of Gothic is the change of ē to i, so that it has names ending in -mir. Of these we find no trace whatever in Italy, on the contrary we find Gundimar, Ildimar, &c. Then we have abbreviated forms in izzo, e.g. Gaudizzo, Albizzo, &c., which are distinctly Lombardic; but not Gothic ones in -ila. There is no parallel to all this in the Iberian peninsula. As we have already said, the Gothic contribution to the vocabulary is very slight. But on the other hand in the 11th century the great majority of proper names is Gothic, e.g. Alfonsus (Hadufonsus), Gundomirus, Recimirus, &c.; or Recila, Fafila, or Elvira, O. Port. Gelvira, Goth. *Gailavira, and scores of others, all proving the great influence of Gothic.
And lastly, France possesses the largest number of Germanic elements in its vocabulary, Gothic in the south, Frankish in the north (though it is often impossible to ascertain to which class they belong). But beside these there are many Old High German words, and again Anglo-Saxon and northern ones, more particularly those connected with shipping and the sea. These Germanic elements cover nearly all branches of human activity. Thus bât, Fr. bâtir, “to build,” from *bastyan, “to bind together with bast,” “to plait”; hourder,“to cover with boards,” from hurdi,“hurdle”; maçon, “the mason,” in Isidore makjo (Frankish rather than Gothic) refer to house-building; guâcher from waskyan, broder from *brusdan, point to the occupations of women, and danser from dinsan and O. Fr. treschier, “to dance,” from treskan, “to thresh,” to their amusements. Women’s work is probably denoted further in rouir, rotjan, and E. Frank. naisier, natjan, “to net”; the same remark applies to the dyeing of cloths (Fr. touaille, Engl. “towel,” from thwahila), and ribbons (bande from binda) with guède, “woad,” and other colouring matters, whence we have, e.g., brun, bleu, blond, blanc.
But while the vocabulary has had its accessions drawn from various races, the proper names show the same rules as in Italian, i.e. Frankish gains the sole supremacy. We find, it must be admitted, some Gothic names in -mir in the south early in the middle ages, but they were not maintained as late as the Romance period, such was the influence of the victorious northern race. Even after political and literary independence had enabled the individual Romance languages to grow as separate units on their own basis, they retained their interconnexion and were open to mutual influence. But this influence is only partial, i.e. it affects nothing but the vocabulary, and has a certain relation to various tendencies in the developments of civilization. And under this head the most important point is the really enormous influence which France (both south and north) has exercised on all the Romance countries, just as she has on the Germanic—an influence which has hitherto not been duly recognized. The first traces go back to the invasions of Charlemagne already mentioned. To instance only one, we have schiavino, “justice, alderman,” which cannot be derived directly from the Germanic, as is shown by the v. The second important period is the age of chivalry and the literary tendencies centring round it. A word like budriere, “baldric,” is derived from Fr. baudrier, not directly from Germanic Balderich; Ital. banda goes back to O. Fr. bande, and this again to binda; Ital. giallo is not from galbinus but from O. Fr. jalne (Mod. Fr. jaune), derived from that word, &c. But it seems that in one of the prehistoric periods the Tuscan vocabulary was strongly affected by that of the Gallo-Romanic. Whereas in the Iberian peninsula, in Sardinia, in south Italy, Rumania and Rhaetia dies survives, in O. Fr. di has been almost completely ousted by jour, but in Tuscan and the Italian literary language we find giorno and di side by side. Thus trouver, Prov. trobar, spreading from France into Italy, drove the old aflare more and more back towards the south. The most recent layer was introduced during the reign of the house of Anjou chiefly in south Italy and Sicily, and kept its hold to the present day in spite of the Sicilian Vespers, e.g. Sic. vuccieri, “butcher,” from Fr. boucher.
The Iberian peninsula can likewise bear witness as to French influence, e.g. O. Sp. fonta, “shame,” is not from Goth, *haunitha, but from Fr. honte; O. Port. saluer not from Lat. salutare, but O. Fr. saluer. On the whole, Portuguese seems to possess more of these Gallicisms than Spanish, history supplying a simple explanation.
Italy too yielded its contributions, especially in the 15th and 16th centuries, many military terms (noble and ignoble), e.g. French carogne and canaille; poignard, “dagger,” from Ital. pugnale, instead of O. Fr. poigniel; but also panache, “plume,” from pennacchio, and many others that have become common property. But the influence of the Iberian peninsula on the contrary was not so strong as to be more than sporadic; the Sicilian and Neapolitan vocabularies alone are more closely akin to Spanish, and this is easily explained on the ground of their political and commercial relations.
As to the Romance languages beyond Europe we have but little to say. There is a distinction to be made between Creole and genuine Romance. Belonging to the latter we have the French of Canada, the Spanish of Central and South America, the Portuguese of the Brazils. Speaking generally we may say that the particular languages retained the form of the language in the 16th and 17th centuries, that is to say that of the time of the immigration, and that they developed along the lines already established. Thus in Mexican Spanish the loss of d, g, between vowels, of s before consonants and as a final, has been carried further than in the mother-country. There are no proved traces of any noticeable influence from the languages of the natives.
Literature.—The real founder of scientific Romance philology and linguistics is Friedrich Diez, in his Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen (3 vols., Bonn, 1836–42), and Etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Sprachen (2 vols., 1852). All questions concerning Romance philology and the historic grammar of the different Romance languages are treated in G. Gröber’s Grundriss der romanischen Philologie (2nd ed., Strassburg, 1906), and in W. Meyer-Lübke’s Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen (4 vols., Leipzig, 1890–1900); Einführung in die romanische Sprachwissenschaft (2nd ed., Heidelberg, 1909). The principal magazines devoted to the subject are Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie (ed. Gröber; since 1877); Zeitschrift für neufranzösische Sprache and Literatur (ed. Behrens; since 1879); Romanische Forschungen (ed. Vollmöller; since 1885); Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen (since 1846); Romania (ed. G. Paris and P. Meyer; since 1812); Archivio glottologico italiano (ed. G. I. Ascoli; since 1873). The great development of Romanic philology after Diez is due principally to A. Tobler, G. Gröber, W. Förster and H. Suchier in Germany; A. Mussafia (d. 1905), H. Schuchardt in Austria; G. Paris (d. 1905), P. Meyer in France; G. I. Ascoli (d. 1907), and F. d’Ovidio in Italy. (W. M.-L.)
ROMAN DE LA ROSE, a French poem dating from the 13th century. The first part was written about 1230 by Guillaume de Lorris (q.v.), whose work formed the starting-point, about forty years later, for the more extensive section written by Jean de Meun (q.v.). Guillaume de Lorris wrote an allegory, possibly of an adventure of his own, which is an artistic and beautiful presentment of the love philosophy of the troubadours. In a dream the Lover visits a park to which he is admitted by Idleness. In the park he finds Pleasure, Delight, Cupid and other personages, and at length the Rose. Welcome grants him permission to kiss the Rose, but he is driven away by Danger, Shame, Scandal, and especially by Jealousy, who entrenches the Rose and imprisons Welcome, leaving the Lover disconsolate. The story, thus left incomplete by its inventor, was finished in 19,000 lines by Jean de Meun, who allows the Lover to win the Rose, but only after a long siege and much discourse from Reason, the Friend, Nature and Genius. In the second part, however, the story is entirely subsidiary to the display of the author’s encyclopaedic knowledge, to picturesque and poetic digressions, and to violent satire in the manner of the fabliaux against the abuse of power, against women, against popular superstition, and against the celibacy of the clergy. The length of the work and its heterogeneous character proved no bar to its enormous popularity in the middle ages, attested by the 200 MSS. of it which have survived.
The Romaunt of the Rose was translated into English by Chaucer (see the prologue to the Legende of Good Women), but the English version of that, extending to about one-third of the whole work, which has come down to us (see an edition by Dr Max Kaluza, Chaucer Society, 1891), is generally admitted to be by another hand. For a list of books on the vexed question of the authorship of the English translation see G. Körting, Grundriss der engl. Lit. (Münster, 1905, 4th ed. p. 184). A Flemish version by Hein van Aken appeared during Jean de Meun’s lifetime, and at the beginning of the 14th century a free imitation, in the form of a series of sonnets, Il Fiore, was written in Italian by the Tuscan poet Durante. Three editions of the Roman de la Rose were printed at Lyons between 1473 and 1490; two by Antoine Verard (Paris, 1490 ? and 1496 ?), by Jean du Pré (Paris, 1493 ?), by Nicholas Desprez for Jean Petit (Paris), by Michel le Noir (Paris, 1509 and 1519). In 1503 Jean Molinet produced a prose version. Marot altered and modernized the text (1526), and his corrections were followed in subsequent editions. Modern editions are by Méon (4 vols., 1813), by Francisque Michel (2 vols., 1864), by Croissandeau (pseudonym for Pierre Marteau), with a translation into modern French (Orleans, 5 vols., 1878–80), and a critical edition by E. Langlois, author of Origines et sources du Roman de la Rose (Paris, 1890). There is a modern English version by F. S. Ellis (Temple Classics, 3 vols., 1900).
ROMAN EMPIRE, LATER. The reign of Constantine the Great forms the most deep-reaching division in the history of Europe. The external continuity is not broken, but the principles which guided society in the Greek and Roman world are replaced by a new order of ideas. The emperor-worship, which expressed a belief in the ideal of the earthly empire of Rome, gives way to Christianity; this is the outward sign that
