Medieval Latin refers to the literary and administrative Latin used in the Middle Ages. It exhibits much variation between individual authors, mainly due to poor communications in those times between different regions. The individuality is characterised by a different range of solecisms and by the borrowing of different words from Vulgar Latin or from the local vernacular. Some styles show features intermediate between Latin and Romance languages; others are closer to classical Latin. The stylistic variations came to an end with the rise of nations and new empires in the Renaissance period, and the authority of the first universities imposing a new style, Renaissance Latin.
Read more about this topic: History Of Latin
Famous quotes containing the words medieval and/or latin:
“The medieval university looked backwards; it professed to be a storehouse of old knowledge.... The modern university looks forward, and is a factory of new knowledge.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)
“I am not of the opinion generally entertained in this country [England], that man lives by Greek and Latin alone; that is, by knowing a great many words of two dead languages, which nobody living knows perfectly, and which are of no use in the common intercourse of life. Useful knowledge, in my opinion, consists of modern languages, history, and geography; some Latin may be thrown into the bargain, in compliance with custom, and for closet amusement.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)