THE RELATIONS OF LATIN 187 



doctrine formulated on the principles of Roman law and a church 

 organized on the lines of Roman administration. 



Is it not the history of architecture and of verse over again, even 

 though we are not able to point to any feature quite so definitely 

 Roman as the arch in architecture or the accentual principle in 

 verse? The products of Greater Greece and of Judaea were not merely 

 adopted and transmitted by Rome; she made them her own; and 

 sent them forth, stamped by her own genius, to shape the religious 

 sentiment of the modern world. It was not the intention of this 

 paper to vindicate the originality of the Romans, but it seems to 

 vindicate itself. 



Historians of Latin literature generally put up a notice-board at 

 the end of the fifth century to the effect that the " Dark Ages " have 

 commenced, or warning us that to the age of gold, silver, Third 

 and the baser metals has succeeded an age for which Period 

 no metal is base enough. But the reign of the Latin language was 

 far from coming to an end with Boethius. Nor can the attempt 

 to set up an entity called Modern History, as distinct from Ancient 

 History, be congratulated on its success. Historians are so little 

 agreed as to where it begins that their dates range from the first 

 inroad of the barbarians to the seventeenth or even the eighteenth 

 century. 



There was no real breach of continuity; and the Latin language 

 of the eight centuries that lie between Boethius and Roger Bacon, 

 whether it be called "Dog Latin" or "Lion Latin," remained a 

 language which was both living and national, the organ of that 

 greater Roman nation or Christian commonwealth which included 

 the Teutons and which about the middle of this period assumed 

 a new form in the Holy Roman Empire. The idea that nation- 

 ality depends on unity of race does not appeal to a Briton, and must 

 seem still more eccentric to an American. The proper name for 

 the Latin language from the sixth to the end of the thirteenth cen- 

 tury is not lingua Latina, but lingua Romana. In this capacity it 

 achieves an even greater universality than it enjoyed before. And 

 it is fully alive, though there spring up side by side with it a num- 

 ber of daughter languages which are completely developed before 

 the close of this period. Moreover, this Latin, if grammatically 

 decadent, is capable of serving its age well as an instrument of 

 thought. The rule of Augustine, "Melius est reprehendant nos 

 grammatici quam non intellegant populi," expresses the very sens- 

 ible point of view adopted by his successors in their handling of the 

 lingua Romana. 



During the first three centuries of this long period the work done 

 by Latin is necessarily limited; for all intellectual life had perished 

 except in favored places like Ireland, and among exceptional men 



