I am in the process of reading a short book (long article?) by an archaeologist, David Petts, Pagan and Christian: Religious Change in Early Medieval Europe.
He raises the idea that liturgical language needs to be viewed differently than has been the usual way it is interpreted. For example, the use of Latin by the Church in western Europe up to the Reformation, despite most people, including priests, not understanding the language. I recall reading somewhere a few years back that the last place where Latin was a commonly used language was in a part of northern Italy in the 9th century. I would assume this was not the classical Latin I was taught in High School or university (most of which I have forgotten). Probably it was a vulgar Latin where much of the complex grammar of Cicero was flattened out and made more easily used in conversation. The last evidence of even this form of Latin dates from the 9th century.
David Petts's thesis is that holy or sacred languages such as Latin in the medieval church did not have the purpose of communication in the sense we use language today. This Latin was not used to communicate facts or ideas. Rather this Latin communicated the sense that listeners were now in the presence of the divine rather than the ordinary or secular world. In one of the courses I teach, I have students read a description of the emotional impact of the Mass on late medieval hearers. Students almost universally are surprised that people attending could not understand the language, yet still seemed eager and even passionate about attending. The thesis that David Petts advances explains this passion for hearing an incomprehensible language. The language is not incomprehensible, but communicates on a deeper and emotional and spiritual level.
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