Latin culture & literature

The main genre of Latin fiction was the genre of vision (видение). All works of this kind had much in common: they described the author's dream & were very moralizing & didactic. For example, a vision was likely to start like this: one day the author fell asleep & had a dream in which either God told him to do something & it was a good thing or the author might witness some events that taught him & us something good.

In the 11 - 12^th c.c. Latin works on history of Great Britain were widespread. One of the most prominent among them is "Historia Britonum, 1 132 - 1 137 " ("История бриттов") by Geoffrey of Monmouth (Гальфрид Монмаутский). This work was very important for the further development of medieval literature. It contained the earliest mentioning of the Celtic legends of King Arthur. It is here where we for the first time get acquainted with King Arthur, wizard Merlin, Morgana le Fay, Queen Guinevere, and the brave Knights of the Round Table. These legends will later become one of the major sources of the plot in the chivalrous poetry & romances in French & in Anglo -Saxon then. It is also here that we get acquainted with the first version of the story about King Lear & his daughters.

In the 12 - 13^th c.c. also began to appear works of satirical character, for example, the 5 volumes of "De nugis curialium" ("О забавных разговорах придворных")by Walter Map who was a chaplain in the court of King Henry II & was well acquainted with the morals & customs of the court. This book is written in the form of jokes & anecdotes. Besides a lot of folk stories are included into the book: sagas, legends, songs, etc. This work remained a source of plots for other writers for a very long time. Actually on the one hand this work can be regarded as an entertaining one, but on the other hand it contains a great deal of satire against mundane (светский) & church circles.

There was one more satirical phenomenon in Latin literature of the time - the so called Goliardic poetry. These songs were sung & composed by vagantes (от латинского "бродячие") who belonged to the lowest layer of clergymen. There was a myth that somewhere lived an archbishop Goliya (Г о л и я) by name who was the author of the songs but actually they were composed by the vagantes themselves. In these works they sang (воспевали) all the joys of life: women, wine, good food, etc. And a great number of these songs were a kind of parody on the Catholic cult & religious songs. In fact all the mentioned works were written in Latin but gradually Latin was replaced by Anglo-Saxon in this Goliardic poetry.