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Latin Influence on the Norwegian Language 161
specifically vinum de Reno, which appears frequently
as well as the earlier loan, vin. In the field of medicine
we meet technical expressions such as apotecharia and
the names of such Levantine plants and substances as
agrimonia, oleum, fenikulum, centaurea and cipressus,
For arithmetic and chronology Latin is used almost
exclusively.
But otherwise Latin did not gain admittance without
competition from the national language. Norwegian
holds its own pretty well when it is a question of names
for conceptions widespread among the general population.
It is doubtful if more than one example of the
word petea is to be found, for example, for we had, after
all, the Norwegian synonym stykki. In a letter written
about 1310 to Abbot Eirik of Halsna about punishment
for a monk, Bishop Arne writes that "per seetir honom
fulla scriptt ... sva at hann se minzster af allum
brcefirom in capitulo cora et mensa", but a few years
later the same bishop writes to the same abbot to say
that a disobedient monk is to sit farthest out of all the
learned brothers "i kor, i capitulo ok at borde". The
writer has now succeeded in clothing what was undoubtedly
the international legal formula in Norwegian
costume, except for the word capitulum. The reason
for this may be that kapituli, which had been incorporated
into the Norwegian system of inflections, was better
known in the sense of "paragraph" or "chapter" (of a
book) - we see, for example, in the Mariu saga that
capitulurn and kapituli in this sense stand side by side
in many places.
An example which well illustrates this kind of competition
is found in a letter Bishop Audfinn writes to his
colleague Salomon. "Bidium ver mikilegha at per firirlater
oss at ver gatom zei at sinni med mzeire deliberacione
bsetr suarat yoru brefue". But, according to the
Diplomatarium N orvegicum the Latin word has a series
of dots underneath it and has been corrected to