| Late Latin | |
|---|---|
 Augustine of Hippo (354–430), Late Latin author | |
| Native to | (Western)Roman Empire,Ostrogothic Kingdom,Gallic Empire |
| Region | Mare Nostrum region |
| Era | 3rd–6th centuries; developed intoMedieval Latin |
Indo-European
| |
Early forms | |
| Latin | |
| Official status | |
Official language in | BothRomanEmpires (Later replaced withKoine Greek in the East) |
| Regulated by | Schools of grammar and rhetoric |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | late1252 |
 The Late-Latin speaking world, 271 CE | |
Late Latin is the scholarly name for the form of Literary[citation needed] Latin oflate antiquity.[1] Englishdictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the 3rd to 6th centuries CE,[2][3] and continuing into the 7th century in theIberian Peninsula.[1] This somewhat ambiguously defined version of Latin was used between theeras ofClassical Latin andMedieval Latin. Scholars do not agree exactly when Classical Latin should end or Medieval Latin should begin.[citation needed]
Being a written language, Late Latin is not the same asVulgar Latin, or more specifically, the spoken Latin of the post-Imperial period. The latter served as the ancestor of theRomance languages. Although Late Latin reflects an upsurge in the use of Vulgar Latin vocabulary and constructs, it remains largely classical in its overall features, depending on the author who uses it. Some Late Latin writings are more literary and classical, but others are more inclined to thevernacular. As such it is an important source of information about changes in the spoken language, while not being a simple replication of the state of the oral language at the time.[4] Also, Late Latin is not identical to Christianpatristic Latin, used in thetheological writings of the early Christian fathers. While Christian writings used a subset of Late Latin,pagans, such asAmmianus Marcellinus orMacrobius, also wrote extensively in Late Latin, especially in the early part of the period.
Late Latin formed when large numbers of non-Latin-speaking peoples on the borders of the empire were being subsumed and assimilated, and the rise of Christianity was introducing a heightened divisiveness in Roman society, creating a greater need for a standard language for communicating between different socioeconomicregisters and widely separated regions of the sprawling empire. A new and more universal speech evolved from the main elements: Classical Latin, Christian Latin, which featuredsermo humilis (ordinary speech) in which the people were to be addressed,[5] and all the various dialects ofVulgar Latin.[6]
The linguistAntoine Meillet wrote:
"Without the exterior appearance of the language being much modified, Latin became in the course of the imperial epoch a new language... Serving as some sort oflingua franca to a large empire, Latin tended to become simpler, to keep above all what it had of the ordinary."[7][8]
The origin of the term 'Late Latin' remains obscure. A notice inHarper's New Monthly Magazine of the publication of Andrews'Freund's Lexicon of the Latin Language in 1850 mentions that the dictionary divides Latin into ante-classic, quite classic, Ciceronian, Augustan, post-Augustan and post-classic or late Latin,[9][10] which indicates the term already was in professional use by English classicists in the early 19th century. Instances of English vernacular use of the term may also be found from the 18th century. The term Late Antiquity meaning post-classical and pre-medieval had currency in English well before then.
Wilhelm Siegmund Teuffel's first edition (1870) ofHistory of Roman Literature defined an early period, the Golden Age, the Silver Age and then goes on to define other ages first by dynasty and then by century (see underClassical Latin). In subsequent editions he subsumed all periods under three headings: the First Period (Old Latin), the Second Period (the Golden Age) and the Third Period, "the Imperial Age", subdivided into the Silver Age, the 2nd century, and the 3rd–6th centuries together, which was a recognition of Late Latin, as he sometimes refers to the writings of those times as "late". Imperial Latin went on into English literature; Fowler'sHistory of Roman Literature mentions it in 1903.[11]
The beginning and end of Imperial Latin are not well defined. Politically, the excluded Augustan Period is the paradigm of imperiality, but the style cannot be grouped with either the Silver Age or Late Latin. In 6th-century Italy, the Western Roman Empire no longer existed and the rule of Gothic kings prevailed. Subsequently, the term Imperial Latin was dropped by historians of Latin literature, although it may be seen in marginal works. The Silver Age was extended a century, and the four centuries following made use of Late Latin.
Low Latin is a vague and often pejorative term that might refer to any post-classical Latin from Late Latin through Renaissance Latin, depending on the author.[clarification needed] Its origins are obscure, but the Latin expressionmedia et infima Latinitas sprang into public notice in 1678 in the title of aGlossary (by today's standards a dictionary) byCharles du Fresne, sieur du Cange. The multivolume set had many editions and expansions by other authors subsequently. The title varies somewhat; the most commonly used wasGlossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis. It has been translated by expressions of widely different meanings. The uncertainty is understanding whatmedia, "middle", andinfima, "low", mean in this context.
The termmedia is securely connected toMedieval Latin by du Cange's terminology expounded in thePraefatio,[12] such asscriptores mediae aetatis, "writers of the middle age". Du Cange'sGlossary takes words from authors ranging from the Christian period (Late Latin) to theRenaissance, dipping into theclassical period if a word originated there. Eithermedia et infima Latinitas refers to one age, which must be the middle age covering the entire post-classical range, or it refers to two consecutive periods,infima Latinitas andmedia Latinitas. Both interpretations have their adherents.
In the former case, theinfimae appears extraneous; it recognizes thecorruptio of thecorrupta Latinitas which du Cange said hisGlossary covered.[13] The two-period case postulates a second unity of style,infima Latinitas, translated into English as "Low Latin" (which in the one-period case would be identical tomedia Latinitas). Du Cange in the glossarial part of hisGlossary identifies some words as being used bypurioris Latinitatis scriptores, such asCicero (of the Golden Age). He has already said in the Preface that he rejects the ages scheme used by some: Golden Age, Silver Age, Brass Age, Iron Age. A second category is theinferioris Latinitatis scriptores, such asApuleius (Silver Age). The third and main category is theinfimae Latinitatis scriptores, which must be post-classical; that is, Late Latin, unless they are also medieval. His failure to state which authors are low leaves the issue unresolved.
He does, however, give some idea of the source of hisinfima, which is a classical word, "lowest", of which the comparative degree isinferior, "lower". In the preface, he opposes the style of thescriptores aevi inferioris (Silver Age) to theelegantes sermones, "elegant speech", the high and low styles ofLatinitas defined by the classical authors. Du Cange was basing his low style onsermo humilis,[14] the simplified speech devised by Late Latin Christian writers to address ordinary people.Humilis (humble, humility) means "low", "of the ground". The Christian writers were not interested in the elegant speech of the best or classical Latin, which belonged to their aristocratic pagan opponents. Instead, they preferred a humbler style lower in correctness, so that they might better deliver the gospel to thevulgus or "common people".
Low Latin in this view is the Latin of the two periods in which it has the least degree of purity, or is most corrupt. By corrupt, du Cange only meant that the language had resorted to nonclassical vocabulary and constructs from various sources, but his choice of words was unfortunate. It allowed the "corruption" to extend to other aspects of society, providing fuel for the fires of religious (Catholic vs. Protestant) and class (conservative vs. revolutionary) conflict. Low Latin passed from the heirs of the Italian Renaissance to the new philologists of the northern and Germanic climes, where it became a different concept.
In Britain,Gildas' view that Britain fell to the Anglo-Saxons because it was morally slack was already well known to the scholarly world. The northern Protestants now worked a role reversal; if the language was "corrupt", it must be symptomatic of a corrupt society, which indubitably led to a "decline and fall", asEdward Gibbon put it, of imperial society. Writers taking this line relied heavily on the scandalous behavior of theJulio-Claudian dynasty and the bad emperors reported byTacitus and other writers and later by the secret history ofProcopius, who hated his royal employers to such a degree that he could not contain himself about their real methods and way of life any longer. They, however, spoke elegant Latin. The Protestants changed the scenario to fit their ideology that the church needed to be purified of corruption. For example,Baron Bielfeld, aPrussian officer and comparative Latinist, characterised the low in Low Latin, which he saw as medieval Latin, as follows:
The fourth age of the Latin tongue is that of the remainder of the middle age, and the 1st centuries of modern times, during which the language fell by degrees into so great a decadency, that it became nothing better than a barbarous jargon. It is the style of these times that is given the name ofLow Latin.... What indeed could be expected from this language, at a time when the barbarians had taken possession of Europe, but especially of Italy; when the empire of the east was governed by idiots; when there was a total corruption of morals; when the priests and monks were the only men of letters, and were at the same time the most ignorant and futile mortals in the world. Under these times of darkness, we must, therefore, rank that Latin, which is calledlingua ecclesiastica, and which we cannot read without disgust.[15]
As 'Low Latin' tends to be muddled withVulgar Latin, Late Latin, andMedieval Latin, and has unfortunate extensions of meaning into the sphere of socio-economics, it has gone out of use by the mainstream philologists of Latin literature. A few writers on the periphery still mention it, influenced by the dictionaries and classic writings of former times.
As Teuffel's scheme of the Golden Age and the Silver Age is the generally accepted one, the canonical list of authors should begin just after the end of the Silver Age, regardless of what 3rd-century event is cited as the beginning; otherwise there are gaps. Teuffel gave the end of the Silver Age as the death ofHadrian in 138 CE. His classification of styles left a century between that event and his final period, the 3rd–6th centuries CE, which was in other systems considered Late Antiquity.
Starting with Charles Thomas Crutwell'sA History of Roman Literature from the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius, which first came out in 1877, English literary historians have included the spare century in Silver Latin. Accordingly, the latter ends with the death of the last of thefive good emperors in 180 CE. Other authors use other events, such as the end of theNervan–Antonine dynasty in 192 CE or later events. A good round date of 200 CE gives a canonical list of nearly no overlap.
The transition between Late Latin and Medieval Latin is by no means as easy to assess. Taking thatmedia et infima Latinitas was one style, Mantello in a recent handbook asserts of "the Latin used in the middle ages" that it is "here interpreted broadly to include late antiquity and therefore to extend from c. AD 200 to 1500."[16] Although recognizing "late antiquity" he does not recognize Late Latin. It did not exist and Medieval Latin began directly from 200 CE. In this view, all differences fromClassical Latin are bundled as though they evolved through a single continuous style.
Of the two-style interpretations the Late Latin period ofErich Auerbach and others is one of the shortest: "In the first half of the 6th century, which witnessed the beginning and end ofOstrogoth rule inItaly, Latin literature becomes medieval. Boethius was the last 'ancient' author and the role of Rome as the center of the ancient world, ascommunis patria, was at an end."[17] In essence, the lingua franca of classical vestiges was doomed when Italy was overrun by the Goths, but its momentum carried it one lifetime further, ending with the death ofBoethius in 524 CE.
Not everyone agrees that thelingua franca came to an end with the fall of Rome, but argue that it continued and became the language of the reinstitutedCarolingian Empire (predecessor of theHoly Roman Empire) underCharlemagne. Toward the end of his reign, his administration conducted some language reforms. The first recognition that Late Latin could not be understood by the masses and therefore was not a lingua franca was the decrees of 813 CE bysynods atMainz,Rheims andTours that from then on preaching was to be done in a language more understandable to the people, which was started by Tours Canon 17 as Rustica Romana lingua, identified asRomance, the descendant ofVulgar Latin.[18] Late Latin as defined by Meillet was at an end; however, Pucci's Harrington'sMediaeval Latin sets the end of Late Latin whenRomance began to be written, "Latin retired to the cloister" and "Romanitas lived on only in the fiction of theHoly Roman Empire."[19] The final date given by those authors is 900 CE.
The combination of features specific toVulgar Latin andEcclesiastical Latin had the effect, then, of transforming the language by the fourth century into something of extraordinary vigor.
The third or Imperial Period lasts from 14 A.D. to the beginning of the Middle Ages.
