Late Latin
（重定向自Low Latin）
![](/Images/godic/202501/25/Simone_Martini_0030115.jpg")
![](/Images/godic/202501/25/Map_of_Ancient_Rome_271_AD.svg0115.png")
![St. Gildas, one of a number of Late Latin writers to promulgate an excidium or ruina Britanniae because of moral turpitude.](/Images/godic/202501/25/Statue_St-Gildas_0708_NB10115.jpg")
![Edward Gibbon, English historian who espoused the concept of a decline of the Roman Empire resulting in its fall.](/Images/godic/202501/25/Edward_Gibbon_by_Henry_Walton0115.jpg")
Late Latin is the scholarly name for the written Latin of Late Antiquity. The English dictionary definition of Late Latin dates this period from the 3rd to the 6th centuries AD, extending in the Iberian Peninsula of southwestern Europe to the 7th century. This somewhat ambiguously defined period fits between Classical Latin and Medieval Latin. Although there is no scholarly consensus about exactly when Classical Latin should end, nor exactly when Medieval Latin should begin, Late Latin is characterized (with variations and disputes) by an identifiable style.