Reading Medieval Latin

Reading Medieval Latin is an introduction to medieval Latin in its cultural and historical context and is designed to serve the needs of students who have completed the learning of basic classical Latin morphology and syntax. (Users of Reading Latin will find that it follows on after the end of section 5 of that course.) It is an anthology, organised chronologically and thematically in four parts. Each part is divided into chapters with introductory material, texts, and commentaries which give help with syntax, sentence-structure, and background. There are brief sections on medieval orthography and grammar, together with a vocabulary which includes words (or meanings) not found in standard classical dictionaries. The texts chosen cover areas of interest to students of medieval history, philosophy, theology, and literature.

• Written by one of the authors of Reading Latin, who understands needs of those having to learn Latin quickly • Teachers may choose passages on themes they want from anywhere in the book since the linguistic level of the commentaries is constant • Contains historical writing not usually excerpted for anthologies and includes material by female writers of Medieval Latin

Introduction; Part I. The Foundations of Christian Latin: 1. Education; 2. Liturgy and divine office; 3. The Bible; 4. The Church fathers; 5. The new Christian genres; Part II. Early Medieval Latin: 6. Hiberno-Latin; 7. Anglo-Latin; 8. Continental Latin; 9. The Carolingian Renaissance; 10. The Ottonian Renaissance; Part III. From the End of the Ottonian Renaissance (1002) to the Concordat of Worms (1122): 11. The Norman conquests; 12. The ‘Investiture Contest’; 13. The First Crusade; 14. Philosophy and theology; 15. Poetry; Part IV. The Twelfth-Century Renaissance: 16. The schools and the scholastic method; 17. The religious life; 18. Theology and philosophy; 19. Historical writing; 20. Court literature; Grammar; Orthography; Note on vocabulary; Vocabulary.