Latin culture was not quite as a foreign influence upon these Gallo-Roman,
Teutonically re-inspirited, incipient, French. Nor were they born and bred
to it, like the Italians. The antique was not to dominate the French
genius; it was not to stem the growth of what was, so to speak, Gothic or
northern or Teutonic. The glass-painting, the sculpture, the architecture
of northern France were to become their own great French selves; and while
the literature was to hold to forms derived from the antique and the
Romanesque, the spirit and the contents did not come from Italy.
The office of Latin culture in Germany and England was to be more definite
and limited. Germany had never been subdued to the Roman order; in
Anglo-Saxon England, Roman civilization had been effaced by the Saxon
conquest, which, like the Moorish conquest of Spain, was most complete in
those parts of the land where the Roman influence had been strongest. In
neither of these lands was there any antique atmosphere, or antique pagan
substratum--save as the universal human soul is pagan! Latinity came to
Germans and Anglo-Saxons as a foreign culture, which was not to pertain to
all men’s daily living. It was matter for the educated, for the clergy.
Its vehicle was a formal language, having no connection with the
vernacular. And when the antique culture had obtained certain
resting-places in England and Germany, the first benign labours of those
Germans or Anglo-Saxons who had mastered the language consisted in the
translation of edifying Latin matter into their own tongues. So Latinity
in England and Germany was likely to remain a distinguishable influence.
The Anglo-Saxons and the rest in England were to become Englishmen, the
Germans were to remain Germans; nor was either race ever to become
Latinized, however deeply the educated people of these countries might
imbibe Latinity, and exercise their intellects upon all that was contained
in the antique metaphysics and natural science, literature and law.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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