Academia in Britain was intimately connected to membership of the church and, thus, to the ability to speak Latin to hold services. It held on beyond that tenure out of both momentum and prestige.
I agree, but latin was the language of the educated in Europe because of the (Catholic) church, and the universities pre-date the C of E by several hundred years.
I was going to answer with just "the church" but the OP specifically asked about academia.
It was the language of the educated because of the Roman Empire. The elites used to study how to be Roman elites before the 5th century, and when Rome fell they just continued, as it was the established sign of higher class. The elite has been educated by Cicero for the last 2 millennia, and continues to be so.
A good analogy is French being the language of the elite in Britain, well after the Normans got merged into the general population.
> and when Rome fell they just continued, as it was the established sign of higher class.
Well not in the west where the elite was replaced by uneducated barbarians for several centuries and it took quite a while for the church to teach them how to read and write again.
Yes, I know. Why the confidence that this contradicts anything I said?
Edit: Re-reading I realise you were reading that as me thinking the books weren't written in Latin, whereas I was trying to get the parent poster to think a bit beyond "the books were written in Latin" to wonder why they might be written in Latin long, long after the fall of the Roman Empire.
> Newton wrote his major work in Latin, for example.
Newton wrote in Latin because he was, famously, an arrogent bellend. The rest of the sensible scientific community had long since swiched to living langauges.
> Why do you think all animal species have a latin name?
Good god! This proves you have _completely_ missed the point!
The reason scientic names are in lattin, is BECAUSE it is a dead language. The scientific name can therefore never be confused with the many local/regional names for a species which will always be in a living langage.
Lol… It's because Linneus wrote in latin (a quick look on wikipedia will confirm)… because he wanted other intellectuals to be able to read his works.
Also your theory fails flat in the entirety of south america, some parts of africa and europe where the "local/regional" names are just… the old latin names still used today.
