Henry M. Baird · 67 of 379

CHAPTER I · Aversion to the use of the French language.

Ecclesiastical teachers themselves so ignorant and corrupt could not be expected to do much for the elevation of the laity. Of popularizing knowledge, especially religious knowledge, the clergy and their adherents had little thought. Latin alone was deemed suitable for the discussion of matters of faith. It was enough to condemn the employment of French for this purpose, that it could be understood by the people. For the reformers was reserved the honor of raising the dialect of the masses to the dignity of a language fit for the highest literary uses, and of compelling even their antagonists to resort to it in self-defence, though, it must be confessed, with a very poor grace. So late as in 1558 we find a leading theologian of the Sorbonne publicly apologizing for the condescension. "Very dear friend," he writes in the address to the reader, "I doubt not that, at first sight, you will regard it as strange and perhaps very wrong that this reply is couched in the vulgar tongue; seeing that it would be much more suitable were it circulated in the Latin rather than the French tongue, inasmuch as the subject-matter consists of things greatly concerning Christian faith, which require rather to be put in Latin than in French. Of this also we have the example of the holy ancient doctors, who were always accustomed to write against heretics in Latin and not in French." If such was the avowed repugnance to the use of the language of the people in the treatment of religious themes, so late as within a year of the death of Henry the Second, it may readily be conceived how deep the aversion was a generation earlier, at the first appearance of the reformation.