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3-05-2015, 23:54

Literacy

Late medieval schooling came in many varieties and levels, affecting men and women differently. Given the complexity it is difficult to draw conclusions as to its impact on medieval literacy levels. This difficulty is compounded by the contested scholarship in the field of literacy, where earlier models drawn from ethnography and historical studies and earlier analytical efforts to tie literacy to a host of social and intellectual conditions have come under serious criticism.61 Any studies of literacy must address the dynamic interconnectedness of literacy, orality and aurality, be highly sensitive to context, and avoid any notion of one mode triumphing over another. In England between 1200 and 1500, the growing acquaintance with texts and with reading and writing was accompanied by and did not necessarily diminish the practice of reading aloud, listening and memorizing.62

Medievalists need to differentiate reading ability from writing competency (a more technically difficult skill) from the propensity to listen to readings (perhaps for interest or in the interest of time rather than because of illiteracy). ‘Reading’ a text might mean, as John of Salisbury put it, ‘the activity of teaching and being taught, or the occupation of studying written things by oneself’.63 In addition, ‘literate’ meant something different in the twelfth century (literate in Latin) than it did in the fifteenth century (when it included French and English); nor was this the same thing as being ‘lettered’ (having elementary knowledge of Latin). ‘Laicus’ implied illiterate earlier in our period, even if ‘clericus’ throughout the period did not necessarily imply a very high level of Latin learning. The widespread use of seals to authenticate documents means that signature literacy is not helpful in estimating medieval literacy. Medievalists also need to differentiate learned literacy from pragmatic literacy (reading or writing in the course of transacting business) from recreational literacy (cultivated reading).64 Except for those with a university education, most individuals read Latin for business or devotional purposes and were undoubtedly more comfortable with the vernacular.

There was, during this period, a dramatic extension of the written word, both in terms of being heard (for example, through preaching or through university lectures) and being read (with increasing numbers of readers and more and more books to read). From 1100 on virtually every English king was literate in Latin as well as French and later English. Aristocrats, perhaps less literate in Latin reading in the twelfth century (and therefore more remarked upon), were normally literate in French literature and French legal discourse by the mid-thirteenth century. Latin learning may have been somewhat less deeply ingrained. But between 1200 and 1500 any study of literacy among aristocratic families must involve the interplay of three languages.

The difference between reading and writing literacies is particularly important for women, where reading was more acceptable than writing. Well-to-do women learned Latin for devotional reading and French and later English; their ability to master Latin grammar was limited. Female interest in books, however, was marked by the end of the middle ages.

As one moves down the social scale, there was a growing need for pragmatic literacy, first among merchants and gentry, then among the higher guilds. Sylvia Thrupp has estimated that 40 per cent of the London merchant class could read by the fourteenth century. By 1500 some husbandmen and artisans could read if not write, although the overall literacy rate probably did not exceed 10-25 per cent of the adult male population.65

In sum, while we cannot directly correlate schools, careers and rising literacy, and remain hampered by insufficient sources and contested categories, it is none the less clear that the educational accomplishments of medieval England were considerable and the expansion of literacy remarkable. Nearly every social class was involved, at some level, whether signing one’s apprenticeship oath, managing an estate, making one’s will, securing a deed, reading for devotional or recreational purposes, entering a religious order, seeking preferment at court or among the aristocracy, becoming a clerk or scrivener, or simply following the divine service. Clearly, reading and writing and the educational means to those ends were of increasing value. As such, the dynamics surrounding the shifting relationship between literate and oral modes of learning, in terms of gender, social mobility, economic resources, and cultural and religious values, are of more than passing interest for our understanding of modernity.