 The "ars dictandi" was taught in the schools connected with the monasteries and those under ecclesiastical control.For quite a long time all acta were drawn up only in Latin, and as the vernacular languages, in Romance lands, gradually fell away from classical Latin, recourse to ecclesiastics and monks became a matter of necessity.The formularies are of course anything but models of good Latinity; with the exception of the Letters (Variæ) of Cassiodorus, and the St. Gall collection "Sub Salomone", they are written in careless or even barbarous Latin, though it is possible that their wretched "style" is intentional, so as to render them intelligible to the multitude.