A medieval translation of William of Saint-Thierry’s Letter to the Brothers of Mont-Dieu. Early evidence of a learned vernacular

‪This study looks at an early translation (second half of the twelfth century), in the Lorraine dialect, of the ‪‪Letter to the Brothers of Mont-Dieu‪‪ by William of Saint-Thierry. After outlining the main characteristics of contemporary monastic translations, it examines how this spiritual text was transposed into this Romance language by focusing in particular on the translation of the pair of nouns “anima/animus.” It aims to demonstrate the existence, at an early date, of a scholarly vernacular scripturality, which may not have been intended for a secular audience.‪