Medieval Latin: A Beginner's Self-Taught Guide

by Luke Daly

Medieval A Beginner’s Self-Study Guide is an up-to-date, and invaluable aid to those wanting to learn Medieval Latin – whether as a hobby, for school, university, or career. This book, which focuses on Medieval Latin rather than Classical Latin, contains everything you need to know to tackle charters, documents, and wills effectively and successfully from the Middle Ages.
Through simple explanations and examples, this book breaks down the elitist perception that Latin holds in order to become a language accessible by anyone and everyone. Furthermore, this guide contains a complete dictionary with grammar sheets to complement your study of this book and beyond.

176 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 26, 2021

About the author

Luke Daly is a PhD student at the University of East Anglia where he is embarking on groundbreaking research into the financial records of Canterbury Cathedral, aiming to shed light on Christian monasticism within England from 1200 to 1300. Alongside this, Luke is the author of 'Medieval Saints and their Sins: A New History of the Middle Ages Through Saints and Their Stories' (2024) with Pen and Sword Publishing and 'Medieval Latin: A Beginner's Self-Taught Guide' (2021).

In 2025, he was listed in BBC HistoryExtra's '30 Under 30' for his work in the field.

Reviews

[Antony P · Rating 3 out of 5]

Medieval Latin

A solid introduction to verb conjugation, noun declensions, and Latin grammar in general. The book has a limited focus, but I think that was always the intention.
I read this book having a firm foundation in Latin and found it very straight forward, if not easy. However, for someone just starting out, and with anything else for a focus outside of medieval charters, I do not think it would be so straightforward.

[Colin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sigh. The best I can say for this book is that the author clearly tried, and does manage to introduce a lot of medieval Latin vocabulary common to medieval charters but otherwise not very familiar to the Latin community. The sheer number of typographical errors makes this book almost unusable (and spelling is so much more crucial in Latin than English!), and that is being generous and assuming that some things that appear to be straight-out mistakes in understanding are actually typos. Despite the huge problems with the text, I still give it 2/5 because it addresses medieval charters in depth (and I haven't seen many texts that do that), and includes some specialized vocabulary that is hard to find outside of this context. But I had such high hopes for this book, and it was a tremendous disappointment.

[Lucy Pilgrim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have struggled with latim grammar and already wasted my money on other books I wish I'd bought this first. Expensive at £17.95 but it IS really worth the money!