What is it about?
Latin was used extensively in Britain after the departure of the Roman legions down to the end of the house of Tudor on the English throne (and later). This introduction to a collection of essays on the use of Latin in medieval Britain sets the scene by looking at the broader linguistic context and considering in particular the relation of Latin to the other languages used in the British Isles in the period. The reasons for previous neglect of this area of research are also briefly considered.
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Why is it important?
Although everyday interactions in Britain throughout this period were overwhelmingly conducted in one of the various vernacular languages (English, French, Welsh, etc.), in the written medium Latin was the dominant language. The nature of this Latin, how it was influenced by and was an influence on the other languages of Britain, and the uses to which it was put have often been taken for granted, but in fact it is vital for anyone studying the medieval world to be aware of these issues.
Perspectives
The collection of chapters to which this is an introduction, and the introduction itself, stem from work on the ground-breaking Dictionary of Medieval Latin in British Sources, whose completion in print in December 2013 was celebrated by a conference at which versions of many of the chapters were presented as papers.
Richard Ashdowne
University of Oxford
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This page is a summary of: Introduction, September 2017, British Academy,
DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197266083.003.0001.
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