Medieval Diglossia and Modern Academic Discourse

Abstract

During the Middle Ages scholars shifted from using only Latin in academic writing to incorporating the vernacular, English. As Latin helped shape vernacular writing, so did the vernacular shape Latin. And though influenced by Latin academic writing, the vernacular created a new discourse, neither entirely Latin nor English, but informed by both. This article explores the lessons that we, as contemporary scholars, can learn from the past about incorporating home languages in academic discourse.

Notes

¹I gratefully acknowledge the helpful feedback from RR peer reviewers Peter Elbow and James Murphy. I am also indebted to Nicholas Watson for his assistance.

²Clerk: Then those who don't understand Latin should ask and be informed and taught by those who understand Latin. Lord: You speak amazingly, for the unlearned man does not know what he should ask, especially concerning knowledge of compositions that never came to mind—nor does he usually know whom to ask. (Translation my own, with assistance from editorial notes.)

³In this essay I focus primarily on the vernacular and its incipient scholarly tradition. For an examination of the ways in which scholarly writing in Latin was shaped by the emerging English tradition, see Jan Ziolkowski's “Cultural Diglossia and the Nature of Medieval Latin Literature” in The Ballad and Oral Literature (Joseph Harris, ed.).

⁴Some scholars link sapientia more generally with wisdom and scientia with knowledge. However, The Dictionary of the History of Ideas explains that “the idea of wisdom (sapientia) of the fool always stands in contrast to the knowledge of the learned. For more on the idea of the medieval split between scientia and sapientia see James Simpson's “From Reason to Affective Knowledge: Modes of Thought and Poetic Form in Piers Plowman.” According to Nicholas Watson, sapientia was also, interestingly enough, associated with “the body, the emotions, women, and Christ's human nature” (339). In several texts in the Middle Ages, the figure of Female Wisdom was known as “Sapientia.” For more on the idea of “sapiential theology” and this idea of Female Wisdom, see Liz Herbert McAvoy's Authority and the Female Body in the Writings of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe and Barbara Newman's God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages.

⁵Due to limitations of time and space, I will focus on the efforts to include everyday language and personal experience into academic discourse (historical and contemporary), rather than the incorporation of “creative” genres into academic scholarship.

⁶Though I concentrate on the vernacular tradition in Middle English, French and Italian share a complex relationship with Latin during the Middle Ages. Armando Petrucci's Writers and Readers in Medieval Italy: Studies in the History of Written Culture provides fascinating insight into the Italian tradition. For more information on French literature of the time (and its relationship to English), see William Calin's The French Tradition and the Literature of Medieval England.

⁷According to R. Allen Shoaf, editor of The Testament of Love, Usk was “largely self-taught” and of “modest” origins. Usk became embroiled in political scandal and was executed in 1388.

⁸Though Trevisa's political affiliations are not known, this text suggests sympathy for the Lollard movement that advocated for, among other things, English translations of the Bible. A future research endeavor might be an examination of medieval heresy and Lollardy as a method of critiquing existent Latin clerical traditions.

⁹There exist two versions of Julian's Revelations, the long and short versions. It is believed that the shorter version was written shortly after the visions, with the expanded version written some fifteen years after the fact. The two versions demonstrate a rare opportunity to witness the revisions of a pre-modern author. My citations refer to the Long version of the text. The Middle English text is from A Book of Showings to the Anchoress Julian of Norwich. Edmund Colledge and James Walsh. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1978. The Standard English translations are from Julian of Norwich: Revelations of Divine Love. Trans. Clifton Walters. Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1982.