i. .\\arAGES. 351 



denco, and of expressing Limself in the language of Cicero with the eloquence 

 of a true Roman. Bishop Fortunatus addressed him some Latin verses com- 

 plimenting him on speaking Latin as if he had been a Roman born, instead 

 of being of Sicambric origin. The poet added, " What must be your 

 eloquence when you speak your mother tongue, you who are more eloquent 

 than we ourselves in ours ! " 



But, for all these fulsome eulogies, there was scarcely, perhaps, a single 

 person capable of writing and speaking classical Latin correctly in the Gallo- 

 Roman provinces of which the Franks were masters, though the Teutonic 

 language had been almost universally succeeded by the rustic or vulgar 

 tongue. 



Gregory of Tours, whose " History of the Franks " throws so much light 

 upon this remote epoch, confesses in one of his works (" De Gloria Confes- 

 sorum ") that he was almost completely ignorant of the rules of Latin, and 

 he admits to having frequently confused genders and cases, used the feminine 

 for the masculine or neuter, and the ablative for the accusative, and neglected 

 the rules as to prepositions. The text of his valuable chronicle, written 

 between the years 573 and 593, is, as a matter of fact, full of inaccuracies, 

 though the early copyists corrected some of the most glaring blunders out of 

 respect for the memory of the illustrious Bishop of Tours. 



From the time of Chilperic to that of Charlemagne the true Latin 

 language gradually degenerated amongst the Franks, notwithstanding the 

 praiseworthy efforts of the monks to preserve it, as if it were a sacred ark, 

 in their monasteries. Upon the other hand, the vulgar tongue, consisting of 

 mongrel Latin and Latinised Teutonic, continued to spread amongst the 

 population. Charlemagne, who spoke this language before he learned 

 grammatical Latin, was much vexed at this decadence. What pained him 

 the most was to find that bishops and other dignitaries of the Church were 

 incapable of reading the Bible in the Vulgate. He accordingly instituted the 

 Palatine School, under the direction of Alcuin, with the view of purifying 

 ecclesiastical Latin. His peers and his barons, his leudes and his military 

 officers, retained their Teutonic language, but his personal influence was none 

 the less favourable to the preservation of the Latin tongue, which became the 

 language of the Church, and which profited by the written works of sacred 

 literature. 



In addition to the literary Latin which was not used in conversation, but 



