The 12th century

The cathedral of San Zeno, in Verona (1178)

Although this century brings widespread prosperity to the peninsula, and sees the coming of age of the commune (city-state) with the flourishing banking industry of Pisa and Florence, intellectual effort is focused on the crafts rather than the arts - the bourgeoisie is busy building palazzi and basiliche (churches in the romasesque style modeled on Roman basilicas) to make room for the blooming political and religious institutions of the new republics. The Vatican consolidates its political influence in the center and in the North, where the Guelf party defeats Emperor Frederick I in Legnano (Milan, 1176) . Meanwhile the South is unified by the Normans under the Crown of Sicily, later inherited by the Hohenstaufen (Frederick II is named King of Sicily in 1198). In this turnmoil so little time is left to literature and the fine arts that even writers of Latin literature hush for a hundrerd years. The previous century had seen a number of works in this language, if not yet in Italian.

Energies are no longer put into painting or poetry - and when we look at the sobriety romanesque architecture we see how these massive white stone buildings catch the eye without appealing to our sense of beauty - the first cathedrals and their huge bell towers rather point to the economic prosperity and power of their patrons, not to renenewed artistic sensibility.

Such sobriety impresses us with the craftmanship of those who strove to built these basiliche but not with their art when we compare them to the maturity diplayed in the age of Dante and Giotto. The mysticism of romanesque is accounts for its simplicity, not unlike the one of the paupers and mystics that anticipate St. Francis - decoration is minimal, space in paintings two-dimentional, human bodies and faces gazing at us from from arches and spires without really detaching from the white body of the cathedral.

Until Florence becomes known for its poetry the economy's economic boom in the north is unmatched by any other achievement in the arts. When we see how much language draws on literature to evolve we understand Migliorini's disappointment. In this context it should not appear remarkable that the most important documents in the Italian language are fragments, not works, phrases, not pages and come as they do from accounting books and deeds by notaries and bankers.

We can roughly divide these documents into carte and scritte. Only the latter interest us linguistically since the scritte (en. "writings") are jotted down informally, often parenthetically to comment on or clarify what is being stated in Latin. While only Latin statements in the carte (en. "papers") have legal status, they stick to protocols and have little of the spoken language. Conversely, the informal tone of scritte frees them from the constraints of Latin formulas - because do not longer pretend to imitate the Latin spelling their Italian stands off more clearly.

However, the transition to Italian is not sudden and scritte steal themselves into the uncertain fabric of middle Latin in the course of two centuries eventually eroding it. At this point as more and more people get to speak the vernacular, even on official occasions, given the growing demand for financial transaction: merchants and bankers, the rising upper class that replaces nobility is no longer raised in convents but is trained in the shops and travels quite a bit around Europe, most often to France with whom Tuscany and Umbria have strong business relationships: the name "Francesco" ("Francis") was likely coined by Italian merchants and personalities like "Francesco" d'Assisi and Francesco Petrarch were the sons of merchants who had spent most of their lives beyond the Alps.

The influence of Latin on 11th-century writing had produced calques on early attempts at Italian, producing a latinised Italian mingled without much distinction to the italianised Latin. Until then it is not easy to draw the line between middle Latin and the first scribblings in Italian. In the 12th century, however, a line is drawn - at some point we can tell when one language begins and the other ends by just reading - writers now must have a clear perception of Italian as a language and do no longer see it as a "lower" form of Latin. We are going to see much the same thing in the Renaissance when vernacular, or regional literature takes on a life of its own as it separates from the italian language - and dialect can be really said to exist only when its perception among the people is consolidated. After that the standard Italian can rightly secede from regional languages.

Dialect and Latin in Rome

Migliorini, the famous scholar (Storia della lingua italiana, 84-85) remarks that having a Roman patrician like Sisinnius speak dialect adds fun to the scene especially since the saint lectures him in Latin after failing to tie him up. Setting the two characters apart: Sininnius evil is set off by his crude dialect while Latin is used to underline the saint's wisdom.

The contrast between Sisinnius and Saint Clement is even starker with the phrase 'fili de pute' put in Sisinius' mouth. Using Italian at holy functions was forbidden by the Church, but the doctrine enforced by Pope Gregory V in 999 A.D. allowed for exceptions with audiences unable to speak or read Latin.

That non-Latin speakers were the great majority at mass obviously tells us something important about the state of Italian in the 11th century, and the necessity to instruct audiences that are no longer faniliar with Latin.

St. Clement's Inscription in Rome

Iscrizione di San Clemente

Much more important is the Iscrizione di San Clemente (St Clemensts inscription, late 11th century), which can still be read in the Church with same name in Rome. It is a dialogue from the Passio Sancti Clementis (6th c. A.D.) added to a fresco in the old underground church and portrays a miracle performed by Saint Clement.

The pagan patrician Sisinnius, after his wife converts to Christianism accuses the saint of using sorcery on his wife. When he has him tied and laid on the floor he orders two of his servants to drag him with a rope, and a third to lift him from behind with a pole:

Fàlite dereto colo palo Carvoncelle ('Push him from behind with the pole, Carvoncelle')

Gosmari, Albertel, traite. ('Gosmari, Albertel, pull!')

Fili de le pute, traite. ('Pull, son of a b*****s!')

And a miracle happens : the saint is suddenly standing up in front of them, untied, while the servants are dragging a column in his stead. At this point the saint exclaims sternly:

Duritia[m] cordis vestri[s] saxa traere meruisti

('You deserved to drag stones because of your cold-heartness!')

Remarkably, this inscription is a dialogue in vernacular in a church - where the lines are a sort of caption to the painted figures much like a comic book. It stands in a public place of a certain importance where it can be easily read and by everyone - to be sure an Italian-speaking audience.

Southern Italy

Meantime the South pursues a different political course: the Normans found the Kingdom of Sicily (1059), paving the way for the linguistic koinè of Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor who will inherit the throne of Sicily (by his mother's side) two centuries later.

By the 11th century North and South have developed two economic systems - one largely based on commerce, the latter on agriculture, one run by the middle-class merchants, the other based on feudalism. The Guelfs (pro-pope) and Ghibelins (pro-emperors) divide Italy's city-states, but the Guelfs are particularly powerful in the North. Such cultural differencies will create a gap that will survive Italy's unification (1861) and that will only widen with the industrial revolution around Milan and Turin (ca 1900).

The only Italian documents dating to the 11th century are the Carta Amiatina (1087), a Tuscan will by one Miciarello (nicknamed "capocotto") who bequeaths his property to the Abbey of San Salvatore (Mount Amiata, Tuscany). The deed contains a footnote in dialect , one of the first documents in Tuscan:

Ista carta est de caput coctu ille adiuvet de illu rebottu qui mal consiliu li mise in corpu

"This paper belongs to "capocotto", may it help him against the evil one who ill-advised him"

Note the archaic traits (left, old Tuscan, center, present-day Italian, right, English :

Ista = questa = ("this", feminine)

Ille, illu = lo (the, masculine)

Mal consiliu = mal consiglio ("bad advice")

li =gli ("to him")

corpu=corpo ("body")

And - how different this is from Dante's Italian which is, conversely, quite free from Latinisms. However, it must also be noted that the notary applied a Latin spelling to Italian words, so some of the words look Latin, but in fact they do not sound like that.

For example, est sounded like modern Italian è (is), illu must be considered an early article and no longer a demonstrative (it will become 'lo' a couple of centuries later), "caput coctu" is an "elegant" rendering of capucottu, "qui" sounded 'ki', as Ital. chi ('who'). Mal consiliu = mal consiglio ("ill advice"), "li" = gli ('to him'), mise ('filled') is modern Italian as well, in corpu is also modern except for the -u ending for -o.

The 11th Century: the First City-States

For most of this century, the vernacular seems to have disappeared from documents, though it continues to evolve as a spoken language. It is still fragmented in different regional languages (dialects), none of these actually prevailing upon the others.

If some poet had devoted part of their effort to writing in his own dialect , the Italian language would be marching toward a unified, however primitive, standard. But in the eyes of the intellectuals the new language is seen as a corruption, or worse a degeneration of Latin, the offpring of the moral decay that had brought about the fall of the Roman Empire.

With the fear that dialect may eventually erode what is left of Latin, every subject is taught in the old language. Rhetoric, the cornerstone of medieval learning is taught after the examples of Cicero and Seneca, therefore in their language although few would use it outside their classroom.

Because Italian states do not provide public education, only a few well-off can hire a private tutor to raise their sons as they please. The only schools are ecclesiastical, and here the vernacular is not only discouraged - but considered morally reprehensible. Latin is after all the language of theology, the language of the Fathers of the Church such as St. Augustin and the St. Gerome, the translator (and patron saint of translators) who produced the Vulgate Bible (in Latin) from the Greek.

The 11th century also sees the birth of the communes (it. comuni) or city-states in the center-north such as Florence, Lucca, Pisa, Milan. Cities and towns, the "città" are still listed with that name today: Comune di Lucca, Comune di Padova.

Unfortunately, the communes are more focused on consolidating their economic and military power than in refining their language. It appears that more practical interests are going to prevail for the next two centuries: Genoa, Pisa, Amalfi and Venice ("repubbliche marinare") vie for supremacy in the Mediterranean and even found colonies outside Italy, while Florence develops the new art of banking.

Without a unified language, Italians would be dependent on French literary models for a long time (La Chanson de Roland and the Arthurian legends on the one hand, the courtly love of Occitan poetry on the other, including the Roman de la Rose and the Fabliaux which enjoy an enormous success). Jokers use a repertoire in corrupt French or Occitan to entertain their patrons.

Looking closer at the texts of Placiti

The formulas from Sessa Aurunca (March 963) and Teano (October, 963) are similar in kind, only concerning different lands, though still within the Lombard duchy of Capua. These documents are invaluable in that their formulas are similar to the Placito, confirming that that is the language spoken around 960 A.D.

The fact this early Italian is used in a court proceeding seems to confirm that it Italian had been spoken (if not written) for a while and that Latin as we know it was unknown by the general public.

To sum it up, the importance of the Placito lies in that:

1. we know for certain that from 960 A.D. Italian is the language of government and

2. it is proof it was spoken and understood by all classes of society,

3. That people felt it to be a language apart from the Latin used in the courts and at mass.

Apart from the formula 'Parte Sancti Benedicti', a fossil genitive like 'Piazza San Marco' (St. Mark's Square) or Via Giuseppe Mazzini that appears in many Italian addresses today, and Tebe and bobe in the last three proceedings (the fossil datives of Lat. tibi and vobis), scholars have acknowledged that the Placito is linguistically emancipated from Latin: it also shows a certain resemblance to modern dialect of Campania (kelle, possette etc).

While it is not difficult to explain such spelling variants as ko, cco (c would be read as en. 'cho'), que and ke (ke being a phonetic trascription of Lat. que, 'that') as pronounced in middle Latin, 'sao' has been disputed.

'Sao', probably modeled on the Campanian 'ao' (it. ho, "I have"), dao (it. do, "I give"), stao (it. sto, "I stay") on analogy with Lat. sapis (it. sai, "you know") and sapit (it. sa, old Campanian sae) poses a bigger problem.

Although we are pretty sure about the spelling (it is the same in all of the four documents), its origin is still disputed since modern Capuan has "saccio" with palatal c (en. ch), while 'sazzo' is the only southern variant.

When we know that dialects are extremely conservative we are at pains to explain why there is no trace of 'sao' in today's Capuan. In the next chapter we will try to solve this puzzle with the aid of some educated guesses.

The quarrel between Rodelgrimo and the monks

One day, a small army of Saracens (883 A.D.) landed on the coasts of Southern Italy. They pillaged and destroyed everything and everyone on their path, finally heading for the mountains where a group of Benedectine monasteries were rumored to be full of gold and money. Most of the clergy were killed, the monasteries burned to the ground, anything valuable was carried away. What remained was a heap of smoking ruins surrounded by the deepest silence, dead bodies on the smoking ground.

Those who survived to tell the story would never set foot on those lands until the next century. But when the monks returned to rebuild their property they found that many natives had occupied their lands in their absence. Winning back the smaller lots of lands was easily done, but they eventually met with the stubborn opposition of a local squire, Rodelgrimo d'Aquino.

He, not unlike others, had annexed to his estate two lots that aparently belonged to the Catholic Church. In response Don Aligerno, the abbot of Montecassino, sent his lawyer (Pietro) to plead the monks' case in court which would settle the dispute under judge Arechisi from Capua. In his defense, Rodelgrimo produced a detailed map of his lands, insisting that his annexation had been lawful.

On their part, the Benedectines insisted that those lots belonged to them since they had lived there for a long time when the Saracens forced them to leave. The pleading was in Latin as this was still the language of the courts at the time.

When Judge Arechisi finally reached a verdict (the Placito), it stated that the lands held at the time by Rodelgrimo did actually belong to the monks, since they had been in their possession for at least 30 years (usucapione, still in use today) prior to Rodelgrimo's occupation.

After his deliberation, however, judge Arechisi wrote down the Placito in Italian, its form based on similar formulas in use in Latin, their existence documented at least since 882 A.D. (Lucca), in San Vincenzo al Volturno, not far from Capua (936, 954 and then 976 A.D.

As the judge entered the courtroom, he read out the formula in front of the public. Then, he asked three witnesses (Teomondo, Gariberto, two monks, and Mari, a notary) to repeat that same sentence in vernacular to make absolutely sure that everyone had understood it. In sum, the same sentence was recited four times (by judge and witnesses), and Mari the notary duly testified to the fact by writing down emphatically "toti tres quasi ex uno ore; quasi uno ore". (all three [witnesses] did swear as if with one voice).

The witnesses had more than a passing knowledge of Latin and could have used it as easily as their local dialect but much of the listening audience in the courtroom were did not speak Latin, hence the use of Italian. That they had to say the words in the new language was the telling sign that Latin, was no longer used or understood by the general public as a spoken language. This courtroom formula, marks the moment when Italian was officially recognized as a language.