La componente volgare nel latino medievale d'Italia (interferenze tra latino e volgare nella Toscana medievale)

Practically every text produced in medieval Italy (one might say: in Western Europe) supposes an ongoing dialogue between two languages. Latin texts like charters, chronicles, hagiographical treatises, etc., all derive from vernacular narrations and statements; vernacular texts, on the other hand, are heavily conditioned by the fact that teaching of literacy was carried out in Latin. The vernacular elements in early medieval Tuscan charters fall into different categories: proper names necessary from a legal point of view (and often transparent as to their meaning), usually introduced by a formula like "ubi dicitur/qui dicitur"; vulgarisms used alongside correct Latin terms, specifying and precising the meaning of these; common vernacular terms, declined and used in a Latin context (this is probably the stylistic level intended by the well known expression "Latinum circa romancum"). Distinction must be made between synchronic vulgarisms and vernacular terms already incorporated into medieval Latin (e.g. "guerra", "treugua"), which ought to be considered separately by lexicographers.