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Latin language in Byzantium. 7-th-10-th centuries - eugene - 11-15-2010
Was Latin language taught and known in Byzantium in the 7-th-10-th century?
Re: Latin language in Byzantium. 7-th-10-th centuries - Jona Lendering - 11-15-2010
Quote:Was Latin language taught and known in Byzantium in the 7-th-10-th century?No, to the best of my knowledge. The filioque debate would not have happened if they knew some Latin.
Re: Latin language in Byzantium. 7-th-10-th centuries - Robert Vermaat - 11-15-2010
Wouldn't there have been official documents in Latin? Legal texts etcetera?
Re: Latin language in Byzantium. 7-th-10-th centuries - MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS - 11-15-2010
It is an interesting viewpoint Jona put forward. The Filioque debate was held in Greek, but survived in the Latin form of the word Filioque...
And the son.... It is one of the biggest clashpoints in ancient Christian history i think. The division between Arrianism and Orthodoxy.
The main language of the Eastern Roman Empire was Greek, but what about Visigothic and all those other languages ? have any dictionaries ever been found ?
M.VIB.M.
Re: Latin language in Byzantium. 7-th-10-th centuries - eugene - 11-16-2010
Official documents were written in Latin in the 5-th-6-th centuries. But I am speaking about 7-th-10-th centuries.
About filioque debates - it is a well known fact that the poor knowledge of Latin by the Byzantinians and poor knowledge of Greek by Latins caused mutual misunderstanding of terminology and contributed greatly to this conflict.
Re: Latin language in Byzantium. 7-th-10-th centuries - Epictetus - 11-16-2010
Quote:In the East knowledge of Latin was required for legal studies and service in some branches of the central administration down to the second half of the sixth century. The most authoritative handbook of Latin grammar, Priscian’s Institutiones, was composed at Constantinople. So were the Theodosian and Justinianic Codes.
Mango, The Oxford History of Byzantium
There were some Latin speakers still later, evidently. The same book mentions that a treatise on the astrolabe was translated from Latin in Constantinople around 1309 but states Latin texts are very rare.
So I guess the answer is that yes, there were some Latin speakers in Byzantium from the 7th to 10th centuries, but there were not many.
Re: Latin language in Byzantium. 7-th-10-th centuries - Theodosius the Great - 11-20-2010
Yes, the need to maintain contact between the Papacy and the Eastern Church made the continued use of Latin a necessity.
But the more obvious answer is : Of course Latin was still known because Constantinople still ruled in Italy until the Norman invasions of the 11th century.
Again, I recommend this recent book :Byzantine Rome and the Greek Popes : Eastern Influences on Rome and the Papacy from Gregory the Great to Zacharias, A.D. 590-752
~Theo