[Readers of this article should be aware of the revisionist (in their time, certainly) and controversial views of Roger Wright (Reference Wright1982) about the relationship between Latin and Romance, the separation of Latin and Romance, and the dates he proposes for these and for the beginning of Medieval Latin as a newly constituted form of LatinFootnote ¹.]

Understandably, because of their importance for linguists, we hear a lot about the Strasbourg Oaths. We hear rather less about the pledges made at Strasbourg at the same time by the two armies, and even less about the two speeches made by the two kings, Louis and Charles. In fact, I doubt that most people who have heard of the Strasbourg Oaths are even aware of the Strasbourg speeches. They raise an interesting problem, which is the principal subject of this article. The most convenient way for teachers and students to access the text of the Strasbourg Oaths is to view the Wikipedia article on the ‘Oaths of Strasbourg’ at Oaths of Strasbourg - Wikipedia

(Wikipedia does have its uses, and I am not one of those who look down on it indiscriminately.) In fact, they need to have sight of the text of all the various pronouncements, and of the narrative in which they occur, if they are to follow the account of them that is given in this article. The Wikipedia article also gives the historical background and context of the meeting of the kings and their armies at which the pronouncements were made.

But what have the Strasbourg Oaths to do with students and teachers of Classics? If you were to ask this question of a teacher of Classics and a teacher of French (or of Medieval History, because of the content and context of the document), you might get the answer of ‘everything’ or ‘nothing’, depending on whether they regarded it as (possibly) the last extant document of a form of living Latin or the first extant document in French. There was a time when students of French (and of Medieval History), if not of Classics, were expected to be aware of this document and of its relationship to Latin (a time when students of French (and Medieval History) were expected to have a knowledge of Latin). For linguistic and historical reasons, it is important for us to have another look at the document and some of the issues it raises. Too much emphasis has been put on the oaths rather than on the (only) account that we have of the other pronouncements, especially the speeches, that were made at Strasbourg in 842. And if we are saying goodbye to living Latin, we and our students should be aware of when it died. Those of our students who are aware of the continuing existence of Latin after 842 in the form of Medieval and Neo-Latin are probably not aware of when it became a ‘dead’ language — if it ever did.

I was prompted to write this article on reading the brief account that James Clackson gives of the Strasbourg Oaths on p.268 and pp.300–301 of The Blackwell History Of The Latin Language (Clackson, Footnote ²). (I may say that I would not have written it at all if I had not been able to view a facsimile of the document itself, including the pledges and speeches.) The fact that more is not generally available to Classicists is probably because, as Clackson says, ‘full discussion of this text belongs in a history of French, rather than a history of Latin’. Perhaps so, but the earliest French, like other Romance languages, came mainly from the latest (living) Latin. Surely this is of importance to Classicists?

The author of the narrative that contains the Strasbourg Oaths (our only source) is Nithard, a 9^th century Frankish historian. He is said to have died in 844, so shortly after the event he narrates. The only manuscript that contains his narrative (apart from a 15^th century copy) dates to around 1000. (You can view images of parts of it in the Wikipedia article.) It is possible therefore that the manuscript does not accord, in language or content, with some of the details of what Nithard wrote.

I am assuming the following:

1. (a) The ‘natural’ language of Louis (‘The German’), or the part of the Frankish kingdom he ruled over (much of present Germany), is what is described in Nithard's account as teudisca lingua (TL), an early form of German. The ‘natural’ language of Charles (‘The Bald’), or of the part of the Frankish kingdom he ruled over (present France, more or less), is what is described as romana lingua (RL). (Their older brother Lothair controlled the central part of the Frankish kingdom.)

2. (b) Louis and Charles switched languages for their oaths but not for their speeches. The armies did not switch languages for their pledges eitherFootnote ².

3. (c) A distinction is being drawn between a form of Latin and a non-Latin vernacular, unless romana lingua should be regarded as a form of independent Romance, (proto-) French, not as a form of Latin — however it was regarded at the time. Teudisca lingua was certainly not a form of Latin or a Romance vernacularFootnote ³.

According to Nithard's account the proceedings went as follows:

(Note that ‘Ludher’ is Lothair (see above), not Louis (who is the speaker of the oath). The mistake appears to be Clackson's, since ‘Louis’ is one of the glossed words, not one of the words in Ewert's ‘translation’. Lothair is of course the subject of the complaint that accounts for most of the two speeches.)

To turn now to the actual account given by Nithard of the events at Strasbourg in 842. Clackson writes:

This is confused and confusing, as I shall show. According to Nithard's account, there were two speeches (by Louis and Charles), two oaths (again by Louis and Charles) and two pledges (by the army of Charles and the army of Louis), in the order I have given them above. The oaths and the pledges are given in what purport to be the original words, which is possible if Nithard was writing shortly after the event. But what of the speeches? Immediately before the speech of Louis begins we find in Nithard's account 'Ac sic ante sacramentum circumfusam plebem, alter teudisca, alter romana lingua, allocuti sunt ’. Immediately after the end of the speech of Louis we find ‘Cumque Karolus haec eadem verba romana lingua perorasset’. Does this not suggest that the speech of Louis was actually delivered in teudisca lingua and the speech of Charles in romana lingua? Only the speech of Louis is given by Nithard (the content of both speeches was more or less identical, hence ‘haec eadem verba’). The speech is presented by Nithard in what is undoubtedly Latin (whatever we make of Charles’ ‘romana lingua’, if it was anything like Louis' oath and the pledge of Charles's army). Clackson says that ‘he explicitly describes as lingua romana both the speech made by the brothers before their pledge and the short text of the oath sworn by the kings and their armies’. (This seems to confuse the pledges of the armies and the oaths of the kings.) But he (Nithard) appears to distinguish the languages of the speeches made by the brothers, as I have suggested. And the oaths and the pledges of the armies are also distinguished, only the oath of Louis and the pledge of the army of Charles being described as delivered in romana lingua. Where does the Latin of the speech of Louis come from? Are we supposed to think that the speeches of the brothers were given both in the Latin we are presented with and in teudisca lingua (by Louis) and romana lingua (by Charles)? So, in the ‘standard’ Latin of the day and the very much ‘non-standard’ Latin of romana lingua, if that is what it was (see notes 1, 2 and 5)? But is it possible that the Latin of the speech of Louis is in fact a ‘translation’ of the original words of the speech in teudisca lingua? The Latin of the speech is remarkably similar to the Latin of Nithard in the rest of his account. There is no indication that the speeches were made twice by both kings, once in formal Latin and then again in teudisca lingua and romana lingua. There were two speeches, as identical speeches (identical in content, that is) were given in both languages so that everyone present could understand them. The near-identical oaths and pledges would have to have been given by each side even if they had been given in the same language, precisely because they were oaths and pledges. However, one speech, given by either king, would have been sufficient had the two sides shared a common language.

I think the explanation for presenting the speech of Louis in formal Latin may be as follows (I am not aware that this explanation has already been given elsewhere — but then nobody was ever the first to say anything, as the unoriginal saying goes):

Nithard might have had access to written records of the oaths and pledges, but not of the speeches (there may not have been one, especially in German, even if everything had been scripted beforehand)Footnote ⁵. The speeches were for the historical record, whereas the oaths (and perhaps the pledges too) were paralegal documents. The Council of Tours a few years previously (813) had sanctioned the use of German (‘thiotisca’) and rustica romana lingua in churches, rather than Alcuin's reformed Latin, and these were the two languages of the oaths and pledges. And oaths and pledges had a religious dimension that an explanatory preamble did notFootnote ⁶.

As for Alcuin's reformed Latin, there is a further consideration, one that might explain why the speeches were not in fact delivered in (formal) Latin, as one might expect — or the oaths and pledges too, come to think of it. By 842 formal written Latin was coming to be pronounced in accordance with the recent (within the past 50 years) reforms of Alcuin, therefore (more) phonetically and ‘correctly’, as Classical Latin was thought to have been pronounced. In the so-called ‘Dark Age(s)’, if not earlier, before the time of Alcuin formal Latin had been pronounced (and written) ‘incorrectly’, in varying regional forms of incorrectness, but — and this is the point — in forms that were able to be understood in the different regions. Once Alcuin's reforms took hold, the uniform, reformed, ‘received’ Latin was not able to be understood in any region. Louis and Charles were the sons of Louis (‘The Pious’), more importantly grandsons of Charlemagne, who had authorised the reforms. They were applied initially to liturgical texts. Unless they were still confined to such texts in 842, Louis and Charles could have delivered their speeches in the new kind of Latin, as might have been expected on such an occasion. But most of the people gathered might not have been familiar with the new pronunciation at this time and therefore would not have been able to understand the speeches. As it was, because the same speech was given in the two different vernaculars, everyone could understand them. And, as mentioned above, this was exactly the proposed solution of the Council of Tours a few years earlier, when the new, reformed pronunciation was evidently causing problems of understanding for the congregations.

Whether we should regard the ordinary, informal spoken Latin of the Dark Ages and earlier as being forms of Romance, and Alcuin's reformed Latin as the true beginning of Medieval Latin, is another matter. Nearly 40 years ago the Latinist and Romance scholar Roger Wright in his controversial book Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France (Wright, Reference Wright1982) began to question the accepted relationship between Latin and RomanceFootnote ⁷.

He continued to do so, expanding and elaborating his theory in subsequent books and articles, notably in the book (a collection of his articles) A Sociophilological Study of Late Latin (Wright, Reference Wright2003). He argued that from about 400 until about 800 Latin and Romance were in fact the same thing, or forms of the same thing, that what we call Romance was originally the ordinary spoken form of ‘Late Latin’. Romance did not begin to be something separate from Latin until the pronunciation of written Latin was altered, and therefore the oral delivery of it to audiences unfamiliar with it, especially church congregations, as explained in the previous paragraph. According to Wright, this was a new form of Latin that was unintelligible to the people used to the older Latin. Romance eventually ceased to be perceived as (a form of) Latin (while Latin came to be regarded as no longer a spoken language for everyday purposes) and continued life separately from Latin as Romance, developing its own languages, eventually with its own written vernacularsFootnote ⁸. This new form of Latin was Medieval Latin, invented about 800 to represent the new pronunciation. Medieval Latin therefore was not an evolved form of (written) Latin that had existed continuously (and survived miraculously through the Dark Age) from about 500. Alcuin did not reform Classical or Late Latin so much as create a new form of Latin. This theory, or parts of it, has attracted many supporters, though the early dating of Romance and the late dating of Medieval Latin continue to trouble scholars. Also, we know very little about the written Latin that was produced (very little is extant) in the bridging centuries between late antiquity and the Carolingian Renaissance to make an informed comparison with it and what went before and what came after it.

Other questions occur to one about Wright's theory. What was the everyday spoken Latin of the ordinary person like before it came to be Late Latin/Romance c. 400? Was it more like the everyday spoken Latin of the educated elite who could read and write Classical Latin or a derivative of it? But before 400 standard written Latin had to be learned as if it were a second language, which suggests that contemporary spoken Latin (of the educated elite at least) was very different from educated written Latin at that date. What was so distinctive about the new form of ordinary, everyday spoken Latin that we should regard it as the same form of Latin that hundreds of years later eventually ceased to be Latin and became a collection of other languages? Not simply that it was spoken rather than written, obviously. Presumably because later Romance had many features that were outcomes of changes that occurred in Late Latin and not earlier. But early (early according to the traditional dating) Romance came from Latin generally, not just from everyday spoken Latin (‘Vulgar Latin’), as many people still suppose.

What happened to formal written Latin during the period from about 400 to 800? Very few existing literary texts were read or copied. Very few new texts were written. This was because there were few opportunities to learn formal written Latin (it was of course learned by native speakers of Latin as if it were a second language). There were probably many fewer grammar schools in the whole of continental Europe than there are in the UK today (about 160). Certain texts, especially texts that were needed, mainly liturgical texts, continued to be read aloud by those who could read to those who could not read. Few of the readers knew how the texts should be pronounced ‘correctly’, and the ‘correct’ pronunciation was so different from the contemporary pronunciation that audiences would not have understood it in any case. The texts were therefore read aloud in the contemporary regional pronunciations, heavily influenced by ordinary spoken Latin. As well as being pronounced incorrectly, any new written texts came increasingly to contain errors, i.e. non-Classical usages, of orthography, morphology and syntax. This was essentially the situation that confronted Alcuin. Alcuin's response was to reform or reconstitute Latin. The people's response (not a deliberate, concerted one, of course) was to abandon Latin in the form in which it had now become, with momentous consequences: the birth of a host of new languages and the death of Latin as the first language of native speakers — but thankfully not the death of Latin, the report of whose death has been greatly exaggerated. Latin from now on was learned by everyone as it is today — as a second language.

(‘Romance’ is of course the term conventionally used not for Latin at all but for those European languages that evolved from Latin — and much later than 400. The term ‘proto-Romance’ is, however, conventionally used for the hypothetical, reconstructed forms of the very late Latin that are thought to be the forms of Latin from which the earliest forms of Romance evolved — much later than 400. Nobody before Wright had supposed that Romance was a form of Latin, spoken as early as 400, or that Medieval Latin was an invented, as opposed to an evolved, form of Latin, as late as 800. The conventional view is that ordinary spoken Latin in and before 400 and until the emergence of Romance centuries later was ‘Vulgar Latin’, now more usually termed ‘vernacular’ or ‘non-standard’ Latin,)

However, as I understand it, applying Wright's theory to Nithard's account leads us to conclude that what we are presented with is written Medieval Latin, Romance French and Old German. This is in fact the received view of the languages of the document. And the theory does not in itself help us to understand (a) why the speeches are presented in formal (Medieval) Latin if they were delivered in French and German, and (b) why the speeches, oaths and pledges were not delivered in formal Latin in the first place. I would like to think that my analysis and interpretation of the document does provide answers to both of these questions.