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Oxford's Latin (and legal) language good and bad

In the following notes I disregard the distinction between "v" and "u", which are merely different graphic representations of the same letter of the Latin alphabet. BLD is Black's Law Dictionary, 4th edn., St. Paul, 1961.

The following Latin (or English-Latin) phrases and clauses in Oxford's letters in his own hand are grammatically and otherwise correct:

• praeter spem
• in medio rerum omnium certamine et discrimine
• finis coronat opus
• nemo sit
• wryte [=writ] of elegit
  Comment: Legal term, listed in BLD under "elegit"; Ward, p. 304, deliberately overlooks postscript with this legal term; Fowler, p. 366, transcribes (inaccurately, and changing good Latin to bad) as eligit.
• de bene esse
  de bene esse quantum in nobis est
  de bene esse, quantum in Regina est
  Comment: This expression, in any of its forms, is a standard legal term, listed in BLD (the phrase refers to provisional royal grants); neither Ward nor Fowler transcribes.

The following phrases, by contrast, are seriously defective:

• de benne esse, quantum in nos est
  Comment: Oxford spells "bene" correctly several times (see above); the doubling of the "n" here is a clear error in spelling, in a language for which the rules of spelling were taught in schools and universities. The replacement of "nobis" (see above: ablative correctly following "in") by "nos" (accusative) is an egregious grammatical error and a mis-writing of a legal commonplace.
• leuare facias
  Comment: Fowler transcribes accurately, retaining the incorrect Latin without comment. The correct legal term is "levari facias", as listed in BLD. The difference between the incorrect "levare" and the correct "levari" is the difference between the active and the passive form of the infinitive. This is a distinction taught in first-year Latin and doubtless in any Inns of Court education. Oxford thus has made an error not only in first-year Latin, but in legal Latin.
• fyre facias
  Comment: The correct legal term, listed in BLD (under "facias"), is "fieri facias". Ward, p. 304, deliberately overlooks the postscript with this legal term; Fowler, p. 366, transcribes (inaccurately, but changing bad Latin to good) as "fieri facias". Once again Oxford has incorrectly used the active rather than the passive infinitive. He has compounded the error by writing "y" in place of "ie" in "fieri": not only is this an incorrect spelling, but "y" is not even a letter in the standard Latin alphabet. The only explanation I can think of is that Oxford heard the word "fieri" pronounced in a discussion among lawyers, and attempted to give a phonetic representation of what he heard others speak.
• summum totale
  Comment: The standard medieval and Renaissance Latin for "the sum of all (the foregoing)" is summa totalis, which occurs thousands of times in household and institutional accounts. The correct nominative singular of this feminine noun is "summa"; its plural (not normally used in a situation like this) is "summae" or, in medieval Latin, summe. Oxford treats the noun incorrectly as a neuter singular. He also gets the declension of "totalis" wrong.

Conclusion: Oxford's Latin is extremely puzzling. At best one might argue that his spelling of Latin was as idiosyncratic as his spelling of English, however odd that might sound for a language which normally permitted very small leeway in conventions of spelling. At worst one might argue that although Oxford may have carried some Latin phrases in his head along with their correct spelling, he did not retain the basic grammar lessons of his youth and, like Chaucer's Summoner, could parrot legal phrases which he had overheard but of which he had little expert understanding or knowledge.

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