ULTiy 19 ULTXN
once a canonical and a polemical document. In it the CW/. Regia etmeUiomm, XXVII. col.. 32.120, 434; M arca. Con-
pope refuted in detaU the ,«j«,n8 alleged by the <»,^ ro^!t:;^::^i^'r^:^^x^2^h^!?'&.t^-M^^%\
dinals for their Pisa concuiabxdum. He declared that Alexander. Hi^. ecdea., VII (Venice. 1778), 299-302; 347-58;
his conduct before his elevation to the pontificate was Lessius, Discunaio decreti magni concUH Laieranen--ia (Mains.
a pledge of his.sincere desire.for the celebration of the l^^^\^No'^riV^^rw^i^.Z t^r.t^^o^::fJ,J^^.
council; that since his elevation he had always sought torico-theologica de concUUa Lateranensibw rei Christiana noxiia
opportunities for assembUng it; that for this reason (Jena. 1725); HEFELB,Con^ten(7«5cAic^^^ (Freiburj? im Br.,
hp hiiH Rniicrlif t-n iv-Psfjihlisli npjipp nmonir rhrlstinn 1886). 378, 438. 710, 872; Rivinoton. TAe Primitive Church
ne naa sougni to re-estamisn peace among cnrisimn ^^^ ,^ ^^^ ^^ p^^ (London. 1894); Pastor. iri/>tory of the
prmces; that the wars which had ansen agamst his Popes, tr. Antrobus, V (London, 1902), pa»«<im.
will had no other object than the re-establishment of H. Leclercq. pontifical authority m the States of the Church. Ho
then reproached the rebel cardinals with the irregular- Latin, Ecclesiastical. — In the present instance
ity of their conduct and the unseemliness of convoking these words are taken to mean the Latin we find in the
the Universal Church independently of its head. He oflScial text-books of the Church (the Bible and the
pointed out to them that the three months accorded Liturgy), as well as in the works of those Christian
oy them for the assembly of all bishops at Pisa was writers of the West who have undertaken to expound
too short, and that said city presented none of the or defend Christian beliefs.
advantages requisite for an assembly of such impor- Characteristics. — Ecclesiastical differs from classical tance. Finally, he declared that no one should attach Latin especially by the introduction of new idioms and any si^ificance to the act of the cardinals. The Bull new words. (In syntax and literary method, Christian was signed by twenty-one cardinals. The French writers are not different from other contemporary victory of Ravenna (11 April, 1512) hindered the writers.). These characteristic differences are due to opening of the council before 3 Ala^, on which day the the origin and purpose of ecclesiastical Latin. Origi- fathers met in the Lateran Basilica. There were nally the Roman people spoke the old tongue of Latium, present fifteen cardinals, the Latin Patriarchs of ]aiGwn aa priscaJatiniias, In the third century b. c, Alexandria and Antioch, ten archbishops, fifty-six Ennius and a few other writers trained in the school bishops, some abbots and generals of religious orders, of the Greeks undertook to enrich the language with the ambassadors of King Ferdinand, and those ot Greek embellishments. This attempt was encour- Venice and of Florence. Convoked by Julius II, the aged by the cultured classes in Rome, and it was to assembly survived him, was continued by Leo X, and these classes that henceforth the poets, orators, his- held its twelfth, and last, session on 16 ^arch, 1517. torians, and literary coteries of Rome addressed them- In the third session Matthew Lang, who had repre- selves. Under the combined influence of this political sented Maximilian at the Council of Tours, read an act and intellectual aristocracy was developed that classi* by which that emperor repudiated all that had been cal Latin which has been preserved for us in greatest done at Tours and at Pisa. In the fourth session the purity in the works of Csesar and of Cicero. The advocate of the council demanded the revocation of mass of the Roman populace in their native rugged- the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges. In the eighth ness remained aloof from this hellenizing influence, (17 December, 1513), an act of King Louis XII was and continued to speak the old tongue. Thus it came read, disavowing the Council of Pisa and adhering to to pass that after the third century b. c. there existed the Lateran Council. In the next session (5 March, side by side in Rome two languages, or rather two 1514) the French bishops made their submission, ana idioms: that of the literary circles or hellenists (sermo Leo X granted them absolution from the censures pro- urbanus) and that of the illiterate (sermo vulgaris); nounced against them by Julius II. In the tenth and the more highly the former developed the greater session (4 Mav, 1515) the pope published four decrees; grew the chasm between them. But in spite of all the the first of these sanctions the institution of monies effortsof the purists, the exigencies of daily life brought pielatis, or pawn shops, under strict ecclesiastical super- the writers oi the cultured mode into continual touch vision, for the purpose of aidiqg the necessitous poor with the uneducated populace, and constrained them on ihe most favourable terms; the second relates to to understand its speech and make it understand them ecclesiastical liberty and the episcopal dignity, and in turn; so that they were obliged in conversation to condemns certain abusive exemptions; the third for- employ words and expressions forming part of the bids, under pain of excommunication, the printing of vulgar tongue. Hence arose a third idiom, the sermo booKS without the permission of the ordinary of the coiidiantLs, a medley of the two others, varying in the diocese; the fourth orders a peremptory citation mixture of its ingredients with the various periods of a^inst the French in regard to the Pragmatic Sane- time and the intelligence of those who used it. tion. The latter was solemnly revoked and condemned. Origins. — Classical Latin did not long remain at the and the concordat with Francis I approved, in the high level to which Cicero had raised it. The aristoc- eleventh session (19 December, 1516). Finally, the racy, who alone spoke it, were decimated by proscrip- council promulgated a decree prescribing war against tion and civil war, and the families who rose in turn to the Turks and ordered the levying of tithes of all the social position were mainly of plebeian or forcism ex- benefices in Christendom for three years. traction, and in any case unaccustomed to the delicacy Otheb Lateran Councils.— Other councils were of the literary language. Thus the decadence of clas- held at the Lateran, among the best known being sical Latin began with the age of Augustus, and went those in 649 against the Monothelite heresy, in 823, on more rapidly as that age rcce<ied. As it forgot the 86 ^, 900, 1 102, 1 105, 1110, 1111, 1112, and 1 1 16. In classical distinction between the language of prose and 1725, Benedict XIII called to the Lateran the bishops that of poetry, literary Latin, spoken or written, began directly dependent on Rome as their metropolitan to borrow more and more freely from the popular see,!• o. archbishops without suffragans, bishops im- speech. Now it was at this very time that the Church znediately subject to the Holy See, and abbots exer- found herself called on to construct a Latin of her own; cising quasi-episcopal jurisdiction. Seven sessions and this in itself was one reason why her Latin should were held between 15 April and 29 May, and divers differ from the classical. There were two other rea- regulations were promulgated concerning the duties sons however: first of all the Gospel had to be spread of bishops and other pastors, concerning residence, by preaching, that is, by the spoken word; moreover ordinations, and the periods icfc the holding of synods, the heralds of the good tidings had to construct an The chief objects were the suppression of Jansenism idiom that would appeal, not alone to the hterary and the solemn confirmation of the Bull "Unigen- classes, but to the whole people. Seeing that they iios'*, which was declu^ a rule of faith demanding sought to win the masses to the Faith, they had to Mm fullest obedience. come down to their level and employ a speech that
