Liturgical Latin, its origins and character

the long version

These are three lectures given at Catholic University by a distinguished European scholar of Early Christian language. Mohrmann explains the development of a specialized language for the liturgy early on in Rome. She dispels the myth in the run-up to Vatican II that the early Roman Rite was in the language of the streets, but rather was hieratic and had a distinctive style. Her linguistic evidence and analysis were in contradistinction to the theories that underlay the translation of the Roman Catholic liturgy into English and the drive to replace Latin with the vernacular. She could not, of course, known the Council was on the horizon and the liturgical changes that came in its wake. She did address currents of thought in the liturgical movement which was in full steam at the time. Although very scholarly, the three lectures are certainly accessible.