That the quantity of Latin syllables is neglected, or rather lost, in modern pronunciation, seems to be generally admitted. Whether, indeed, the ancient Romans, in their ordinary speaking, distinguished the measure of syllables with such uniform musical accuracy as we imagine, giving a certain time to those termed long, and exactly half that duration to the short, might very reasonably be questioned; though this was probably done, or attempted to be done, by every reader of poetry. Certainly, however, the laws of quantity were forgotten, and an accentual pronunciation came to predominate, before Latin had ceased to be a living language. A Christian writer named Commodianus, who lived before the end of the third century according to some, or, as others think, in the reign of Constantine, has left us a philological curiosity, in a series of attacks on the pagan superstitions, composed in what are meant to be verses, regulated by accent instead of quantity, exactly as we read Virgil at present.[n]
It is not improbable that Commodianus may have written in Africa, the province in which more than any the purity of Latin was debased. At the end of the fourth century St. Augustin assailed his old enemies, the Donatists, with nearly the same arms that Commodianus had wielded against heathenism. But as the refined and various music of hexameters was unlikely to be relished by the vulgar, he prudently adopted a different measure.[o] All the nations of Europe seem to love the trochaic verse; it was frequent on the Greek and Roman stage; it is more common than any other in the popular poetry of modern languages. This proceeds from its simplicity, its liveliness, and its ready accommodation to dancing and music. In St. Austin's poem he united to a trochaic measure the novel attraction of rhyme.
As Africa must have lost all regard to the rules of measure in the fourth century, so it appears that Gaul was not more correct in the next two ages. A poem addressed by Auspicius bishop of Toul to count Arbogastes, of earlier date probably than the invasion of Clovis, is written with no regard to quantity.[p] The bishop by whom this was composed is mentioned by his contemporaries as a man of learning. Probably he did not choose to perplex the barbarian to whom he was writing (for Arbogastes is plainly a barbarous name) by legitimate Roman metre. In the next century Gregory of Tours informs us that Chilperic attempted to write Latin verses; but the lines could not be reconciled to any division of feet; his ignorance having confounded long and short syllables together.[q] Now Chilperic must have learned to speak Latin like other kings of the Franks, and was a smatterer in several kinds of literature. If Chilperic therefore was not master of these distinctions, we may conclude that the bishops and other Romans with whom he conversed did not observe them; and that his blunders in versification arose from ignorance of rules, which, however fit to be preserved in poetry, were entirely obsolete in the living Latin of his age. Indeed the frequency of false quantities in the poets even of the fifth, but much more of the sixth century, is palpable. Fortunatus is quite full of them. This seems a decisive proof that the ancient pronunciation was lost. Avitus tells us that few preserved the proper measure of syllables in singing. Yet he was bishop of Vienne, where a purer pronunciation might be expected than in the remoter parts of Gaul.[r]
Change of Latin into Romance.
Defective, however, as it had become in respect of pronunciation, Latin was still spoken in France during the sixth and seventh centuries. We have compositions of that time, intended for the people, in grammatical language. A song is still extant in rhyme and loose accentual measure, written upon a victory of Clotaire II. over the Saxons in 622, and obviously intended for circulation among the people.[] Fortunatus says, in his Life of St. Aubin of Angers, that he should take care not to use any expression unintelligible to the people.[t] Baudemind, in the middle of the seventh century, declares, in his Life of St. Amand, that he writes in a rustic and vulgar style, that the reader may be excited to imitation.[] Not that these legends were actually perused by the populace, for the very art of reading was confined to a few. But they were read publicly in the churches, and probably with a pronunciation accommodated to the corruptions of ordinary language. Still the Latin syntax must have been tolerably understood; and we may therefore say that Latin had not ceased to be a living language, in Gaul at least, before the latter part of the seventh century. Faults indeed against the rules of grammar, as well as unusual idioms, perpetually occur in the best writers of the Merovingian period, such as Gregory of Tours; while charters drawn up by less expert scholars deviate much further from purity.[x]
The corrupt provincial idiom became gradually more and more dissimilar to grammatical Latin; and the lingua Romana rustica, as the vulgar patois (to borrow a word that I cannot well translate) had been called, acquired a distinct character as a new language in the eighth century.[y] Latin orthography, which had been hitherto pretty well maintained in books, though not always in charters, gave way to a new spelling, conformably to the current pronunciation. Thus we find lui, for illius, in the Formularies of Marculfus; and Tu lo juva in a liturgy of Charlemagne's age, for Tu illum juva. When this barrier was once broken down, such a deluge of innovation poured in that all the characteristics of Latin were effaced in writing as well as speaking, and the existence of a new language became undeniable. In a council held at Tours in 813 the bishops are ordered to have certain homilies of the fathers translated into the rustic Roman, as well as the German tongue.[z] After this it is unnecessary to multiply proofs of the change which Latin had undergone.
Its corruption in Italy.
In Italy the progressive corruptions of the Latin language were analogous to those which occurred in France, though we do not find in writings any unequivocal specimens of a new formation at so early a period. But the old inscriptions, even of the fourth and fifth centuries, are full of solecisms and corrupt orthography. In legal instruments under the Lombard kings the Latin inflections are indeed used, but with so little regard to propriety that it is obvious the writers had not the slightest tincture of grammatical knowledge. This observation extends to a very large proportion of such documents down to the twelfth century, and is as applicable to France and Spain as it is to Italy. In these charters the peculiar characteristics of Italian orthography and grammar frequently appear. Thus we find, in the eighth century, diveatis for debeatis, da for de in the ablative, avendi for habendi, dava for dabat, cedo a deo, and ad ecclesia, among many similar corruptions.[a] Latin was so changed, it is said by a writer of Charlemagne's age, that scarcely any part of it was popularly known. Italy indeed had suffered more than France itself by invasion, and was reduced to a lower state of barbarism, though probably, from the greater distinctness of pronunciation habitual to the Italians, they lost less of their original language than the French. I do not find, however, in the writers who have treated this subject, any express evidence of a vulgar language distinct from Latin earlier than the close of the tenth century, when it is said in the epitaph of Pope Gregory V., who died in 999, that he instructed the people in three dialects—the Frankish or German, the vulgar, and the Latin.[]
Ignorance consequent on the disuse of Latin.
When Latin had thus ceased to be a living language, the whole treasury of knowledge was locked up from the eyes of the people. The few who might have imbibed a taste for literature, if books had been accessible to them, were reduced to abandon pursuits that could only be cultivated through a kind of education not easily within their reach. Schools, confined to cathedrals and monasteries, and exclusively designed for the purposes of religion, afforded no encouragement or opportunities to the laity.[c] The worst effect was, that, as the newly-formed languages were hardly made use of in writing, Latin being still preserved in all legal instruments and public correspondence, the very use of letters, as well as of books, was forgotten. For many centuries, to sum up the account of ignorance in a word, it was rare for a layman, of whatever rank, to know how to sign his name.[d] Their charters, till the use of seals became general, were subscribed with the mark of the cross. Still more extraordinary it was to find one who had any tincture of learning. Even admitting every indistinct commendation of a monkish biographer (with whom a knowledge of church-music would pass for literature[e]), we could make out a very short list of scholars. None certainly were more distinguished as such than Charlemagne and Alfred. But the former, unless we reject a very plain testimony, was incapable of writing;[f] and Alfred found difficulty in making a translation from the pastoral instruction of St. Gregory, on account of his imperfect knowledge of Latin.[g]