past recall. The prevailing language is Romance; that is to say, the vernacular Latin. Verna means a slave; it was the gabble of the lower classes, mainly a bastard Latin, but holding in suspense drift words from Greek and Gaulish and Saracen. In substance it was the vulgar talk of the Latins. Of this we have curious evidence in 813. In his old age Charlemagne concerned himself much with Church matters, and he convoked five Councils in five quarters of his empire to regulate Church matters. These Councils met in Mainz, Rheims, Châlons, Tours, and Arles. It was expressly laid down in all of these, save only in that of Aries, that the clergy should catechise and preach in the vulgar tongue; where there were Franks, in German; where there were Gauls, in the Romance. But no such rule was laid down in the Council of Arles, for the very reason that Latin was still the common language of the people, the simple Latin of the gospels, such as was perfectly understood by the people when addressed in it.
The liturgy was not fixed and uniform. In many secondary points each Church had its own use. Where most liberty and variety existed was in the hymns. The singing of hymns was not formally introduced into the offices of the Church till the tenth century; but every church had its collection of hymns, sung by the people at vigils, in processions, intercalated in the offices. In Normandy it was a matter of complaint that whilst the choir took breath the women broke in with unsuitable songs, nugacis cantalenis. At funerals such coarse ballads were sung that Charlemagne had to issue orders that where the mourners did not know any psalm they were to shout Kyrie eleison, and nothing else. Agobard, Bishop of Lyons, A.D. 814-840, says that when he entered on
