Walter Berschin, Einleitung in die Lateinische Philologie des Mittelalters

Appendix 1

Medieval Latin Studies Today: Status and Prospects

English and American students were among the first pupils of Ludwig Traube when he began to
teach Medieval Latin Philology at the University of Munich in 1889. But although Traubes
colleague Karl Krumbacher, the founder of Medieval Greek Philology or Byzantinology at the same
University was already publishing the journal Byzantinische Zeitschrift, it would take 56 years before
the first volume of a specifically medieval Latin periodical appeared: La Revue du Moyen Age Latin,
numro 1 a volume of 442 pages, published in Lyons in 1945 with 27 articles, all in French and a
Bulletin critique with 35 reviews of books written in French. Volume 2 and 3 appeared in 1946 and
1947 in Lyons and Strasburg, volume 4 in Paris/Strasburg/Lyons, vol.5 in Strasburg. From this
volume onwards an attentive reader could find out who the spiritus rector of this journal was, namely
Franois Chatillon, a priest from Lorraine and professor in Strasburg. He increasingly filled the pages
of this revue; in volume 45, 1989 for example the only author of the revue besides Franois Chatillon
is a Tho d'Angomont and I am not completely sure that this Tho d'Angomont was not really
Franois Chatillon hirnself. For I once wrote a letter to Tho d'Angomont and got the answer from
Franois Chatillon. When Chatillon died in 1994 the revue came to an end with vol.46. Meanwhile in
1964 Karl Langosch had founded the Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch; the Journal of Medieval Latin
followed in 1991 and Filologia Mediolatina in 1994.
56 years passed before Medieval Latinists got their first Medieval Latin journal and 99 years before
the first International Congress for Medieval Latin Studies could be organised. The Byzantinologists
had in the meantime held seventeen congresses. Of course there are reasons why Medieval Latin
Studies developed slowly. The main reason may be that Latin is not a language of conversation or
identification for any country in the world. It could have been the language fixing the identity of the
western intellectuals - and even conversation in Latin could have been possible - if our common
heritage were less neglected and our national differences less stressed. Medieval Latin Studies
developed slowly, but they did develop. We now have three journals which are dedicated entirely to
our studies, one of them is edited by Michael Herren, the organizer of the fifth International
Congress of Medieval Latin Studies. Following Heidelberg (1988) we have celebrated International

Erscheint in den Akten des VI. Internationalen Mittellateinkongresses (Toronto 2006).

Walter Berschin, Einleitung in die Lateinische Philologie des Mittelalters

Congresses in Florence (1993), Cambridge (1998), Santiago de Compostela (2002), and Toronto
(2006).
I began with France and I shall continue with France, since there is no country with more medieval
centres or a broader tradition of medieval Latin literature. But whoever studies
French culture and literature in modern France will - despite Franois Chatillon and the Revue du
Moyen Age Latin - hear little or nothing about Marbod of Rennes, Baudri of Bourgueil, Hildebert of
Lavardin, of Abaelard and the international character of the early University of Paris. Have a look at
the Collection littraire Lagarde et Michard: Everything before Franois I (1515-1547) seems to be
'prehistory' and so it is not surprising that Medieval Latin is rarely to be found in the programs of
French Universities. But there are some places where a Sminaire de latin mdival is offerred, for
example in Montpellier or at the University Paris I. In addition to the universities, there are in France
the Grandes Ecoles, where early in the 19th century there were people well informed about the Latin
Middle Ages. It is therefore logical that the first French chair of Medieval Latin has been established
at the Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes of Paris.
In Spain and Portugal the Middle Ages never disappeared completely from the memory of the
educated class. Who could forget San Isidoro and the first Siglo de oro of the Iberian Peninsula?
Seneca and Prudentius have always been considered there as auctores domestici; this is an advantage
for other Latin-writing authors from Spain - up until and including Raimundus Lullus and political
theorists like Bartolom de la Casas and Jun Gins de Sepulveda, who nowadays are intensely
studied and discussed. It is not difficult for a Spanish or a Portuguese Latinist to pass over from
Classical to medieval Latin studies. For he is not a 'Klassischer Philologe' as in Central Europe who
has to study and to teach Latin and Greek, but simply a Latinist.
Latin initially came to the American continent with the Spaniards. There was a constant murmur of
ecclesiastical Latin behind Spanish and Portuguese from 1492 to the 1960's. The missionaries
succeeded even in teaching the use of Latin. Diego Valads, native American of Indian descent on his
mother's side, became a renowned Latin author of the 16th century through his Catholicae assertiones1.
At the universities of Lima and of Mxico the missionaries even succeeded in bringing Indians to an
active use of the Latin language; they speak Latin as elegantly as did Cicero an advisor to the
Viceroy Jernimo Lpez once said: Hablan tan elegante el latn como Tulio2. In the 17th century

Diego Valads, Catholicae assertiones contra haereticos, edd.B. LFSTEDT/S. TALKOVIC, Lund 1998.

Walter Berschin, Einleitung in die Lateinische Philologie des Mittelalters

Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz ( 1695), the so-called tenth Muse of Mxico, gave the lie to the Spanish
proverb

La gallina que canta al matn

y mujer que sabe latn
nunca hacen buen fin.

After our first Congress of Medieval Latin Studies in Heidelberg our Spanish and Portuguese
colleagues established their own series of Ibero-Latin congresses; there was a Primero Congreso
Nacional de Latn Medieval in 1993 in Len; just appeared in Lisbon a 1005 pages-volume of Actas
del IV Congresso Internacional de latim Medieval Hispnico.
Many of us know the rich medieval latin 'landscape' of Italy with so many epicentres between Milan
- the only European city with two chairs of Medieval Latin - and Palermo. Nobody ignores the
Societ Internazionale per lo Studio del Medioevo in the Certosa of Galluzzo, which Claudio
Leonardi, the organizer of our second International Congress has created and where among many
other activites the extremely useful bibliography Medioevo latino is published year after year. Due to
the rise of Paleography in Italian universities the medieval latinist in Italy does not necessarily teach
paleography and codicology; Medieval Latin as conceived by Ludwig Traube has been split into two
branches in Italy: paleography and philology. And there are indeed many excellent paleographers and
many excellent philologists in Italy.
In Greece Medieval Latin seems most prominent in Thessaloniki; in Poland the university of
Pozan has opened Classical Philology to Medieval Latin. The most northern city of Europe where
our subject is taught is Bergen in Norway. Scandinavian Latinists in Copenhagen, Stockholm an
Upsala follow readily in the footsteps of Einar Lfstedt and specialize in the history of the Latin
language; Bengt Lfstedt of the United States was also one of these keen, sometimes pugnacious
Latinists.
Peter Dronke and Michael Lapidge have won a high reputation in England for our studies through
their publications and surely also by the third International Congress of Medieval Latin in
Cambridge in 1998 organized by Peter Droke. Originally from Vienna, Ludwig Bieler aroused much
2

A. ROSENBLAT, La hispanizacin de America. EI castellano e las lenguas indgenas desde 1492, Estudios sobre el espaol
de Amrica, Caracas 1990, p.87.

Walter Berschin, Einleitung in die Lateinische Philologie des Mittelalters

enthusiasm for Hiberno-Latin in Ireland. Celtic Studies now are flourishing there; let us hope that
Medieval Latin will become equally excellent. In the Netherlands, Groningen and Utrecht are now
very active in Medieval Latin; in Belgium it might be Ghent and Louvain-la-Neuve, whilst the old
Flemish university of Leuven is the leader in Neolatin not only in Belgium but in all of Europe north
of the Alps.
I do not dare to try to enlighten you on the situation of Medieval Latin Studies in America, which
most of you know certainly better than we Europeans. Suffice it to say, that we are very happy that
Toronto offers so many points of contact with Medieval Latinists and that we are grateful for the
organization of the Congress of 2006.
Finally some words about Germany, Austria and Switzerland. We had a boom of Medieval Latin
Studies in the 1960's; in the nineties our situation became difficult because of an undeniable decline
in Latin which began in the high schools and ended with a cutback in the number of Latin
professorships at the universities. But at the end of this overview I can pass on the good news caused
by the inexplicable fact, that since 2000, the number of high-school students learning Latin in Central
Europe has been increasing rapidly. Many of these students are beginning Latin at the age of eleven
years. At the moment more than 700.000 grammar school/high school students are learning Latin in
Germany, so that we can confidently say: Latin will not die out in the next generation. Let us hope
that this is equally true for Medieval Latin.
What can we do in order to guarantee the continuation of our studies? I will conclude with a
proposition. We are often confronted with the problem that there is no complete literary history of the
Latin Middle Ages. While the Byzantinologists have already mastered this task twice in works by Karl
Krumbacher on the one side and Hans-Georg Beck/Herbert Hunger on the other, our History of
Medieval Latin Literature by Max Manitius ends approximately 1140. Different candidates to replace
Manitius have proved to be ineffective. What we need is a fourth volume of Manitius comprising
roughly the years 1140-1220. No one of us can write this volume alone. There are too many authors
to be studied, too many manuscripts to be referred to, too many interpretations and opinions to be
examined. Perhaps one of the participants of this Congress could organize an international
collaboration with an end to compiling such a volume written by colleagues with specializations - in
English or French or German or Italian or Spanish - or Latin. This could be - I think - a small step for
the future of our studies. And if this small step were continued, it could prove a great leap for
Medieval Latin Studies in Europe, America and all over the world.