Lectiones 10

Jan Rüdiger, Did Charlemagne know Carolingian kingship theory? (2011). 40 SEK.

The language of the medieval West was Latin. Or was it? In few other cultures, the language of the written word is so far removed from oral everyday use – not least that of the lay secular élites. And the gap is not only one of linguistic register. Political language in the Middle Ages as used by kings, counts, ladies, and armed roughnecks must have been quite different from the Latinate clercal ‘sound’ of most of our sources. What was it like? How can we know? This book suggests a few paths of enquiry.