Delivered at Medieval Association of the Pacific, 4/89;
Ohio State University, 2/90; Texas Classical Association, 11/94;
Duke University, 3/95; Tulane University, 11/95

Using Medieval Latin: A Toolbox of Resources

by

Carol Dana Lanham

The origins of this talk go back to my own experience as a graduate student in Classics, and when giving it, I have won nods of recognition from others who suffered through similar perplexities. It aims to help graduate students in medieval studies and classics, and faculty members in any field who contemplate moving into a new area of research or teaching that requires working with medieval Latin texts.

Medieval studies is by definition interdisciplinary, but its several fields have one ingredient in common: the Latin language. This is true even for those who work chiefly with early vernacular texts. Few students, however, seem to be fully aware, when they decide to specialize in some area of medieval studies, that Latin will be at its very heart. Or that having studied classical Latin for a year or two—or even considerably longer—will not, by itself, have prepared them for the idiosyncrasies of postclassical Latin. Medieval Latin is not a debased or simpler version of classical Latin, but a special field in its own right. You can think of medieval Latin as comprising three broad linguistic streams, only one of which is classical, literary Latin; the other two are colloquial, spoken Latin (usually referred to as vulgar Latin, the language “of the people”) and Christian Latin.

This is why even a sound basic knowledge of classical Latin and its secondary literature is not adequate for serious work with later Latin texts. Students at every level who come to work with medieval Latin texts and documents are readily misled by their nonclassical features. They soon learn that there is no adequate dictionary of medieval Latin, and that no dictionary of classical Latin answers their needs. Nor do they know what other tools are available to help them interpret these postclassical texts correctly and sympathetically. Until recently, there have been very few good textbooks for studying medieval Latin, and very few classicists are specially trained to teach it. Even with the best quality of instruction, however, it seems to me that medievalists are less well provided for in Latin than in the vernacular languages, and they must expect to make their own way through the forest.

I don’t pretend to offer shortcuts for achieving linguistic mastery—as always, nothing can substitute for a program of broad and steady reading—but perhaps this “toolkit” can help along the way. It has two parts. First, I’ve assembled an annotated Bibliography of aids for working with medieval Latin; my comments on each item indicate why I think it is useful. Second, because just looking up the words is such an important and time-consuming part of studying medieval Latin, I’ve prepared an Exercise that tries to suggest how to use dictionaries efficiently and effectively.