This book is the first overall study of the texts and language of the Old Latin Gospels, the versions of the four Gospels that predate the Vulgate of Jerome. In this book three main questions are addressed. Do the various extant manuscripts represent the remains of many originally separate versions, or local variants of a single main tradition? How do we analyse the translation techniques used to produce these texts? What do these translations tell us about the development of post-classical, non-literary Latin, and vice versa? Dr Burton approaches the issue of monogenesis versus polygenesis through a systematic analysis of the vocabulary of each individual Gospel. He reassess the traditional description of these Gospels as 'literal' and 'vulgar', examining the extent to which these terms are meaningful and applicable.
