In view of the absence of definite and indefinite articles in Latin, why did they develop in the languages which evolved from it?

Answer 1

In a number of ways Latin is an outlier among European languages in its simplicity. The lack of the definite article is one example (another is the relatively small number of tenses). The bottom line is that it is useful for a language to distinguish between "a book" (and old book) and *the* book (one specific book), which is why all of the Romance languages developed it (from ille). Even classical Latin had a sort of circumlocution for this distinction, in its extensive use of “aliquis” (as in “aliquis homo in tavernam ambulat / some guy [= a guy] walks into a bar).