Learn about Latin Discover tips to help you interpret documents written in Latin

efore 1733, the official language of the law in England and Wales was Latin. Records of Manorial Courts, probate documents (although not, usually, the wills themselves), deeds, court and taxation records and many more were customarily written in a form of Latin, known as medieval Latin. For those of you who learnt Latin at school, it’s not quite the same, although knowledge of classical Latin is certainly a good start on the road to reading and understanding these old documents.