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Latin and monopoly power

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Thursday, 26th October 2006

  Looking quite a long way forward to the time of Wycliffe, 800 years after the arrival of saint Augustine and his conscientious teaching of Latin,
  it beomes clearer what the purpose of doing that really was in terms of the building of a state or nation or postimperial empire!
  
  One of the most significant features of Law bequeathed from the Roman city state was Procedure.
  Even from the early days of rome they had rules of procedure which were passed on centuries later to
  monastic rules of procedure, which are known today from much earlier times than any other Law handed down.
  
  Was Latin the language not just of monopoly power, but also of money, of contract, of writ as well?
  I believe that it was, that the churchmen until the time of Wycliffe EXCLUDED the common man from his Latin tongue because it WAS the language of writ, contract and tort, whether they were agreements for marriage, land, chattels... all the things that are mentioned in the "Law" by Hywell Dda and the Law of Aethlred of Kent, and Alfred and Ine. The kings knew Latin and they knew it was precious, but they ALSO wished to exercice secular power quite apart from the power of the church.
  
  Of course even until recently the Roman catholic church tried to exclude most people from the meaning of their Latin prayers.... as if they had any ....any way!
  
  So looking forward to Wycliffe's English language bible we see the effect of the missionary work of the previous several hundred years!
  
  Sacrilege to let the common man in to the secrets
  of Writ,Contract, and power over for example the transfer of money, which later gave the Knights templar so much power!
  
  If you had Latin you were a saint.... if you had none, you were a sinner!
  
  And as an aside how are we with English in the wide, wide world of today with the Asian child's smattering of English getting him favours from English speaking soldiers abroad? The better the English the better the prize?
  

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by -Taliesin- (U6338455) on Friday, 27th October 2006

  Interesting point Sir Gar,
  
  Even now there is an elitism surrounding the learning of Latin.
  My mother quotes 'amo, amas, amat etc' and proudly claimed they conjugated verbs to within an inch of their lives at her 'rather select' school.
  
  I, on the other hand, had rather a different experience of Latin at my Comprehensive. The only Latin I picked up at school was 'Lux mentis, Lux Orbis'. This was by accident too and was quickly brushed off as pointless.
  
  Therefore, to a lot of my generation, to have learned Latin meant you attended a 'good' school, had money and mixed in the right circles.
  
  Not much has changed has it?
  
  

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