This reader will be useful to medievalists keen to improve their knowledge of Latin writers (and their Latin) as well as for courses in medieval Latin. Godfrey (classics, State U. of New York, Stonybrook) provides a paragraph of introduction for each writer considered and annotation to their Latin t

These informative selections build a brilliant mosaic that depicts the thought, theology, history, and spiritual lives of an array of people living in the fourth through fifteenth centuries C.E., from Christianity to the Renaissance. The passages, complete with notes, are accessible to intermediate Latin students and include a fine range of well-known and less often included readings. Eighty-four selections - from Tertullian, the Nicene Creed, Augustine, Boethius, Isodore of Seville, the Cambridge Songs, Abelard and Heloise, Hildegarde of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, Giovanni Boccaccio, Jacopo Sannazaro, and others - introduce students to a broad range of genres, topics, and styles. The second edition includes seven new selections, most drawn from women writers.

Reading Medieval Latin is an introduction to medieval Latin in its cultural and historical context and is designed to serve the needs of students who have completed the learning of basic classical Latin morphology and syntax. (Users of Reading Latin will find that it follows on after the end of section 5 of that course.) It is an anthology, organised chronologically and thematically in four parts. Each part is divided into chapters with introductory material, texts, and commentaries which give help with syntax, sentence-structure, and background. There are brief sections on medieval orthography and grammar, together with a vocabulary which includes words (or meanings) not found in standard classical dictionaries. The texts chosen cover areas of interest to students of medieval history, philosophy, theology, and literature.

"This intermediate Latin reader is designed to strengthen students' reading skills through an accessible and entertaining text. ... The text included in this reader is Jacobus de Voragine's abridged Latin version of the legend of Saints Barlaam and Josaphat. The Latin of Jacobus, a 13th-century compiler, offers excellent opportunities for the systematic learning of the peculiarities of Late and Medieval Latin."--Provided by publisher.