Father Hunwicke muses on Royal Titles and the use of Latin therein.
From Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment
May she rest in peace and rise in glory. She has been one of the very few people in our public life who actually did what she had undertaken to do.
It seems a long time since, in 1952, our head master summoned the School to tell us that we had a new sovereign. I must confess that in my childish mind, my first thought was "New coins and new stamps!"
I wonder if the next issue of coins will read CAROLUS III or CHARLES III.
'Carolus' might possibly be deemed too puzzling for common folk. After all, for a fair number of decades the coinage has carried a version of the royal name (Elizabeth) which is the same in Latin and English. And what about the Prayers After Sunday Mass?
But giving the name of a Monarch in Latin goes back even to those Iron Age monarchs whose coins circulated in this land before the Roman Conquest. A tradition defended by quite a continuity!
Moi, I'd like to see BRITANNIA return ... last seen on the 50 pence pieces of a couple of decades ago. I think the Stuarts brought her in to grace the backs of their base-metal coinage - but the design goes ultimately back to the Romans.
Of course, nowadays practically no transactions involve actual coins ...
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are subject to deletion if they are not germane. I have no problem with a bit of colourful language, but blasphemy or depraved profanity will not be allowed. Attacks on the Catholic Faith will not be tolerated. Comments will be deleted that are republican (Yanks! Note the lower case 'r'!), attacks on the legitimacy of Pope Leo XIV as the Vicar of Christ, the legitimacy of the House of Windsor or of the claims of the Elder Line of the House of France, or attacks on the legitimacy of any of the currently ruling Houses of Europe.