literacy-msg - 2/4/08
Literacy levels in the Middle Ages.
NOTE: See also the files: languages-msg, Latin-msg, universities-msg, apprentices-msg, per-literacy-art.
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This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.
This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org
I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter.
The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors.
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Thank you,
Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous
Stefan at florilegium.org
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From: 00123646 at ysub.ysu.edu
Date: 2 Dec 91 22:18:09 GMT
Organization: Youngstown State University
Now, as to literacy of the masses, perhaps some of you should sit down.
All of the following remarks are based on two references:
H.S. Bennett, English Books & Readers 1475-1557 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1970), pages 19-29, "Chapter II. Literacy"
& Sylvia L. Thrupp, The Merchant Class of Medieval London {1300-1500},
(Ann Arbor ???: The University of Michigan Press, 1948), pages 155-158.
Bennett sums it up well on page 29: "We are forced, therefore, to fall back on
the general impressions left by a study of the period, namely that an ability
to read was to be found in all ranks of society, among both men and women, and
that it was powerfully increased by the products of the printing press and by
the strong religious emotions provoked by the action of Henry VIII and by later
monarchs and their advisers."
It is interesting that on page 27 he refers to an Act of 1543 covering who
could read the English-language Bible, and to whom. For instance, "Noblewomen
and gentlewomen might read it to themselves, but not to others." The reference
to women reading will I am sure be unbelievable to some. Some people forbidden
to read the English-language version were "...serving-men of the rank of yeomen
and under, husbandmen and labourers." Does this prohibition mean that they
had previously been found to read it? Were they allowed to read it in Latin,
and if so, does this indicate that they were able to? There are MANY references
to all classes in Bennett's work, and he gives his sources.
I probably should not make the following reply, without the source in hand.
Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib refers to reading without moving the lips as a
new technique. Indeed it was. Earlier, readers were encouraged to read by
sounding out the words. This led to aural associations, which were important
because, get this, the words in Latin were not separated, and made sense to the
reader only aurally. Once words were separated, it became unnecessary to do
this, as the words no longer needed to be identified by sound.Based on Table
11 on page 157 of Thrupp's work, 40% of London's male "witnesses" (I do not
know the meaning of this word as used here). She states that they are broadly
representative of the city laity. On page 158 she says: "If 40 per cent of the
lay male Londoners of this period could read Latin, it is a fair guess that
some 50 per cent could read English" Note: the list was compiled for 1467-1476.
The reference to "literacy" being equated with "Latin literacy" is quite
important. The Dictionary of the Middle Ages (New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1986), volume 7, Joseph R. Strayer--editor-in-chief, pages 594-602,
discusses literacy under the headings "Literacy, Byzantine" and "Literacy,
Western European". Under the Byzantine heading, pages 594-595 we find:
"In the West, with the possible exception of Italy, literacy -- which demanded
a knowledge of Latin--..." A distinction is made between "high-grade literacy"
requiring Latin, and "functional literacy" which did not.
Bennett describes at least three kinds of schools: ABC's, Petty Schools,
and Grammar Schools. He further state (page 19): "Leach showed, with a wealth
of examples, that the Grammar Schools had a history which stretches back to
Anglo-Saxon times, while in addition many other schools of lesser importance
were in existence throughout the later Middle Ages." He cautions against
the belief that Grammar Schools began in the reign of Edward VI. The ABCs and
the Petty Schools taught the vernacular, and the Grammar Schools taught Latin
only; admission to Grammar School seems to have required vernacular literacy.
I could go on and on. I refer the interested person to the references cited.
Honestly, I had assumed that most people would not have still believed in the
old stories about literacy of the lower classes. The reply posted here was
evidence that many probably still do.
My first posting on all of this was a feeler. I had actually never seen any-
thing solid. But it prompted me to do my own research, as well as ask for help
from all of you, and I came up with a wealth of information.
Perhaps the peasants could indeed read Aretino!!
Lord Godfrey de Shipbrook has written to me email that the Church was the only
place to learn to read and write, and that only the nobility had time enough.
Bennett states on page 24 that "The provision of teaching below the Grammar
School level was one of the many duties assumed FOR THE MOST PART by the
Church." (emphasis mine) This would seem to indicate that others did so also.
One last reference. Lest any think that one needed to have money to learn, let
me quote The Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages, page 71.
A heretic by name of Marguerite Porete is said to have written a book, and then
"...accused of having sent her book to Bishop John of Chalons-sur-Marne and of
propagating it among simple people and beghards." I am assuming that those
"simple people" were NOT well-to-do.
Hopefully this will destroy another SCA stereotype, and encourage research and
documentation of ALL stereotyped beliefs.
Vajk, who LOVES research
From: habura at vccnorthe.its.rpi.edu (Andrea Marie Habura)
Date: 5 Dec 91 13:31:41 GMT
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY
Literacy: Vajk has posted recently on evidence for literacy among the
peasantry in period. A problem I have noticed with the argument is that
nowhere is the word "peasantry" defined, nor is a time period given.
Do we mean everyone below the nobles, including the burghers and the
yeomen? Do we mean tenant farmers? Serfs? Beggars? Must the class have
been continuously literate, or were there gaps?
Did some research yesterday on the topic. (I also discovered a VERY interesting
looking book called "Ancient Literacy". On loan. Until January. Grr.)
Data below is from "Literacy and Society", a collection of papers published
by the Academic Press, Denmark, in 1989.
Patterns of Literacy in Medieval Denmark: (pp.159-170)
Early Danes (circa 8th century) were generally literate in the Runic alphabet.
After this alphabet fell out of use, the common folk, and most nobles,
were illiterate. Royal proclamations would be written in Latin (these survive)
, sent to the communities, translated into the vernacular, and read to the
populace. [This implies that the populace did not understand spoken Latin
and could not read the vernacular.]
There are no surviving records written by or for large landowners (nobles)
prior to 1250. Apparently, the system of feudalism in place at the time
did not require written records.
There are NO private letters extant prior to 1400, written by any individuals.
The only prolific letter-writers prior to the 15th century were the Church
and the Royal administration. There is evidence of this type of correspondence
from 1170. However, there was a shift in pattern around 1400: letters began
being written in Danish or Low German rather than in Latin. (The author notes
that this is relatively late; there are German documents in vernacular from
1240.)
The first lay school in Denmark (i.e., one designed to teach laypeople rather
than clerics) was founded in 1404, in he city of Malmo/. Instruction was
permitted to the children of burghers. (Note: Wealthy merchants. Not "peasants".) There was a general increase in writing by all classes during the
Reformation.
"Reading the Signs at Durham" (pp.170-182)
This article deals with legal documents at Durham Cathedral (in England).
Exhibit 1 is a deed ceding two villages to the Cathedral, mid-12th c. The
individual ceding the land was a knight named Adam, who seems to have been
the son of a stonemason. (Pretty good evidence, since a stonemason would
have known how to read and write if the peasantry did, and his knighted
son certainly should have known.) Adam witnesses the document with a cross
(as do his two sons) and his seal, which shows a mounted knight and has his
name on it. Apparently, this individual, and his immediate descendants,
could not write at all, and very probably could not read the document (it's
in Latin).
A John of Salisbury (a cleric, 1160) is quoted as saying: "Who would demand
of an illiteratus, whose duty it is to know arms rather than letters, that
he should make a literate profession?" I.e., knights in 12th century
England were not expected to be literate, although evidence indicates
that a few of them were.
What it looks like is that there was an explosion in literacy around 1400.
This coincides with several things: introduction of paper (cheaper than
vellum), the end of feudalism, the rise of Protestantism (which stressed
each man reading the Bible for himself), and so on.
Signposts: So, how do we tell what the "common man" is doing? Think about
our own society. We are not universally literate, but everyone is assumed
to be literate unless proven otherwise. This leaves certain traces in our
artifacts and culture, such as:
Widely-available, cheap reading material. Especially interesting is the newspaper. Newspapers and broadsheets are meant to be consumed on a daily basis, by people of all income levels. This presumes near-universal literacy.
Professional authors, who support themselves by book sales, rather than by
patronage. Authors can't make money unless they sell lots of books, or fewer
books at a high price. Lots of books implies lots of buyers, and therefore
lots of readers.
Mass communication is in printed form. We post messages rather than hire a
crier, run personal ads rather than see a matchmaker, and converse
electronically. Our laws are published, not read. Clearly, writing is one of
the communication media of choice, not obligation.
Individuals use writing in their day-to-day lives. Although it isn't necessary
per se, we make shopping lists and keep day-books.
Prevalence of schools. You've got to learn to read somehow, and until recently,
Mom and Dad didn't have time to teach you. Today, every community in the US
has a school, and expects every youngster to undertake advanced instruction
(i.e., up to 12th grade.)
We can look for these signposts in everyday life. When were lay-schools founded? When do written "bookkeeping" records appear? When do people begin writing
letters for pleasure? When are mass-production works like printed books and
broadsheets begun? When do people begin to make a living as an author without
the support of someone else?
Anyone have answers?
Alison MacDermot
From: cav at bmerh364.BNR.CA (Rick Cavasin)
Date: 5 Dec 91 21:56:01 GMT
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd.
Unto Alison MacDermot does Lord Balderik send his greetings.
For some interesting info on personal communications, see
Novgorod the Great, M.W. Thompson Frederick A. Praeger, New York
A large volume of birch bark manuscripts (spanning the middle ages)
have been unearthed in Novgorod. They are mostly 'spent' messages.
They include personal communication between family members, messages
from landowners to overseers, children's lessons and doodles, etc.
The script is an old form of cyrillic.
Regards,
Balderik
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 04:10:46 -0700
From: "Laura C. Minnick" <lcm at jeffnet.org>
Subject: And Literacy... RE: [Sca-cooks] The rotten meat thread
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
At 03:34 AM 4/14/2005, you wrote:
> Please remember that the ability to read and the ability to write are TWO
> DIFFERENT THINGS. Just because a person signed with an 'X' instead of
> his name, doesn't mean he couldn't read a receipt.
Quite true- quickest example to mind is that of Charlemagne, who managed to
read a bit, but couldn't seem to wrap his head around writing any more than
the rough stylization of his name. Given his intelligence in evidence in
other areas, I would suspect some form of dyslexia.
Closer to the question of literacy in the era of our cookbooks: a document
that refers to medieval folk as 'illiterate' may or may not be accurate
according to our modern standards. 'Literacy', to the educated medieval mind, meant the ability to read and write... in Latin. Reading and writing
in the vernacular didn't always meet up to this exalted state. :-/)
Evidence that reading and writing in the vernacular became fairly
widespread exists in a variety of places, from the mundanity of our recipe
books, to the extraordinary event surrounding the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.
Steven Justice discusses the burgeoning vernacular literacy rates in the
14th century in _Writing and Rebellion: England in 1381_ (U of Cal. Press,
Berkeley, 1994). It appears that not as many people could write, but quite
a few could read- enough that smuggled letters (alleged to be written by
John Ball, under several pen names) sent out through the countryside
sparked a groundswell of support for what became the Peasants' Revolt. It
was basically an uprising against taxes, and among the things that the
peasants did (besides burning John of Gaunt's palace- lucky for him he
wasn't home at the time- and murdering the Archbishop of Canterbury) they
broke into local treasury offices and manor houses, and destroyed and/or
burnt legal records and accounting books. Taxes could no longer be
assessed, because the records showing who owed what- were gone. And how did
Jack Straw know which papers to burn when he broke open the exchequer's
desk? Yup- he knew what he was looking for- he could read them. Apparently
(and we know because they didn't get all of them- the rebellion was put
down fairly swiftly) many manorial and exchequer records were being kept in
English, as more people could read English, and fewer civil servants were
fluent in Latin.
Literature was more available in the Vernacular also- Chaucer, Gower,
Langland- and epistolary records show middle class people writing each
other on the most banal of subjects like the weather and the high price of
stockings in London. And you'll notice that our corpus of available
cookbooks in English goes up dramatically too!
The more I read, the more I am amazed at our forebears...
'Lainie
From: Jay Rudin <rudin at ev1.net>
Date: June 13, 2007 10:52:56 AM CDT
To: "Kingdom of Ansteorra - SCA, Inc." <ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Ansteorra] hiding mundane
Ker Megan asked:
> Is that the job that evolved into "clerk"?; as chirurgeons evolved
> into surgeon?
Yup. Clerk (clericus) first meant somebody in minor holy orders, and then
somebody who could read, and finally (mostly post-period) a specific job
title for somebody who kept records.
In England, afer the murder of Thomas a Beckett, "benefit of clergy" was
the right to be tried by the church (which did not hang people) rather than
the state (which did). But it applied to anyone who could read.
Eventually, Henry VII decreed that literate people who were not in holy
orders would only be able to claim benefit of clergy once. The Renaissance
playwright Ben Jonsson got off from a murder charge by claiming benefit of
clergy, even though he was never connected with the church.
The test was always reading Psalms 51 (or 50, depending on the numbering
system). It was the appallingly appropriate "Miserere mei, Deus, secundus
misericordiam tuam" ("O God, have mercy upon me, according to thine
heartfelt mercifulness"). Since it could be used to keep your neck
out of the noose, it came to be known as the "neck-verse".
Robin of Gilwell / Jay Rudin
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