The Medieval Latin Program
From late antiquity to the early-modern era, Latin was the common language of western Europe. Latin supplied the idioms of commercial contracts and rarified philosophical commentaries, of classroom instruction and the law courts, of the liturgy and public administration, of student songs and saints’ lives. The ability to read Latin with ease is therefore an essential tool for any student of the Middle Ages.
Since the Centre’s inception, Latin has been at the heart of its teaching programme and the research agendas of many CMS faculty. In 1969, the Centre created the Medieval Latin Studies Committee with a mandate to foster proficiency in Medieval Latin among all Centre students, many of whom have made Latin editing and the interpretation of Medieval Latin texts the focus of their scholarship, and more generally to promote the advanced study of Medieval Latin. At the same time, the Centre operates in an everchanging educational landscape, and since the 2000s its interdisciplinary programs have gone beyond the limits of western Latinity. In 2021-24 the Medieval Latin Studies Committee performed an extensive review and comprehensive reform of the program. This work aimed to identify the best ways in which the Centre could maintain the same high standards within the current context of graduate education, enable young medievalists, some of whom will evolve into Latinists but all of whom will be fully equipped to handle aspects their own research that require the use of Latin, promote an inclusive and accessible learning experience, and offer greater transparency on how proficiency is evaluated.
The Centre is dedicated to pursuing its traditional mandate with reformed methods and a renovated commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility, in order to nurture excellence and reduce factors of undue stress in all aspect of the Latin Program.