Latin literature in Britain
Encyclopedia
Anglo-Latin literature is literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

 from England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 and potentially other parts of English-speaking Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

  originally written in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

. A great deal of interest is invested in the literature of Britain
British literature
British Literature refers to literature associated with the United Kingdom, Isle of Man and Channel Islands. By far the largest part of British literature is written in the English language, but there are bodies of written works in Latin, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, Cornish, Manx, Jèrriais,...

 in Germanic
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...

 or Celtic languages
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...

, but explicit references to literature in Latin are scattered and rare. Literary production in Latin from Britain is very rich, yet it is hard to find a good description of the whole picture. This page starts as a work in progress area to cover that need.

Medieval literature

Anonymous, Vita sancti Cuthberti
Vita Sancti Cuthberti (anonymous)
The Vita Sancti Cuthberti is a prose hagiography from early medieval Northumbria. It is probably the earliest extant saint's life from Anglo-Saxon England, and is an account of the life and miracles of Cuthbert , a Bernician hermit-monk who became bishop of Lindisfarne...

(c. 700)

Stephen of Ripon, Vita sancti Wilfrithi
Vita Sancti Wilfrithi
The Vita Sancti Wilfrithi or Life of St Wilfrid is an early 8th-century hagiographic text recounting the life of the Northumbrian bishop, Wilfrid. Although a hagiography, it has few miracles, while its main concerns are with the politics of the Northumbrian church and the history of the...

(709 x 720)

Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...

 (c. 672/673 – 25 May 735), Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
The Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum is a work in Latin by Bede on the history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict between Roman and Celtic Christianity.It is considered to be one of the most important original references on...



Alcuin
Alcuin
Alcuin of York or Ealhwine, nicknamed Albinus or Flaccus was an English scholar, ecclesiastic, poet and teacher from York, Northumbria. He was born around 735 and became the student of Archbishop Ecgbert at York...

 (Alcuin [or Ealhwine] of York, c. 735 – 19 May 804)

Orderic Vitalis
Orderic Vitalis
Orderic Vitalis was an English chronicler of Norman ancestry who wrote one of the great contemporary chronicles of 11th and 12th century Normandy and Anglo-Norman England. The modern biographer of Henry I of England, C...

 (Orderic Vitalis, 1075 – c. 1142)

William of Malmesbury
William of Malmesbury
William of Malmesbury was the foremost English historian of the 12th century. C. Warren Hollister so ranks him among the most talented generation of writers of history since Bede, "a gifted historical scholar and an omnivorous reader, impressively well versed in the literature of classical,...

 (William of Malmesbury, c. 1080/1095 – c. 1143)

Geoffrey of Monmouth
Geoffrey of Monmouth
Geoffrey of Monmouth was a cleric and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography and the popularity of tales of King Arthur...

 (Geoffrey of Monmouth, c. 1100 – c. 1155), Historia Regum Britanniæ

Gerald of Wales, 1146 - 1243)

Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon, O.F.M. , also known as Doctor Mirabilis , was an English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empirical methods...

 (Roger Bacon, c. 1214 – 1294)

Duns Scotus
Duns Scotus
Blessed John Duns Scotus, O.F.M. was one of the more important theologians and philosophers of the High Middle Ages. He was nicknamed Doctor Subtilis for his penetrating and subtle manner of thought....

 (c. 1266 – 8 November 1308)

William of Ockham
William of Ockham
William of Ockham was an English Franciscan friar and scholastic philosopher, who is believed to have been born in Ockham, a small village in Surrey. He is considered to be one of the major figures of medieval thought and was at the centre of the major intellectual and political controversies of...

 (William of Ockham, c. 1288 – c. 1348)

Renaissance literature

Johannes Gower
John Gower
John Gower was an English poet, a contemporary of William Langland and a personal friend of Geoffrey Chaucer. He is remembered primarily for three major works, the Mirroir de l'Omme, Vox Clamantis, and Confessio Amantis, three long poems written in French, Latin, and English respectively, which...

 (John Gower, c. 1330 – October 1408), Vox Clamantis
Vox Clamantis
Vox Clamantis is a Latin poem of around 10,000 lines in elegiac verse by John Gower that recounts the events and tragedy of the 1381 Peasants' Rising. The poem takes aim at the corruption of society and laments the rise of evil...



Thomas Morus
Thomas More
Sir Thomas More , also known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor...

 (Thomas More, 7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), Utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...


Modern literature

Franciscus Baconus
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...

 (Francis Bacon, 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), Novum Organum
Novum Organum
The Novum Organum, full original title Novum Organum Scientiarum, is a philosophical work by Francis Bacon, written in Latin and published in 1620. The title translates as new instrument, i.e. new instrument of science. This is a reference to Aristotle's work Organon, which was his treatise on...



Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury , in some older texts Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy...

ius (Thomas Hobbes, 5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679)

Johannes Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

 (John Milton, 9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674), Defensio pro Populo Anglicano
Defensio pro Populo Anglicano
Defensio pro Populo Anglicano is a Latin polemic by John Milton, published in 1651. The full title in English is John Milton an Englishman His Defence of the People of England. It was a piece of propaganda, and made political argument in support of what was at the time the government of...

, De Doctrina Christiana
De Doctrina Christiana (Milton)
De doctrina Christiana is a Latin manuscript found in 1823 and attributed to John Milton, who died 148 years prior. Since Milton was blind by the time of the work's creation, this attribution assumes that an amanuensis aided the author.The history and style of Christian Doctrine have created much...



Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...

 4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK