Daniel van der Moezel

Medieval Latin from 500 to 1500

In 789 AD, Charlemagne laid down the law with his Admonitio generalis, forcing monks to use Carolingian minuscule to make writing easier to read. Jack and Olivia track how the old Roman word for war, bellum, was given the flick for the Germanic werra, while Thomas Aquinas cooked up new terms like quidditas to handle Greek logic. This shift from the stiff Classical style turned Latin into a fair dinkum living language used for everything from high-stakes theology to the Archpoet’s rowdy pub anthems. The hardening of the 'V' sound and the use of unus as a starting word for nouns shows just how much the language evolved before it reached the modern era.