Latin was the language of writing and civilization in large parts of medieval Europe and effectively a second language that had to be learnt. But how, in fact, was Latin learnt in the Middle Ages? I will take the language of medieval texts for the first time as the starting point for answering this fundamental question of historiography. I will investigate corpus-linguistically how writers of history, hagiography, and notarial documents in Italy and Francia of the 8th to early 12th c. used ancient Latin forms and constructions that were absent from their Romance vernacular. The analysis of these individual usages in the light of what is known of medieval grammars, schools, didactics, and imitation of ancient literature will reveal mechanisms through which the writers had acquired their Latin literacies. By examining the variation of those mechanisms over time, place, and writers' professional status, I will be able to present a synthesis of how Latin was learnt in the Middle Ages.

2022

2027