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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Why would anyone expect medieval pronunciation? "Exacting standards," I would assume was meant to refer to public speaking, liturgical standards--sometimes at Latin liturgies (and undoubtedly common in the Middle Ages as well) the priest mumbles or hurries or messes up the accents etc. Ratzinger (I cannot speak to the Greek) was readily understandable. To bring this back to medieval religion--we have been straying quite a bit--has anyone actually done a study of or know of studies of this question for the medieval world? I'm sure there are plenty of general comments about mumbling or hurrying etc., but it would be quite interesting to search for more telling comments, by fully Latinate medieval people (clerics, university students) about what they expected and what they got in terms of quality of declamation, projection, intelligibility etc. when Latin was spoken in the liturgy, in university lectures, disputations, in the public square/market etc. and then to compare that to how less-fully Latinate people perceived these same events (to the degree that they participated in them--obviously they would not have been at university lectures and disputations??? Dennis Martin >>> [log in to unmask] 4/11/2005 8:07 AM >>> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Marjorie Greene wrote: > > "In this regard, I was > very favorably impressed, in slightly different ways, with Cardinal > Ratzinger's pronunciation of Latin and with Patriarch Gregory's > pronunciation of Greek, obviously learned forms of each language as > well as learned languages for both men. What did others think of > these performances?" > > I agree. They both met my very exacting standards. Even the body > language was right on. I'm sure all we cognescenti were quite > satisfied. I find this exchange mildly baffling. I can only speak of the Latin (as Greek is all Greek to me), but Ratzinger's pronunciation was the "Ecclesiastical" Italianate one, standard since about 1900, and not one which might have been encountered in the mediaeval period (except possibly in Italy!) John Briggs ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html