Anglo-Latin literature consists of works originally written in Latin and produced in England or other English-speaking parts of Britain and Ireland. It was written in Medieval Latin, which differs from the earlier Classical Latin and Late Latin.

Authors and style

Chroniclers such as Bede (672/3–735), with his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, and Gildas (c. 500–570), with his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, were figures in the development of indigenous Latin literature, mostly ecclesiastical, in the centuries following the withdrawal of the Roman Empire around the year 410.

The Vita Sancti Cuthberti (c.699–705) is the first piece of Northumbrian Latin writing and the earliest piece of English Latin hagiography. The Historia Brittonum composed in the 9th century is traditionally ascribed to Nennius. It is the earliest source which presents King Arthur as a historical figure, and is the source of several stories which were repeated and amplified by later authors.

In the 10th century the hermeneutic style became dominant, but post-Norman Conquest writers such as William of Malmesbury condemned it as barbarous.

See also

Early medieval

Anglo-Norman era

Plantagenet era

Modern literature

See also

Further reading

  • Carlson, David (2011). "Anglo-Latin literature in the later Middle Ages". In Andrew Galloway (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp.195–216. doi:. ISBN9780511975646.
  • Echard, Siân; Gernot R. Wieland, eds. (2001). Anglo-Latin and its heritage: essays in honour of A.G. Rigg on his 64th birthday. Publications of the Journal of Medieval Latin 4. Vol.4. Turnhout: Brepols. doi:. ISBN2503508383.
  • Lapidge, Michael (1993). . London: Hambledon Press. ISBN1852850124.
  • Lapidge, Michael (1996). . London: Hambledon Press. ISBN1852850116.
  • Rigg, A.G. (1992). A History of Anglo-Latin Literature, 1066–1422. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN0521415942.
  • Rigg, A.G. (1996). "Anglo-Latin". In Timothy J. McGee (ed.). Singing Early Music: The Pronunciation of European Languages in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp.46–61. ISBN0253210267.
  • Sharpe, Richard (1997). A handlist of the Latin writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540. Publications of the Journal of Medieval Latin. Turnhout: Brepols. ISBN2503505759. Reprinted with a in 2001.
  • Stephenson, Rebecca; Thornbury, Victoria, eds. (2016). Latinity and Identity in Anglo-Saxon Literature. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press. ISBN9781442637580.
  • White, Carolinne (2002). "Medieval senses of classical words". Peritia. 16: 131–143. doi:.