Week 2. Vulgata: Moses

Readings | Weekly Activities

Jerome's Latin translation of the Bible, the Biblia vulgata, is a definitive text for the European Middle Ages. The Latin of the Vulgate Bible is in some ways markedly different from the classical Latin that you have probably been exposed to in your earlier Latin classes. The world was changing (the decline of Rome, the emerging direction and purpose of the Christian Churches), and there were also profound changes in the Latin language. Jerome made the bold choice to write in the "vulgate", the language of the vulgus, of the crowd. Jerome's choice was to have profound consequences for the entire history of the western European Middle Ages.