of learners and version 1599). It became officially safe for
jeromemoran@hotmail.com Catholics to read them in 1966, when the Index
enliven the learning of Latin. This was
was abolished. Thank god — or the Pope in
surely what motivated his Colloquia, But it this case — for the 60s.
had all to do with learning Latin more
enjoyably and effectively, not with These polished Renaissance colloquia may be
1Second language speakers of modern foreign
preparing students to carry on everyday descendants of the much simpler (more
languages can become (almost) as competent colloquial) colloquia of antiquity beloved of
conversations outside the classroom in in the language as native speakers. Why was it Eleanor Dickey. Like the later colloquia, they
Neo-Latin. Erasmus was surely aware that more difficult for second language speakers of were designed for second language learners of
this did not happen in real life. Latin in the second millennium? It was not as Latin, but at a time when there were still first
Renaissance ‘conversational Latin’ difficult for second language speakers in the language speakers of Latin, though not
school exercises (as opposed to the first millennium. The reason lies in the generally in areas where there were many first
dialogues of Erasmus) would no more in different forms of Latin that first and second language Latin speakers. They were to be found
themselves have equipped learners to read millennium second language speakers learned. in parts of the empire where Greek continued
The target language in the first millennium was to be the first language, so that Latin had to be
authors such as Persius or Manilius than a contemporary form of spoken Latin. The target learned as a second language. The standard of
do their modern counterparts today; at language in the second millennium was Classical Latin would have been learned more
least it has not been demonstrated that essentially an archaic form of Latin (except for formally in a school, probably in an urban
they did. Nor would they have helped vocabulary) that had been developed in order location. The Latin of the colloquia was not
them to write sophisticated Latin, as they to be written, not spoken; and people do not Classical Latin, but the lower register of more
needed to do (unlike today). The tend to speak as they write (though the conversational non-standard Latin. This meant
‘immersive experience’ or the converse is not true.) People today who learn that they had the advantage of a practical
English as a second or foreign language do not application in ordinary life, unlike the dialogues
‘communicative’ approach — call it what learn to speak the language of a Henry James of Erasmus or conversational Latin school
you will — does not get one very far novel. What is considered permissible in exercises modelled on them. The colloquia
towards reading or writing grammatically speech is often disapproved of in writing, and would be for older people, mainly those
and stylistically complex Latin. And if it is not possible to take the same care over needing access to occupations for which Latin
such teaching and learning methods are correctness in its various forms when speaking was a requirement or an advantage, and held
not able to do this, of what practical use informally as when writing. But Classical Latin more informally in more out of the way
are they? We do not learn this difficult was the model of correct Latin, and not just in locations. (In some ways the ‘hedge schools’ of
the Classical period but for every era after the 18th and 19th century Ireland, as featured in
language, in strictly curtailed time Classical period. It (or derivatives of it) was the Brian Friel’s play Translations, come to mind.)
allocations, in order to engage in artificial only form of Latin, written or spoken,
and banal pleasantries. They are throughout the second millennium. So people (On Eleanor Dickey’s works on the ancient
essentially meretricious diversions that could write flawless Latin and yet stumble over colloquia and the learning of Latin as a second
purport to bring these (allegedly) dead speaking grammatically correct and idiomatic language generally in antiquity, see Chapter 3
Spokenon
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. https://doi.org/10.1017/S205863101900028Xof Learning Latin and Greek from Antiquity to the lingua franca in the west as Latin did and as increasingly antiquated language in spite of its
Present (CUP, 2015) and her books Learning Greek did in the eastern half and beyond. The massively expanding vocabulary, a language
Latin the Ancient Way (CUP) and Learn Latin number of educated people in the west who totally unsuited to everyday conversation. The
from the Romans (CUP (2018).) were in any degree trilingual (a vernacular, versatility of a language capable of expressing
Latin and Greek) was smaller than those who just about anything that could be conceived of
3The revival of Greek learning in the western had been bilingual (Latin and Greek (both (unlike the vernaculars) was a function of
half of the former Roman empire began some koinē and Classical)) in the days of the Empire. written Latin, and only of spoken Latin by
time before 1453; but Greek never became a The only lingua franca in the west was Latin, an highly educated people in certain situations.
24 Spoken
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