Reading and writing in the Middle Ages

The literacy rate - statistical values ​​and backgrounds

• If you take a purely statistical approach, the statement that the literacy rate was low in the Middle Ages is true. For a balanced assessment of the level of education of certain countries, populations or epochs, it is not just the present ones that are sufficient Counting (Statistics), but it is also necessary to consider the respective backgrounds.
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• Discrimination, social class and migration backgrounds form an important survey factor. So belongs to reading and writing, depending on Culture, also the interpretation of certain signs.
• The views of the Renaissance that medieval people were uneducated, backward or just superstitious need to be clearly corrected.

The Middle Ages as a complex period of development

The development towards reading and writing skills took place in Europe creeping and never one-sided.

• The migration of peoples (late antiquity approx. 375/376) caused a cultural exchange between the peoples (Roman Empire / Germanic peoples), which was partially belligerent, sometimes "humane" led to life changes - including increased reading and Writing skills. In this respect, the Middle Ages must be seen as a complex "developmental unit" of the population, the basis of which is laid out in European antiquity.


An overview of cultural epochs in Europe

Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the modern age - this is how the history of Europe is roughly divided. …

• Mostly the period of antiquity (1200 BC) is mentioned. Chr. - approx. 500 AD Chr.) Seen from the perspective of Greco-Roman development, whose philosophers, authors and architects are more than known. The place that Greco-Roman antiquity in the story occupies is enormous.
• In contrast, the cultures and traditions of the Vikings, Teutons and Normans are difficult to prove historically. The regional, ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity of the Normans is hardly represented in historically verifiable traditions. However, ancient Norse runic inscriptions document Germanic written documents.
• The migration of peoples connects the Greco-Roman late antiquity with the early Middle Ages (500-1050). Some peoples adopted Roman traditions and forms of education, others stuck to Germanic tribal and Maritime rights established, which they in a pragmatically oriented type of education, so with isolated, sometimes pictorial Characters, fixed. In addition to the humanities education of the Romans, the varied agricultural and handicraft self-sufficiency of Germanic peoples is more practice-oriented and not very script-oriented.

Reading and writing were reserved for the clergy

At the beginning of the Early Middle Ages (500-1050) only the clergy could read and write. Not even all nobles understood the Latin scriptures, which were closely linked to the dogmas of the Church, and so the clergy gained a prominent social position.

• Even in the Middle Ages, the leading population was aware that knowledge means power and the ability to act. Knowledge is based on a combination of seeing, hearing, observing, understanding, analyzing, thinking, writing, reading and translating.
• If one of these skills is missing, one is at a disadvantage, but still not uneducated. The popular opinion of the Renaissance that medieval people were fundamentally uneducated because they could neither read nor write is worth discussing. This proves the historical development in the early, high and late Middle Ages.
• While in the early Middle Ages different cultures and types of education (humanities-pragmatic) met, distanced each other until the High Middle Ages the "scholars" of the common people. But the people increasingly demanded educational opportunities and the late Middle Ages finally leveled the "educational ground" for the Renaissance.

In the Middle Ages, the desire to learn to read and write grew

• The clergy built monastery schools for like-minded people who joined or showed ties to the monastery, such as King Clovis, who joined the Catholic faith with his nobility. Only from the 11th The first cathedral schools were established in the 19th century, which were initially aristocratic and later also rich citizens' sons in Latin and taught the mother tongue.
• The High Middle Ages (1000-1250) with its Roman-German Empire is known as the time of knights, crusades and feudal rule. The power of various European empires grew. The population began to promote trade and handicrafts, which required reading and writing skills.
• The monastery schools moved in favor of cathedral schools (Liège, Speyer, Utrecht, Würzburg, Cologne, Hildesheim, Freising, Magdeburg, Bamberg) in the background to give bourgeois sons in reading, writing, arithmetic, Latin and much more instruct.
• A medieval elite developed. Teachers required a license: "Licentia docendi". In Italy the first universities were founded in Padua, Bologna and Siena from 1200 onwards Teachers of the Pope's teaching license (facultas hic et ubique docendi) were required to be heresy impede.
• The first non-clergy teachers taught philosophy in France for a fee. In the late Middle Ages, the bourgeoisie rose and a wider population acquired literacy skills. Ultimately, in this way, not only did the art, science, and philosophy of ancient scholars pave the way, but also more general reading and writing skills of the Renaissance.