DE. TH. NEUMANN. 137 



clared it the official religion of the empire, it soon con- 

 quered all the other nations, even those who had not 

 accepted the Latin language in exchange for their own. 

 Especially in the West and the North of their vast terri- 

 tory Christianity made rapid progress, in many cases 

 reversing the order of adoption, for the Latin language 

 was not always the means of carrying Christianity ; on 

 the contrary the latter helped to spread the Latin 

 language, so that toward the fifth or sixth century it 

 was just as much a universal language as the Greek had 

 been before. This importance increased until the tenth 

 century ; wherever Roman Christianity penetrated it 

 brought with it the Latin language, the authority of the 

 Bishop of Rome (the Pope), the church fathers, and 

 above all the Latin Bible, the Vulgate. We know that 

 in the eleventh century in Ireland and in Greenland even 

 Mass was read in Latin, just as well as in Italy, or 

 France, or Germany. The expansion, however, of the 

 language went further still. In consequence of the 

 close connection of clergy and throne the emperors and 

 kings used Latin in communicating with each other, and 

 since the times of Louis XI, of France, when regular 

 diplomatic intercourse was established between the dif- 

 ferent governments, Latin became the language of 

 diplomats all over the civilized world. 



The Latin language gained its greatest splendor in the 

 time of the Renascence, that revival of the classical anti- 

 quity in science and art since the fifteenth century. Just at 

 that time when the victory of the Roman or Justinian law 

 over the individual laws of the different nations was com- 

 pleted, the Corpus Tunis became the sole resource when- 

 ever questions and doubts concerning law had to be set- 

 tled. It was the "written reason," and has been considered 

 as such up to date in nearly all civilized countries. 

 The Renascence added its influence to this. It stirred up 

 the whole intellectual world of Europe in another direc- 



93 



