mittellateinische

Mittellateinische, in German philology, denotes Medieval Latin, the form of Latin used in Europe roughly from the 5th to the 15th century. It functioned as the common language of the Latin-speaking world in church, administration, learning, and literature, and thus spans a broad range of registers, genres, and regional varieties. The term covers Early, High, and Late Medieval Latin; its boundary to Renaissance Latin is gradual and culturally defined.

Linguistically, Mittellateinische preserves much of Classical Latin syntax and morphology but is increasingly shaped by the needs of medieval scholastic, liturgical, and legal practice. It acquires extensive new terminology from theology, philosophy, canon law, medicine, and jurisprudence, much of it borrowed from or calqued onto Greek, Hebrew, and later Arabic sources. The orthography and punctuation vary by region; scribal conventions, glossing, and standard phrases become common, especially in monastic, scholastic, and episcopal contexts. The style tends toward clarity and argumentation; the so-called Scholastic Latin of universities develops standardized terms for disputation, summa, etc.

Medieval Latin is transmitted through manuscripts and printed editions of liturgical texts, patristic commentaries, scholastic treatises, chronicles, and scientific works. It was the lingua franca of intellectual Europe, used by authors such as church fathers, scholastics, and jurists; its reach extended beyond the Latin-speaking clergy to scholars who translated or commented upon Greek and Arabic sources. The period ends with the gradual shift toward Catholic humanism and Humanist Latin, which reorients Latin toward classical models, setting the stage for Renaissance Latin.