Bilkent University

HIST 482

Latin for Medieval and Early Modern History II

Introduction and Syllabus

Salvete, discipuli et discipulae! The purpose of this course is to build upon the basic grammatical and syntactical skills acquired in the previous semester, to explore some more advanced aspects of Latin grammar and syntax, and to progress towards reading some medieval Latin texts.

Weekly Schedule:

1. Introduction and Revision Exercises.

2. Uses of the Cases.

3. More on Participles; the Ablative Absolute.

4. Gerunds, Gerundives and the Supine.

5. Imperative Mood; Indirect Statements; Relative and Temporal (Indicative) Clauses.

6. Mid-Term Examination.

7. Subjunctive Mood I: Active; the Subjunctive in main clauses.

8. Subjunctive Mood II: Passive.

9. Types of subordinate clause I: Consecutive, Final/Purpose.

10. Types of subordinate clause II: Conditional, Causal, Concessive.

11 – 14. Text Readings.

Assessment:

• Homework 20 %
• Mid-Term Examination 20 %
• Final Examination 30 %
• Participation 25 %
• Attendance 5 %

Course Materials:

Basically, you will need to own a Latin-English dictionary which should be brought to class every week. If you don’t have one already, there are dictionaries for sale in the university bookstore. Otherwise, I will provide handouts and photocopies of all necessary teaching and reading materials. There is no ‘textbook’ for the course.

Some Useful Online Resources:

• Beginners’ Latin 1086-1733 (The National Archives)
• Allen and Greenough’s New Latin Grammar (1903) (Textkit)
• Charles E. Bennett’s A New Latin Grammer (1918) (Project Gutenberg) or here (Textkit)
• Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge’s Latin for Beginners (1911) (Project Gutenberg)
• Kirtland John Copeland’s An Introduction To Latin (1940)
• Jan Frederik Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus (1976 edn)
• Latin Dictionary and Grammar Aid (University of Notre Dame)
• Medieval Latin Online (University of Oklahoma)
• Search for Dictionary Headwords (Perseus-Tufts)
• Morphological Analyses for Inflected Latin Words (Perseus-Tufts)
• Textkit: Greek and Latin Learning Tools

Under-construction and hopefully expanding soon!

A Word of Advice:

To get the most out of this course, I suggest that, in addition to completing all the formal course requirements listed above under ‘Assessment’, you should spend some extra time (preferably a little every day!) working on your Latin: revising your vocabulary, re-translating practice sentences and passages, checking up difficult points of grammar and so forth. Remember that our ultimate purpose is to help you learn Latin, and not simply to pass the course and then forget about Latin until you need it for your research in the future. Valete!

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