186 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [YoL. II. 



with pronouns — il for ille ; jo, jeu, eo. eu, for ego ; mi for mihi. For 

 examples : — 



Molt fort blasmava Boecis ses amigs, 



(Boecis blamed his friends most strongly.) 



De sapientia appellaven doctor. 



(They called him a master of wisdom.) 



Las mieuas fedes auzon la mieua votz. 

 (My sheep hear my voice.) 



Now Charlemagne's empire extended over France, adjacent parts of 

 Spain and Italy, Holland and Belgium, and no inconsiderable part of 

 Germany. His court was mainly held at Aix-la-Chapelle, in Rhenish 

 Prussia. So lost in his dominions was the Latin of the classics that he 

 had to bring from Rome persons who could teach the Latin grammar ! 

 We have however an account of a Spaniard who, having contracted a 

 serious illness by bathing in the Ebro, went on a pilgrimage to various 

 churches in France, Italy and Germany. At Fulda, in Hesse, he was 

 cured and the priest conversed with him without difficulty, " Quoniam 

 linguae ejus, eo quod Itahis esset, notitiam habebat." Still even at that 

 time a differentiation had set in. We may take the Romance language 

 of the epoch as that to which French, Spanish, Italian, etc., owe their 

 being, but Eginhard, Charlemagne's secretary, chancellor and biographer, 

 excuses his poor Latin ity, as being " little versed in either Romance or 

 Lai in"; his idiom being Frankish (francisque, francique, theotisque), 

 that of Aix and vicinage. Romance was so firmly established that 

 Charlemagne had edicts published and church services conducted i)i 

 lingua rustica Roniana, and after his death, when the empire was divided, 

 Lothair published the treaties m lingua thcodiscd, Charles the Bold and 

 Louis in lingua Romana. The oaths taken by the people were sworn 

 both in Frankish and Romance. Fauchet* says, " may we not conclude 

 that the language of these oaths, which Nithard calls Roman, is really 

 Latin, but quite like that which the Provencals, the Catalans or the peo- 

 ple of Languedoc use at this day ? " 



We soon get upon firmer ground, for we approach the golden age of 

 the new tongue, and the three extracts I will translate will complete 

 what I wish to say of its history : — 



I. Huot says : "The Romance language was called Provencal, not only because it 

 underwent fewer changes in Provence than in other districts of France, but also 



* Recuoeil de I'original de la langue et poesie Franjaise. 



