The female founders and Latin

[bluesqueak]

No: HPFGUIDX 40201

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Suzanne Chiles" <suzchiles at p...> wrote:
 Pip said:
> they would have had to learn the language of
> > international scholarship - Latin.
> >
> Zoe replied:
> But would this apply to witches and wizards? I would have assumed 
> that Hula and Rowena, like all wizards and witches, had some 
> training from family members or magical friends, which could very 
> well have included something like "Latin for Magical Folk".
> 
> Or do we think that magical folk in the dark ages had connections 
> with the church?
> 
> Zoë

They may well have done. Harry gets the name 'Hedwig' out of 'A 
History of Magic'; the real Hedwig was a saint, a nun, and founder of 
an order which educated orphaned children (Magical Worlds of Harry 
Potter, David Colbert). Hogwarts itself doesn't seem to have any 
formal church-based Christianity, but it keeps to a broadly Christian 
calendar; celebrating Christmas and the Eve of All Hallows/All Saints 
(Halloween) instead of the equivalent pagan festivals.

Most 'literacy based' education in the Dark Ages was Church based; 
home education was generally craft-based. I can imagine the training 
for spells, herbs, potions etc being taught at home, but books were 
hand written and horribly expensive. Even the parchment to write a 
scroll on was horribly expensive. IMO, most magical folk would not be 
willing or able to spend the huge amounts of money needed to educate 
their child in literacy and Latin at home. 

Magical children may have been having to learn the necessary Latin in 
a church-based environment largely dedicated to producing monks and 
nuns.  This may well have been one of the pressures that led to the 
founding of Hogwarts.

But whether they learnt their Latin at a monastery/nunnery school or 
not, if they wanted to write scholarly papers, or share new 
discoveries, they would have had to write in Latin. Latin was the 
internet of the day; every educated person learnt Latin as their 
second language. An exciting piece of work could then end up being 
copied and copied and copied until it had been read all over Europe - 
whatever the native language of the reader.

Pip