The Language of Western Christendom

With insights from Dr. Geoffrey Hull on the “easy, accessible Latin” of the Middle Ages

JACK CADE
Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm
in erecting a grammar school.… It will be proved
to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually
talk of a noun and a verb and such abominable
words as no Christian ear can endure to hear….

LORD SAYE
You men of Kent—

DICK THE BUTCHER
What say you of Kent?

LORD SAYE
Nothing but this: ’tis bona terra, mala gens.

JACK CADE
Away with him, away with him! He speaks Latin.

Only Shakespeare could so deftly integrate a mock condemnation of both grammar and Latin into a play about England’s late-medieval power struggles. This interchange is from Act 4, scene 7 of 2 Henry VI, when Jack Cade the mischief-maker is in London leading a short-lived popular uprising. His remark about “noun” and “verb” being “such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure” is, as far as my sense of humor is concerned, comedic gold. Furthermore, Cade’s brash disdain for grammar and Latin is glowing with irony, since these were the subjects that formed the core of Shakespeare’s own education and prepared him to become the most famous dramatist, and one of the greatest poets, in history.

How exactly Shakespeare looked back on his grammar-school labors is hard to say. My guess is that he recognized their immense value in transforming his mind but also had a misgiving or two about the astonishing rigor of the curriculum:

Boy pupils, aged from about eight to fifteen, endured an arduous routine. Classes began early in the morning: at six, normally; hours were long, holidays infrequent. Education was centred on Latin; in the upper forms, the speaking of English was forbidden….

From grammar the boys progressed to studying works of classical and neo-classical literature. They might read anthologies of Latin sayings and Aesop’s Fables, followed by the fairly easy [I would not describe them as “fairly easy”!] plays of Terence and Plautus…. They might even act scenes from Latin plays. As they progressed, they would improve their command of language by translating from Latin into English and back…. Putting their training into practice, they would compose formal epistles, orations, and declamations.¹

Oh, how times have changed. The mind simply halts in utter confusion when comparing a modern public school to Shakespeare’s grammar school. Imagine trying to force twenty-first-century students—ages eight through fifteen!—to complete an education like that. Indeed, how many college students could survive it? As the author of the above passage, Dr. Stanley Wells, points out, “a boy educated at an Elizabethan grammar school would be more thoroughly trained in classical rhetoric and Roman (if not Greek) literature than most present-day holders of a university degree in classics.”

I have to be honest: what Shakespeare did in grammar school is way beyond my level of interest in Latin. I have zero desire to read Terence or Plautus in the original language and would fall asleep long before completing a Latin declamation. I guess I’m just not that sort of “intellectual.” I grew up in southern California, near the beach, where my homework assignments competed with the prime importance of getting in a good surf session before sunset, and I’ve never really lost that tendency to have fun—singing, dancing, making haystacks, what have you—when I probably should be reading the classics. When it comes to the sacred liturgy, however, I’m in a very different frame of mind. For me, the traditional Mass is Latin at its best, and understanding liturgical texts directly instead of through translations is a powerful source of interior delight and spiritual richness in my life.

I don’t know if this makes me some sort of barbarian, but I’ll take the Vulgate Gospels and a chanted Latin introit over Horace’s Odes on any day of the week, and in any week of my life. Fortunately—and this point is not sufficiently emphasized in the Catholic world—learning enough Latin to understand and enjoy certain portions of the Mass (and the divine office) is easier than completing a typical sequence of Latin courses, and far easier than gaining the proficiency needed to read classical literature.

Gregorian chant, a life-changing liturgical experience in itself, is inseparable from the Latin language. The monks of Solesmes, in the introduction to the Liber Usualis, said it well: “We must never lose sight of the fact that Plainsong is vocal Latin music, for this is the key to the understanding of its rhythmic and melodic structure. It has been grafted on, and has sprung out of, the natural rhythm and melody of the Latin words, phrases, sections, and periods for which it has been written.”