This book contains over fifty passages of Latin from 200 BC to AD 900, each with translation and linguistic commentary. It is not intended as an elementary reader (though suitable for university courses), but as an illustrative history of Latin covering more than a millennium, with almost every century represented. Conventional histories cite constructions out of context, whereas this work gives a sense of the period, genre, stylistic aims and idiosyncrasies of specific passages. 'Informal' texts, particularly if they portray talk, reflect linguistic variety and change better than texts adhering to classicising norms. Some of the texts are recent discoveries or little known. Writing tablets are well represented, as are literary and technical texts down to the early medieval period, when striking changes appear. The commentaries identify innovations, discontinuities and phenomena of long duration. Readers will learn much about the diversity and development of Latin.

This volume seeks to advance the study of ancient magic through separate discussions of ancient terms for ambiguous or illicit ritual, the ancient texts commonly designated magical, and contexts in which the term magic may be used descriptively.

This anthology presents in two volumes a series of Latin texts (with English translation) produced in Britain during the period AD 450-1500. Excerpts are taken from Bede and other historians, from the letters of women written from their monasteries, from famous documents such as Domesday Book and Magna Carta, and from accounts and legal documents, all revealing the lives of individuals at home and on their travels across Britain and beyond. It offers an insight into Latin writings on many subjects, showing the important role of Latin in the multilingual society of medieval Britain, in which Latin was the primary language of written communication and record and also developed, particularly after the Norman Conquest, through mutual influence with English and French. The thorough introductions to each volume provide a broad overview of the linguistic and cultural background, while the individual texts are placed in their social, historical and linguistic context.

This anthology presents in two volumes a series of Latin texts (with English translation) produced in Britain during the period AD 450–1500. Excerpts are taken from Bede and other historians, from the letters of women written from their monasteries, from famous documents such as Domesday Book and Magna Carta, and from accounts and legal documents, all revealing the lives of individuals at home and on their travels across Britain and beyond. It offers an insight into Latin writings on many subjects, showing the important role of Latin in the multilingual society of medieval Britain, in which Latin was the primary language of written communication and record and also developed, particularly after the Norman Conquest, through mutual influence with English and French. The thorough introductions to each volume provide a broad overview of the linguistic and cultural background, while the individual texts are placed in their social, historical and linguistic context.

The Cambridge Critical Guide to Latin Literature offers a critical overview of work on Latin literature. Where are we? How did we get here? Where to next? Fifteen commissioned chapters, along with an extensive introduction and Mary Beard's postscript, approach these questions from a range of angles. They aim not to codify the field, but to give snapshots of the discipline from different perspectives, and to offer provocations for future development. The Critical Guide aims to stimulate reflection on how we engage with Latin literature. Texts, tools and territories are the three areas of focus. The Guide situates the study of classical Latin literature within its global context from late antiquity to Neo-Latin, moving away from an exclusive focus on the pre-200 CE corpus. It recalibrates links with adjoining disciplines (history, philosophy, material culture, linguistics, political thought, Greek), and takes a fresh look at key tools (editing, reception, intertextuality, theory).

This volume provides a new critical text of the Prologue and the first two books of Venantius Fortunatus' Vita Sancti Martini, a work, written in the latter half of the sixth century, which paraphrases in epic verse the famous prose hagiography of St Martin by Sulpicius Severus. This edition offers the first English translation of and the first full commentary on that part of Venantius' poem. Venantius was one of the last writers in a recognisably classical Latin tradition and his Vita affords a fascinating insight into the language and literary culture of his time. It is, however, a deceptively allusive and difficult poem, and the introduction and commentary of this book deal extensively with matters of exegesis, textual criticism, language, metre and much else. It will be valuable for students of the literature and culture of late Latin antiquity, and for those interested in early Christianity and hagiography.

This book focuses on the continuity between the documented stages in the history of Latin and its development into Romance.