The evidence that medieval PEASANTS could READ! Medieval Misconceptions
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2024
- There is a wealth of evidence indicating that many Medieval Peasants could in fact read and in this video I present some of that evidence to you.
Sources:
Studying Medieval Urban Literacy, A Provisional State of Affairs. 2013:
medievallitera...
Literacy, reading, and writing in the medieval West:
web.archive.or...
Birchbark letters:
www.medievalis...
en.wikipedia.o...
Middle English literature:
www.uni-due.de...
A decent summery article:
medievalcolloqu...
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On the subject of reading. Just finished your book "Shadow of The Conqueror".
I'll give it 5 out of 5 swords. I really like the way every chapter was a part of the letter.. Uhm.. No spoiler :)
The way you worked on how some people was affected by certain actions towards then and the psychological effect it has was great.
Details! The focus on details was great and not to much. It was in a great balance. It had me really immerse into Everfall and felt like you put me in the shoes of Daylen. I didn't need VR glasses to see every scene for me. Every emotion from the characters and feel what they felt.
Really good job! Thank you for your contribution to the literate world!
I want spoilers
We use literary at the end
I just bought "Shadow of the Conqueror". I'm looking forward to reading it.
is there an Ebook version of it?
@@benjamindupaix6425 Yes. I bought it on Amazon. I used Shad's affiliate link from his website to buy it.
www.shadmbrooks.com/books
"What are you doing?"
"I'm writing a letter to my mate".
"But you can't write..."
"That's not a problem. My mate can't read."
Medieval education be like:
😂😂😂😂😂😂
@@Nerdycopia your argument proves that medieval people weren't stupid at all
@@gameoflife9576 that wasn't an argument, that was a joke. this whole "replies" section isn't an argument. if you weren't stupid at all, maybe you would understand that
"ah ha ha, classic Boris"
"Why what does it s- wait this is blank"
"Yeah it's kinda an in-joke"
Wow, imagine being the person whose legacy will forever be remembered in the chronicles of history as "That Russian guy who forgot his shirt that one time."
But did he really get his shirt? Or did the letter get lost before that? Because why was the letter spared if it had already filled its purpose...
@@pRahvi0
Find out next time on dragon ball z
Well it is still much more than vast majority of people living before 19,20 century can say. So I quess he is ok with it. :D
That their names are “Boris” and “Natasha” is mind-blowing to me - I can’t help seeing the two characters from Rocky and Bullwinkle playing this letter out in my mind’s eye...
“Dear Natasja, send man on stallion with a shirt. And watch out for Moose and Squirrel...”
@@pRahvi0 That's the thing - a lot of these letters WERE NOT spared. Half the birch bark messages are found torn because for people these were just notes or drafts of little significance.
Now, for us, these letters are important historical evidence. But people of the time just threw them away upon reading. Or maybe they just made their first attempt at a document on a birch bark. After sketching the text, they rewrote the whole thing on a more expensive parchment and ditched the draft (literally).
By the way, the message was from Boris to NASTASJA. Nastasja is a form of Anastasia, not Natasha (Natalia)
Not medieval, but in line with modern ignorance, one of the dumbest parts of Disney's new Beauty and the Beast was when people objected to Belle teaching a girl to read... Meanwhile at that exact time in history, the original fairytale was published in a quarterly geared for girls. 🙇🏻♀
Well, it's Disney trying to be all woke and such, who cares about reality.
Paris had a high literacy rate. But the peasants at that point were living in abject poverty. They were in a worse state than they were during the Middle Ages.
In the original it was not really her ability to read but more so how into it she was. Constantly with her head in the clouds.
Also in that same time period, wasn't there magazines heavily geared towards women?
If anything, young girls would’ve been ENCOURAGED to read, because it’s one of the courtly arts.
Drink up for Boris, who all the way back in XII century went out shirtless and didn't realize until he was already at work
Vadim stole his tunic, blyat!
Maybe he just needed a clean shirt?
@@DinnerForkTongue I see, you're a comrade of culture as well.
@@stephend50 I'd imagine he accidentally tore a big hole in it on something sharp and wanted a new one. However, the idea of a bear-like Russian man going out into knee deep snow and not realizing he's missing a shirt is hilarious.
What a trooper indeed. He'll be remembered because he got a bit cold due to having forgotten to pack a shirt. 21st century journalists will be remembered because they got a bit chilly in the office in the middle of summer, and blamed the patriarchy.
The lack of spelling standardization is very accurate. I've read, as part of an old English course as a grad student, old English manuscripts where the same author in the same page of the same codex spells the word oþþe ("or") as oþðe, oþþe, and oððe (etc.) using the two variants of "th", thorn (þ) and eth (ð) interchangeably, seemingly in the whim of the moment and possibly for flair. My teacher claimed they valued being able to spell things many different ways rather than knowing one "correct" way. The thing that brought, and brings, standardization, is not literacy or education per se, but the printing press, and then only for practical purposes. And what's happening is usually selecting one dialect out of many (arbitrarily, or the one spoken by the people with the most power and prestige) and using that, which leads people to erroneously believe that that dialect is superior. Even if you use a true one to one sound-to-symbol system, like the IPA, you're going to get variety in how you record words, because there's always variety in how they are spoken. And all languages are always changing - unless they are a dead language.
I wonder whether it was indeed random, or used as a steganographic tool.
Most people don't realize English itself wasn't really standardized until the early 19th century...And even then we have differences between American and British English
I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who said, ‘It’s a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell’
And Shakespeare spelt his name at least 6 different ways!
So its slang
@@muche6321 if I understand what you mean (that the during choices contains a hidden code or message) that'd make for a very interesting fiction book about ancient mysteries buried in medieval manuscripts (I'd write it), but I doubt it serves that purpose in the actual manuscripts. Though early English monks did write some suggestive riddles where the answer seems like it'll be something inappropriate, but the provided answer ends up being "onion" - I was told there's debate on whether the monks were just being cheeky or were actually ignorant of the double entandre.
Rudimentary Latin was also understood by peasants. The bar set for Latin "literacy" in medieval Europe and Britain was pretty high. This was the language of every Sunday Mass, official legal documents, etc., while "literacy" would imply a refined understanding of classical literature and philosophy in Latin.
Pick up St. Augustine's "City of God" in English, and see how far you get with the detailed refutations of various mythologies and philosophies before your head spins. That isn't very easy in your own mother tongue. Now try it in a foreign language...
Well latin has very complex grammar, so i wonder if all they knew were just some common words (like Deus > God) but not actually understanding a full meaning of a sentence...
@@DrTheRich Well, the finer points of the optative subjunctive or the wonderful world of gerunds may pass over many heads...
I'm following a complex formation focusing on literature, history, philosophy, languages and latin, and I work way too much for Latin, and most of the time I have to translate a text I look it up for tips on the Internet and I don't even understand it in my mother tongue, even though it's French which is pretty close to Latin
Also consider that many Europeans (farm more than Britain) still spoke vulgar Latin, which eventually morphed enough to become the Romance languages of today. Also, the Middle Ages are a pretty lengthy period of time, it is apples to cinder blocks to compare the average European literaly of the 500s or 600s to 1200s, so a lot of "middle age statistics" are meaningless, crunching a thousand years into a single contextless value.
@@zacharybrown5325 what language is used for often dictates how easy it is to understand, a lot of technical writing is blunt and straight to the point, with much less figurative language/idiomatic use. From experience It can be far easier reading a scientific paper in a language that you're only vaguely familiar in, than a teenage adventure story.
Technical words often end up being basically identical/loanwords between different languages because there's rarely a word to represent them in the native language. So paradoxically the more abstract it gets, the easier it is to understand. trigonometry-triangle metering, almost understandable.
Bull- Tauros, basically nothing alike.
From friends who've studied classics I'm told that Newton's Principia is remarkably easy to understand compared to something like the bible.
Please bring me a shirt, I forgot a shirt.
hey Shad, I think I have an interesting question concerning medieval warfare: what about the guy with the flag?
The shirt you want is on teespring ... segwey to ad
2. letter seems to be about someone fu**ing other peoples horses and pigs on meadows. As i understood this seems to be the "damage" and disgrace.
That sounds just like something you usually get a text for today during summer-time, especially when working outdoors :-)
In the Byzantine Empire, Muscovy & Kievan Rus, Greek was the most prevalent language when it comes to literacy. In fact it was just as important as Latin in the West.
I had a German teacher in college who was studying some medieval German medical books, and he proved that they knew a very modern emergency medical procedure hundreds of years ago. A pleural effusion (also called water on the lungs) is a condition that happens in heart disease, kidney failure, pnumonia, infections, several other long term problems, and (in the case he was investigating) traumatic chest injuries where the lining (or pleura) between your lungs and the inside of your ribs begins to fill with fluid, which then displaces your lungs and makes it hard or impossible to breath. In modern times, it is a very commonly treated problem, and the treatment is just to jab a needle or a catheter into your chest cavity in between your ribs and drain out the fluid. It was thought to be a relatively modern procedure, invented sometime in the 1800's, but my teacher stumbled across a description of a case where some guy in the middle-late medieval times had been crushed by a runaway cart, and the physicians rushed to save him. And the treatment described in this old text was that he was having trouble breathing, and so they cut a slit in between his ribs and stuck a tube in there to drain out a clear fluid. The amazing thing about this find was that the way it was described made it seem like the physicians knew _exactly_ what they were doing, not like they were just trying whatever to help him. So he started digging into these old German texts, and sure enough he kept finding references to treating "water on the lungs" in this (or a similar enough) way.
Now, remember that a lot of "physicians" back in the day were actually barber and executioners. Physicians were often too expensive for common people, and honestly, a lot of times their methods weren't any better or could actually be worse than what the common folk had access to, depending on when, where, and who it was. So for this to be a common enough procedure for the closest "emergency responders" to perform on the spot means that there must have been a lot of writing going on that we just don't have anymore (not to mention how much of this knowledge was passed down orally). And executioners, especially had to keep pretty detailed and accurate records, since they were operating on behalf of the ruling power/ state.
No, that is totally wrong
@@georgederuiter1412 Copium
Some years ago in Norway they found message on a farm dating from the middle ages. The message stated that they would not be home for dinner.
What was most notable was that it was written with the Fuþark alfabet. They thought that only elites knew how to write, and that the alfabet had been dead for several hundred years.
The hypothesis is that they used Fuþark because unlike the Latin alfabet, Fuþark is design to be carved..
ᚠᚢᚦᚨᚱᚲ is also known as rune.
Could you link something to this? This sounds interesting.
Yes please bring a link
Yo there’s a rune keyboard?
Meanwhile, in the Beauty and the Beast remake people talk trash to Belle for being able to read and teaching another girl to read.
Not like that shitty movie was going for historical accuracy with the agenda it was trying to push, but it still annoyed me
There's no better proof that the peasantry were able to read than in the justice system of the day. Almost all offenses by peasants, with the exception of crimes against the King, were dealt with through courts made up of fellow peasants in the same village... and they kept records of everything, written by a peasant elected by the peasants to hold the position of reeve for a term of 12 months. The reeve of a village received no special education to make them literate, they were simply informed that they were the reeve for the coming year, and were expected to perform their duties accordingly.
Shad needs to make an extensive video _all_ about peasant life.
No that is untrue. The peasants in some regions gave judgment of a fellow peasant, yes. But the judge itself was still a special person in direct service of the king or at least the local lord. And this guy surely was not an ordinary peasant! And the knowledge about law was not in form of a law book which could be bought by everyone. Laws were told again an again to show the public this special law still matters. Your arguments is wrong and the whole argument, that peasantry in Medieval times were literate is just wrong!
@@georgederuiter1412 Cope masonic revisionist
I read somewhere that silent reading used to be an extremely rare skill. I always wondered about that, but if spelling wasn't considered important, it only makes sense that people had to sound out everything they were reading.
Sure. If you write phonetically, you have to read phonetically too!
Shore, tri makin owt wat im ritin rite nou widowt speakn it allowed.
@@keith6706 so glad Italian doesn't have that issue
@Keith not that hard tbh
@@keith6706
Nat difcoolt. Sirilic and Letin lenguajes du it on de deilee.
Hiya Shad: I'm an archaeologist, specializing in the archaeology of the Levant, Lebanon, Coastal Syria, Israel and Jordan, in the Bronze and Iron Ages (roughly 3500-330 BCE). The same argument for limited literacy is still made in that region. But the first evidence for the use of early versions of the Canaanite alphabet, from which all other alphabets are derived, dates to around 2000 BCE, and is found in graffiti left by slaves working in the Egyptian mines in the Sinai Peninsula. By around 1200 BCE there are ostraca, pieces of broken pottery, on which someone was practicing their ABCs in ink. These come not from the towns and palaces, but from villages with a maximum population of 200. They were producing olive oil, which they processed and then sold to the merchants in the towns who sold it on to everyone else, including exporting it to Egypt, where the olive doesn't grow, and they had to keep records of these transactions. For every one potsherd there must have been many other writings on perishable materials which haven't survived. There is a wonderful book about the Nablus region in the 19th century which describes how this social and economic system worked in that period, which is very likely to be the tail end of a tradition going back to 3500 BCE. At the great Judaean city of Lachish there is a massive governor's palace. The steps leading into this building wore out in the Iron Age, and had to be replaced. While they were working on that job, in the ancient Judaean equivalent of a tea break, the masons practiced their ABCs by carving the letters into the soft limestone of the new steps. There were skilled workmen, but by no means highly privileged members of the ruling elite! Everything you say about Medieval literacy in the video rings true to me, not only for the Medieval period, but for all earlier periods after the development and spread of the alphabet in the ancient world. Stick to your guns, and don't let the turkeys get you down!
A minor correction here but not all modern writing systems come from the Proto-Siniatic Script (which is where the Canaanite/Phonecian Abjad came from)- most of them do yes, but Chinese Characters, and the four Japanese scripts all come from the Oracle Bones Script; and Hangul (Korean Writing) was developed by a king and a group of scribes essentially ex-nihilo; there's also the Cherokee Syllabary which was developed by an illiterate man after seeing the concept of writing and wanting to share it with his fellow Cherokee; and the Canadian Aboriginal Syllabic Script which was invented ex-nihilo by some Missionaries.
Beyond that in the ancient world there's the Linear A and B scripts and their relative the Cretan Hieroglyphs and Cyprominoan; plus Cunieform (and its descendent the Ugartic Alphabet), AND Mayan Hieroglyphs.
I hope Boris got his shirt, it can get pretty cold out in Russia
I'd tell you but it's spoilers. Read the epic Ballad of Boris And Natasha
I bet it's the other way, Boris went out in warm clothes, but got too hot working
Just imagine, the fact that you sent a shirt has been written down in history for the rest of time
Imagine forgetting your shirt and have 130 000 people laugh at it 800 years later
@@o00nemesis00o Perhaps a poem about Boris and Natasha could be wrote?
By the way Shad, have you actually read medieval books?
The interesting thing about them is that they seem to have been written in such a way that they are easy to read out loud.
There are a lot of opening lines that go like ' no be still and listen good people.'
Lots of the written ballads, stories and even legal texts are structured as speeches.
The main use of medieval books was to be read out loud for others.
Even when people read to themselves, they read out loud a lot of the time.
However, that doesn't necessarily mean that the listeners couldn't read, but simply that books were often as expensive as houses and therefore had to be shared.
Also, just like today, even back then there were books intended for professors teaching students. We have the same in our school books and nobody thinks the students are illiterate.
@pyropulse you'll have to explain why you think people that read out loud are called idiots.
The most common form of participation in school classrooms is to read text books out loud because it has shown to improve memorization.
When you are writing a song, peom, or speech, it is a good idea to read it out loud or risk making mistakes.
So if smart people read out loud, I guess that makes people who don't the real idiots.
@@shibomi1 I do occasionally read out loud. But I guess I'm an idiot despite getting A's in Economics, Biology, and at least two of my English classes....
The best thing about the Russian letter is actually how relatable it is. Heck, a "Boris" asking a "Natasha" to send guy with tool plus shirt because there's a lot of work to do could easily be a text message written in Russia today.
It's funny how the more you learn about history. The more samey things actually are. For better or worst.
Best channel on TH-cam.
Thanks heaps man, really that means a lot. But Akkad Daily and the Simposeum certainly give me a run for my money ^_^
I've watched this video a couple of time, still didn't expect to find you here.
Woah, Akkad!
"(...)And send a shirt. I forgot a shirt."
This sounds like a fairly modern conversation on any IM.
"Hey Natasja, can you tell someone do drive by and help me out with my work? And let him bring a shirt too" xDD
Exactly. Birchbark was like a messager at that time
"I forgot my shirt and I'm not allowed to enter my workplace without a appropriate clothes."
at least he didn't forget his pants.
@@Poodleinacan actually, yes. That might have been a thing, even.
Nobody commenting on how stereotypical "Boris and Natasja" are?
My medieval English lecturer at uni told us people in the middle ages didn't read silently. Reading silent is a later invention, instead people read out loud. Only the most skilled readers would mumble softly instead of read loudly. This makes reading even easier when everything is spelled out phonetically, as you are basically reading the text to yourself. You read out what it says on auto pilot and interpret what you hear.
Oh and Chaucer etc often wrote for the wealthy merchants who could afford to buy books (very expensive at the time).
While these were technically commoners, it's not exactly fair to list them with peasants, as it was a specific type of elite. After all, some of them were wealthier than many a noble. So the fact that texts were being produced in Middle English, yet the nobility speaking French is not really proof that all commoners could read, just those wealthy enough to buy books.
Your other arguments are very convincing, but that one was slightly off imo.
Although, while I'm at it, the fact that Henry the 5th formalised English as the language of the court means this trend had been going on for a long time at court. It wasn't just a spur of the moment thing, but instead the nobility had gradually been switching to English for generations.
Many people reading the bible verse aloud during the medieval age in their language or dialect
Considering what others have said about spelling being totally unstandardized, that tracks. When something's spelt oddly sometimes the only way to figure it out is to sound it out.
As italian, I can say that pronounciation in english is a nightmare to learn. Why tf do you say "colonel" like "kernel"? It makes no sense whatsoever. I hated learning verbs in italian, we have too many conjugations, but AT LEAST we are consistent with our phonetics lol if I meet an italian word I never read before I know how to read it, while in english I, most often than not, have no idea.
toropazzoide Because the military loves to complicate everything
I think it's partly because pronouncing it like that rolls off the tongue faster. That being said, I would strongly encourage that you pronounce it kol-oh-nell, not only would it be distinguishable from kernel but it arguably adds a bit of exotic flair.
It's because the language formed as a merger of the more Germanic old English spoken by peasants and the French spoken by nobles. We essentially took two languages from two completely different language families and merged them together, then let that hybrid cultivate on an island for several centuries.
Where I can give credit to English is in the grammar. The grammar is super simple.
@@HSuper_Lee Yeah, I know, mine was more a rethoric question XD sometimes it still bugs me a lot tho.
Peasant learn new ability: Reading.
Unlock level 50 to reach the next ability: Writing.
That gave me some heavy Kingdom Come Deliverance flashbacks.
@@malahamavet Romanus eunt domus!
Medieval literacy. Well, even if illiteracy were true at the very beginning I'm sure 300 years is enough to solve that problem. Besides if nobody could read and write in medieval times, who posted all those witcher contracts on the notice board?
And then ofcourse the entire mediaval times where 1000 years, nobody can tell me that during all that time the majority of the people couldn't read and wright in there local language
@@mathewvanlonden8310 Yeah the medieval period is so long that the beginning and the end of it are like night and day. It should be at least separated in three separate periods. From the 12th century on, I think medieval Europe was pretty well developed for the standards of the era: incredible architecture (especially cathedrals), masters of high quality steel, inventions such as the glasses or the mechanical clock, impressive works of literature, and notable mathematicians like Fibonacci for example (or scientists like Bacon). There were downsides too, but overall Europe was more than decent, nothing comparable with the 3 first centuries of the middle ages, before Charlemagne.
What was the point of all those runestones if nobody could read them?
Remember that the English alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet which is based on the Greek alphabet which is based on the Phoenician alphabet, and that word right there is where we get words like phonetic.
The genius of the Phoenician language is that it's a merchant language. If you can sound it out, you can speak it. So if you can get the sounds right, you can communicate.
Also fun fact about Middle English there are no silent letters. All letters in Middle English make a sound in the word.
Knight for example is pronounced Ka-nikt. Aprile is pronounce ah-prilla
Geoff F. „Phonetic“ has nothing to do with „Phoenician“. It derives from „phōné“ = Voice in ancient Greek.
@@ColHoganGer90 I stand corrected. The words were similar and since Phoenecian was the first phonetic alphabet I put it together that way. It's apparently Greek for Purple People.
letter and notes from nobles: "blah blah blah blah"
notes from peasants "bring me a shirt, i forgot my shirt"
I still haven't got my shirt.
I always imagined it like in civil war movies where not necessarily everyone could read but absolutely everyone knew someone that could and would have a buddy read it to them.
And I imagine that, like today, some folks aren't terribly GOOD at it, even if they can. But the idea that it was an uncommon skill is silly.
The biggest non-shocker ever? People needed the ability to read in those societies so yes, people learned it.
Pretty much. The next best would be a discussion on medieval peasants' ability to do basic arithmetic.
@@chiblast100x
Well, everyone can at least count. It does not take much from there on.
@@Ninjaananas Exactly.
"Context is everything." This should be your motto, Shad. Keep those great videos coming. They are informative and interesting.
Hey - I wrote my senior thesis on medieval book production and paleography, and peasants could absolutely read. Many lay families owned a single book (vellum alone cost a pretty penny, let alone the cost of production), which contained their favorite stories/poems, prayers, genealogies, etc. In the margins and flyleaves of these books, you would often find what scholars call marginalia: handwritten poems, prayers, and even medicinal recipes -- confirming that peasants were reader/writers.
There was also a ton of lowbrow humor in medieval literature--a friar tricking a man into praying on the roof while he slept with his wife, a priest convincing a young maiden to put the devil (his penis) back into hell (her vagina)--that would have appealed to the peasant class.
In fact, Chaucer was so special because he wrote from a commoner's perspective in many of his works (although he was born into an emerging middle class in the mid-14th century).
Of course, not every peasant could read, but plenty could -- especially in the late medieval period.
Some potential lessons to learn.
1) You can't dunk on someone with ten minutes of googling (or less) and a single, not very relevant source.
2) It's a bad habit of our time to have an opinion on everything. But if you're not a researcher, academic, or at least an enthusiast, there's no reason for you to have an established opinion on something like medieval European literacy rates! All you really knew was that most academics thought a thing. And even knowing that what we know changes all the time, people still have a habit of not just having unsupported opinions but of also defending them like they're self-worth is somehow tied to them being right.
@@digslicuanan3225 i think some people are too trusting and tend to hold onto trivial information too long in general but good point i didnt factor in the sunken cost of collage
I learned pretty early that everyone is human and are slaves of there emotions and biases it takes effort and constant atention to not be but that level of action is exausting so nobody will always be 100%. Rational and if challenged on an off day they may just double down on stupidity then they will want to defend there actions on priciple and so and such
Edit:what was i saying anyway?
But..but..I have a right to my opinion! WHAA
@Jason Buford Well, actually, everyone has a right to their own opinion...but I was being facetious. Just because you have an opinion on something, doesn't mean it's a worthy opinion, however.
18:39 "English was alot more unrefined, no standardization, spelling and grammar mistakes everywhere, until the poets and writers blazed the trail and evolved and formalized it."
Thank you Shad for finally explaining to me the utility of writers and poets.
when you forgot a shirt and now all world knows
Boris thought he had simply forgotten his shirt, but in reality, he had become a legend.
Not directly within the medieval period, but Martin Luthers graffito in Wittenberg came to my mind. A letter nailed to the church-door WAS ment to been reed by everyone and he was hard on writing in a language onderstood by all (so he choose saxon :P).
There is no agreed upon end date for the Middle Ages, but most agree it is between the late 15th and early 16th century. In Norman Davies' book, "Europe: A History"
, the author places the end date of the Middle Ages on 1517 AD, the exact year Martin Luther published the Ninety-five Theses, so one could say your example is with in the very end of the Middle Ages.
The nailing of these 95 Thesis by Luther is just a nice legend. It never happened!
In addition to parchment and bark, there's also clay and leaves. Half of the Akkadian corpus is stuff like receipts, legal documents and notes, all written on clay tablets. Memorizing cuneiform signs is marginally more difficult than learning 20ish letters in my experience. Palm leaves were used in at least parts of the Indian Sub-continent. I'm not sure about how suited the leaves found in Europe are for writing, but clay is just pretentious dirt. You can even just write on potsherds, they used those for ballots, notes, grocery lists et c. in Greece. The more I think about, the more I start thinking this illiteracy thing is just a modernist and/or Masonic plot.
Not only that. Have you tried running fat or oil over baked clay? It stains nice and visible! Now add a brush or even your finger...
Of course. From beginning to end, it's always the damned paperwork that gets left over.
I think an important point that Shad missed about parchment is that Parchment was frequently reused over and over again until it fell apart. You could wash or scratch the words off of parchment and reuse it several times before it became unusable. One of the ways we have been able to recover a lot of texts in recent years is by using digital and UV/ X-ray imaging to look deeper into scraps of parchment to see the stuff that got erased centuries ago. Sometimes books will have reused parchment with scraps of letters or even other books hidden underneath, and similarly sometimes old letters we have will be from books that had either had a page torn out of them or else had been destroyed (whether on purpose or just through wear) and we can sometime find the old text underneath! It makes sense, if you had a scribe or monk copy a book for you because the old copy had been completely worn out, then you would still have the old one that might be too far gone to be repaired but could still have a good number of sheets of parchment in it that could be reused to send a few letters rather than just getting tossed out.
I must say Shad, I was about to start some rants about medeival literacy on your last video, but then I started some reasearch and I have to thank you for not only 2 informative videos, but also for making me do my own reaserch! And yes, it turns out they could use letters :D
However, this now only raises further questions!
Shad, whenever you post a video, I get so happy because I know I can get through at least part of my morning at work entertained. Thank you for these videos
Many areas also had the custom of marrying daughters to husbands in other villages (also avoided inbreeding) so it seems very unconvincing to assume that families didn't keep in touch via written notes. Or all the kids they sent to the castle to work as servants there - surely they were highly motivated to quickly learn the alphabet so they could keep in touch.
I just love this map 2:15
My country is there (Bulgaria) and it's kinda sad cuz it played kind of a big role in medieval times but nobody talks about it.
Between the fall of Rome, and the Great War, plenty of notable events and cultures took place.
Its unfortunate that Europe frequently get painted with a broad brush.
Plenty of stuff wrong with it though ^^ Like Ireland being fully unified, Or the Normandy word covering Brittany, which by the way probably shouldn't be represented as unified to France, nor should Normandy, who was under English influence for most of that time, then again, 950-1300 is kind of a dumb title to give to that map, cause borders evolved A LOT in that time, but even some of the borders or countries that consistently existed are not there. A very poor job by whoever did this map, which I suspect is a simplified (and partially wrong) one to be used in kids books.
@@gwennblei
Yeah you got a good argument. I guess this map is just a very big oversimplification of what Europe would look like for those 400 years. Like fuck that's a lot of time
@@kylethomas9130
By the brush of english media. Lol
Don’t get mad, but I only know of your country existing in the Medieval Period, because of Basil ‘the Bulgar Slayer’...
This is perfect because I recently made a D&D character who's a peasant. I'm glad to hear my dear Inga can read, but I'm still gonna say her handwriting looks like it was written by a paraplegic blind man.
Oh man, this is the most fascinating of the many videos of yours I have watched! Partly because I'm an aspiring writer for mid-grade readers, and this knocks a common trope of mid-grade novels into a cocked hat! There's still the problem of how a commoner might send a communication some distance, as there was no postal service. They would send it with someone who was going there, especially if the traveler knew who to give it to at the other end. I wonder if that might be a future topic?
The Medieval era gets a lot of hate due to the enlightenment figures dumping on the Church and calling it the dark ages. The reality is the Medieval era is one of the most civilized and interesting periods of history.
True.
Witch hunts were actually more prevalent during the Renaissance, partly due to more established legal systems.
The middle ages were still rather unenlightened in Europe. It came from the ruins of the Roman Empire, the Renaissance was more enlightened and the middle east at that time was also more developed.
But they weren't lacking in everything.
@@Ninjaananas That's what we learn in schools. But it's not really like that. That is thought because with the "enlightenment " era, they tried to erase all good that happened during the middle age.
@@pca1987
It is the truth. Compare our architecture, medicine, science and organization to theirs.
They did not even have aqueducts.
One quibble: there was *absolutely* grammar! Just not *standardized* grammar, with standardized literary forms.
I'm very skeptical, that's why when someone comes with new evidence and a solid argument, I get more than excited.
As a librarian, I really, really loved this! The notes made me laugh. Fantastic vid, man!
As a history grad in the medieval and early modern period. Great video nice to see some actual work, however i would argue that the general historiographical consensus is that the general literacy rate of their native language was probably between 10-50%. A huge difference, but it would depend on a variety of factors locally, a key point to follow is the history of broadsidew. The premise of these were cheap "news" articles, by news this could be from songs of battles, stories of monstrous births etc. People would buy these even if they couldnt read and go to a social event, i.e. pub or village hall, and would share with their companions. One person who could read would read it out and teach people songs etc. Even if only one peasant in the whole community could read, it wouldnt matter nearly as much due to the sharing of information through broadsides
I believe the fact that we have dozens of written languages and dialects that are not Latin should be quite a bit of proof.
From this channel I've learned so much! Especially that the medieval era had many many differences depending on where you live.Thanks for your amazing content keep it up!
Shad: Medieval people could read, here are some sources.
Shad's critics: Those sources won't stop me because I can't read!
🤣🤣🤣 Great comment.
Lol
Too many people do not want to do the reading.....
The sources are not proof, his argument remains shaky extrapolation.
Which xonflicts with hard census statistics from the same areas from 200 years ago, with mandatory education, that still produced 10-20% literacy rates.
Thanks for giving this information, it really is good to break this trope of medieval times.
Also gotta thank you for being so formal with correcting people instead of yelling at them like a lot of the internet likes to do, it's kind of relieving honestly.
Another thing. The most widely produced book in the Netherlands through out the medieval period was a Dutch version of the Bible.
Pretty good evidence for a reasonable rate of literacy.
That's not good evidence for a reasonable rate of literacy. Literacy could be incredibly low and still have the most widely produced book during that period be a Dutch version of the Bible. Just because something is *the most* widely produced, it doesn't mean that it was actually *widely* produced. Moreover, it's expected to be the most widely produced book, because there were institutional reasons for its existence. Priests needed a Bible to hold mass, and using their own language would be easier to learn and more helpful for the preaching.
Taken into account that most of these books were were made to be sold to the public does make it a good point of evidence. These books have mostly been found in private collections, town halls and such.
@@rikremmerswaal2756 Who says they were made to be sold to the public, as opposed to being made primarily for the clergy, with the reading public, such as it was, being secondary?
Also, being found in town halls is not in favor of your interpretation.
sure, if you count post reformation as medieval.
Maybe, but the invention of the printing press and wider availability of vernacular reading materials may have very quickly increased literacy rates. If you can't get hold of anything to read there's less incentive to learn to read. It's not brilliant evidence to suggest high literacy rates were high when the printing press was first invented. They were high enough to support an initaiily small (still fairly labour intensive) production, but no doubt increased rapidly thereafter.
I just watched the first reading video, and let me tell you, it was an eye opener. I’m a retired world history teacher , and in all the textbooks in the many years, it all said most people were completely illiterate. There was absolutely no distinction between the vernacular and Latin. This is blowing my mind, and it’s actually pretty upsetting that textbooks tell this lie. I’m looking forward to this deeper dive.
My ancestor was high noble from Venice. In 1410 he as volunteer fought on Polish side in Battle of Grunwald ( one of biggest medieval battles). In 1430 he moved to Poland permanently. My family since then live in Poland, but still after 600 years we have connection with Venice, and know italian(venetian) language. But the main reason why I told this story, and why I even know this, is that he could read and write. Thanks to him my family at least from 1400 can read and write. Everyone was supposed to read and write notes about their lives in my family. Of course they were nobles, but even not all nobles could read in medieval Europe. It is great. Now my family had hundreds of pages of our ancestors diary's ( diary is best world to describe it, also journal or memory is good). We were mostly fighters- knights, later hussars , then adventurers/ travelers and officers in more modern times, so I could read about many famous wars. It is amazing to see a perspective of my ancestors when they fought on Battle of Vienna 1683( in Polish hussars) , siege of Candia ( volunteer in Venetian army against Ottomans) Napoleonic wars( Napoleon side, in polish army from Warsaw Principality), american civil war ( my grand...grandfather's brother moved to America and bought farm in the South in 1850' and when my grand...grandfather visit him the war started, so both of then went as volunteers to fight from freedom ), I ww (in my family were 2 German Imperial Army capitains - one calvalry, and second fighter pilot, they were my grandgrandfather and his brother ( Poland was participationed, so all poles served in russian,german or austrian army ), and italian capitain, third brother ( we always have connection to Italy, and he liked Italy most), polish- bolshevic war ( Polish side) spanish civil war ( against communists) and and II ww ( Polish army).
And I know all this just because "some person" in 1400' was literrated and he belived that his childs and grandchild must also be. And since then around 30 generations later, we still write diaries/ journals ( ofc mine is really boring, no wars, nothing interesting....) to future generations.
You have no idea how much you've been helping me Shad.
I really enjoyed this vid, the idea of pragmatic, phonetic literacy really resonated with me especially when you said you learn your letters VERY early.
There yet remain two things that need to be discussed about medieval literacy:
1) Literacy among women. Did they or did they not read and write and to what extent? At least some did write because we have their writings (mostly female saints and leaders of nunneries), and obviously when a husband writes on bark to his wife to send a shirt, he expects she will be able to read it.
2) Which rulers were illiterate? Some definitely were, or at least, their tutors complained in writing about how bad they were at their schoolwork.
Well, I'm assuming that Natash'ja in the birch bark he mentioned was a lady, and she would have been able to read the note that was written to her...
I've read a lot into illuminated bibles and found that they were usually owned by the lady and part of a girl's dowry, passed on from mother to daughter just like the castle was passed on to the son. Why would do this if they couldn't read them? Since the custon was also for the bride to move into her husband's family's home, leaving her relatives behind, they'd have had very strong motivation to learn to communicate over a distance to stay in touch with their parents. I'd think that their literacy level was probably quite high (in their native tongue with crazy spelling).
By the same standard, most people today are illiterate. I took Latin in high school, but I couldn't even use it to write a note asking for a shirt. ;)
Pleasus toga eXeXeLsius! There you go. I'm a Roman, you can trust me 😉
The equivalent today is literacy = English literacy
On the other hand, can you write such a note in C++ or Python? ;>)
@@markfergerson2145 It's only a tad more than Hello World
Except those letters weren't written in latin. They were written with cyrillic and in old russian.
My personal favorite example of the non-standard spelling comes from VOC personel records (not Medivel, but close enough), which have several hundred or thousand different ways of spelling, for instance, The Hauge, where may employees came from.
Do you mean The Hague or Den Haag? For some reason the Dutch really liked naming stuff after our own little country. New Amsterdam (now New York) after Amsterdam, New Sealand after "Zeeland", The Hague after Den Haag, some parts of Kaapstad were just names of cities, such as Eindhoven...
Surprised at the ammount of Dutch people in this comment section.
And for the obligatory Dutch meme of preference, this comments section has now been GEKOLONISEERD
My family name has nearly a dozen variants because of non-standardized spelling in late medieval/early modern Scotland
@@janbosch5951 I'm not 100% sure it was The Hauge - I'm going through my pile of VOC articles to find the right one to make sure - but it was certainly a Dutch city with a short name and few syllables. It might have been Hoorn, but Hoorn was a VOC Chamber City, so people joining the Company there probably would have been processed in that city, so I'd expect slightly less variation in the local city name (but that might be wrong).
I loved the first video you did on this. Really shifted my perception of the times and of many fantasy worlds (including my D&D campaign). Thanks for doing a followup!
I really love when Shad takes the time to research and present stuff like this. Takes a lot more time and effort thou!
Framing language and literacy as "for reading" or "for writing" sorta puts ancient Hebrew's lack of vowels in a different light for me right now. It makes it harder to comprehend to compulsive people like me who need to know the exact meaning and pronounciation or I get hung up. But does it actually make it harder? I imagine a person who sees מִדרָשׁ will understand the sense of "school" even without the diacritical marks. In a way, it being harder to read accurately, makes it easier for a universal class of reader to get the sense of what they mean. Actually, in that light, the idea of English speakers using their own judgment to write a word and others being charitable enough to try to understand what they are trying to write, without being grammar nazis about it, feels comfy to me.
Same source you linked tells about written texts in both latin and cyrylica circulating in the city of Vilnius. Meaning there were people at the time, living in far north-eastern Europe, that were literate - in modern understanding of the word, not just reading - in more than one language. Makes sense if you think about it.
Thanks for sharing!! This backs up what I’ve always argued if this subject ever came up. My honors lit and language classes in high school substantiated these claims, as we read many works in middle english and old english. It sounds crazy! Like Simlish almost haha Glad you’re feeling better after your surgery too!
Great video. Very, very enlightening.
10:16am -- Your note sheet with the 'play' on words is absolutely a scream!!
Ironically, that page is something very similar to what was shown to me as a grammar student as part of a dictation exercise. Not only did we have to do the dictation (and hopefully correctly) we also, sometimes had to recite the page out loud as a measure for the teacher to see if, we really understood what she had said and what she had written.
If I can speak to some of your viewers and in support of you (Shad) and your efforts. For anyone who was educated in the parochial / Catholic school tradition we actually got some of this information. What has thrown many people off is the fact that even, in parochial schools today they don't teach a lot of this literacy (background) knowledge and information to our nation's young people. Unfortunately / sadly, most teachers teaching schedule doesn't allow or accommodate the teaching of, 'non-essential' material. Thank you for sharing your own knowledge and information with the masses.
I am British and was learning French in an American college. The teacher was from Normandy and at times her French differed from the French she was teaching but she was completely fluent in bog-standard Froggy. At the end of one of her lessons we were the last two to leave the classroom. She sidled up to me and uttered something along the lines of “oh, what’s it like to everyday day see both our languages butchered’. I actually spoke Cornish dialect English, but the way some of my sentencing was framed she understood it perfectly.
For the longest time I just went with the common "understanding" that peasants were illiterate. It's what I've always been made to believe. This subject is very interesting, thanks for the video
Thank you for the update on latest studies for European literacy in thr high medieval period. I would like to point out that one can never, under no circumstancs, treat all of Europe the same in history, there were huge differences in absolutely everything depending on which region one asks for. The same is true for literacy. It would make sense for the percentage to be different in towns from how high it was in the countryside.
Thanks, Shad! Get better soon!
Thank god you exist dude. Seriously.
You're so important to spread the truth about the medieval period.
I dont know that that title says because i can't read but im sure its great.
People back then just used talk to text, just like us illiterates.
How to explain you...
@@ГригорийПархоменко-б7н use sign language
How did you manage to type this comment if you can't even read? And Carey Hunt, If you are blind how did you even know in the first place that this typed comment was there to be read?
@@nicholauscrawford7903 My really really smart friend Nicholaus wrote it. Like he's so smart you wouldn't believe it. Like so smart.
🗿
I actually recently used the Sewanee Article for an informative presentation several weeks ago, and was inspired to cover the topic by your previous video! Small world, even on the internet it seems!
These commoner notes from history do not disappoint. Would enjoy a whole video of medieval shitposts pls
Thanks for the link to the birch bark letters. I am really looking forward to reading those.
your love for history is inspiring
Shad thank you for the Wonderful video! So glad your feeling better
So happy to see you back on your horse Shad, cant wait to watch this vid, in the comfort of my living room with the fire on.
This is also the reason why English curse words are what they are. They’re just the word in the AngloSaxon language. The aristocracy considered the English language to be more base than French or Latin, which were “purer” languages and therefore base words were from the common tongue.
I actually did a study on the evolution of the English language in my late teens and agree with your assessment Shad.
not all curse words- a good number of them tho. "damn" for example comes from latin *damnum or "damage, loss"
Mister Rioter
Good catch. I wasn’t throwing those out for the effect, but there are a couple that are from other places. English itself borrows from 5 other languages and you can see the evolution of the language due to those that conquered the lands of Britannia and Saxony.
Mister Rioter
Old English was much more guttural and more similar in tone and word to German, and the French language is much more towards the front of the mouth and tongue as Latin was and was considered by the Normans to be much more pleasing to the ear. Hence the reason they looked at English as a barbaric language.
Superb video! Thank you for diving deeper into the topic. From your laugh about the bark notes I would suppose that your recovery is on the good path. If that is true, keep it up, stay positive and healthy.
More people back then knew how to read than now. All people converse with are emojis now.
Emojis themselves are a form of writing. Some people compare them to Kanjis, as they're conceptually very similar
facebook has just become ancient egypt: People writing in symbols on walls and worshipping cats.
@@jackmcslay They're more like hieroglyphs
Honestly I didn't expect to see you here, but I'm pleasantly surprised
@@TechnoMinarchist Hieroglyphs also fall under the same category, ancient chinese writing was pretty similar to hieroglyphs.
I think the point that people were considered to not be able to read, only because they didn’t speak Latin is a very good point, Emperor Friedrich II of Swabia for instance wanted several books to be translated into Sicilian and German, which implies that the majority of people would have been able to at least read in their native language.
As always your videos never disappoint. 👌🏻
13:09 Don't forget papyrus. It was still used in quite the amount, since it was easier to make good quality.
what? what?? a peasant in Enlgnad of the 13th century uses papyrus? What a fucking stupid argument
We're always complaining that "things were better in the past" and then at the same time we also declare ourselves better than those who came before us.
I find the language dynamics of High Medieval England very fascinating. You have this foreign language of the nobility reinforcing their status as foreign conquerors ruling over the local natives, the church who speaks this mysterious dead language of an ancient almost mythological seeming Empire, the language of the common people that is often looked down upon by those higher on the latter but has its own untapped beauty, and the last remnants of an ancient language spoken by the original inhabitants of the land, now only spoken in a small region in the far South West fringes of the Kingdom. Almost feels like fantasy world building. The dynamics between Anglo-Norman French, Medieval Church Latin, Middle English, and Cornish.
Great video. I knew most of this but I have never seen it put together in context like this and it still made me see it in a different light.
Especially the part about reading and writing beeing a different skill rings home with me. I live in germany, I read and write a lot in english and speak polish at home. But the latter I only learned from my mum, so I am actually medival peasant level literate at writing, while reading is no problem at all. The thing is understanding what you read and remembering all the rules to write is a very different level of skill.
Having a latin proficiency certificate from school and very basic skills in french, a few extremely basic understanding of spanish and italien thanks to latin and a few word in japanese I am probably on the equivalent of what most people today would see as the medieval literate person. Now think about how most people on earth today are only literate at their native language (and not even all that good at it if you look at how people write on the internet..) and have very few basics in maybe one additional language. In the poor regions of the world they don't even have that. This is pretty much what you would expect back then.
Another interesting equivalent is your main way of communication today: instant messaging. Most people don't use proper grammar or even emojis or memes. A peasant in the middle ages would use a similar way of communication, it would be the level of literacy they would be capable of. Functional literacy.
An interesting aspect of language in medieval times is how wide spread some languages where through class differences. Latin was the language of education, theology and bureaucracy for most christian countries. French was the language of nobility as far as Poland. At the same time there where many different local languages within a single kingdom, some of which evolved into something else, others surviving until today.
On a side note on this topic: Warhammer 40k has this build in the lore. Here Latin (or their own version of it: High Gothic) still holds basically the same position as in the middle ages. The official common language of the Imperium of Man is Low Gothic (basically english, because every SciFi universe uses the most common language of the readers as the universal language of the universe), used by basically anybody with some kind of education in the everyday live. At the same time the lower classes are using whatever local language they happen to know. So we have the same hierarchy of languages and the same interesting dynamic of literacy. Most people that are literate know Low Gothic while only the intelligentsia uses High Gothic and the lower classes are barely literate, using their own languages that may have very little similarities with any other language.
I could do with just a whole video of reading ancient notes. It also gives a better idea of what everyday life was like than any article or study or so on.
Amazing video!!! Makes me think about the future of our language, seeing that it will be more online and seperated from spoken vowels. In a way, emoticons and all might transform to a bigger, new language.
Correction: you keep seeing there wasn't an established "grammar". I think you mean syntax. You have to have consistent grammar (such as conjugation and conjunctions) in order to speak, let alone write. But syntax is more punctuation, paragraph organization, etc...
Considering that grammar can vary between different dialects of English today, and foreigners often butcher the grammar yet often remain at least somewhat understandable, I don't find grammar being more fluid in the past just like spelling hard to believe at all.
@@WJS774 grammar is generally established in languages to the same degree as vocabulary. There are NO l elements ood language that are 100% established, but grammar and vocabulary are necessary elements of spoken speech, while syntax and spelling are written. The question here is literacy.
this is also-also incorrect! Syntax is an element of grammar, it refers to sentence structure, for example, English is an SVO (subject, verb, object) language that puts adjectives before nouns etc etc etc; punctuation and paragraph organization are just that- punctuation and paragraph organization.
@@misterrioter3575 proper punctuation is certainly an element of syntax
It just aint chief en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntax
You're right that Middle English texts aren't aimed at the aristocracy but it's worth pointing out that most literary works of the time weren't intended to be read like a novel at all. They were intended to be told (or often sung) by a storyteller to a group of people. I'm not disputing what you're saying but I think it's important to distinguish that someone being able to read street signs or short letters doesn't mean they would've had an easy time sitting down with _The Canterbury Tales_ (or wanted to).
The image used in 16:14 while you speak of England is actually a Castillian (Spanish) King. The symbols are the Castle and the Lyon, symbols of Castile.
I believe the term you were looking for is the Phoenician alphabet - itself the origins of the term "phonetically". The Phoenicians (1500-300 BC) were prolific traders throughout the Mediterranean and, as you noted, the nature of their writing system (symbols representing sounds rather than concepts) meant is could be adapted readily regardless of the local dialects.
It's one liability, however, was the lack of vowel symbols - they were simply implied, such as writing "Shdvrsty". The early Greek languages were strongly vowel-centric and, being both ingenious and lazy, they simply adapted Phoenician consonants they didn't use to represent Greek vowels. It is this incarnation - the first two characters being alpha and beta - which gives us the word alphabet.
The origins of the myth of medieval illiteracy is three-fold:
The first is the systemic collapse of the advanced civilizations of the era, the supporting infrastructure of which was necessary to support literature. Without this support, people were more concerned with keeping their families fed than producing written works and what works were created tended to be passed around and reread until they fell apart.
The second is the rise of barbarism in the wake of this collapse, which had a tendency to steal anything they wanted and destroy anything they didn't. As the raiders seldom spoke the languages of the lands they raided, most written works were largely ignored and left to burn and/or rot in their wake.
The third is that paper and papyrus was an extremely valuable commodity to those seeking to create written works. It was quite common practice to separate pages from 'worthless writings', bleach them to remove their current contents, then fill them with their own 'more valuable writings'. Many Renaissance-era books have been analyzed to uncover that they had originally contained entirely different writings from earlier eras.
(In fact, I believe some of Euclid's writings were discovered buried in the pages of a Renaissance-era... er, 'romance novel'.)
As you point out, literacy was actually quite prominent in the medieval period - possibly moreso than today - it is simply the lack or surviving manuscripts from the era which lead to the (faulty) belief that these people were largely illiterate. Given how much of our written work exists only in cyberspace (rather than written), people centuries from now may well look back and presume WE were illiterate buffoons.
The thing with those Russian finds reminds me of the Hadrian's Wall hoard, I think- where they wrote on thin sheets of wood; there's even evidence of exchanges between women, who were among the families of officers- one lady's inviting another to her birthday party in one note.
Shad at 8:30: "Literally, the ROMAN alphabet..."
The board behind him: "Lookie at all these GREEK letters!!!"
Heqanakht was a fairly rich peasant who lived in Egypt around 2000 B.C. who was also working part-time as a soul-priest for a deceased nobleman, so he had to spend months away from home, during the inundation season when fertile land was flooded, and peasants had little to do. He was the head of a large household, which had at least two literate members. How do we know this? Through a remarkable accident, Heqanakht's letters to his family were preserved. The messenger who was supposed to deliver them rested in an empty tomb and accidentally left a whole pack of letters there, and when there was a funeral the next day the letters got sealed inside the tomb and the messenger couldn't come back to retrieve them. So we can read these letters today, 4000 years later, and know a lot about Heqanakht's personal life.
So, if there existed peasants 4000 years ago who could read and write, then it is very reasonable to assume that they also existed 1000 years ago.
The Protestant Reformation and translation of the Bible was further proof that a great many people could read. It wouldn't have been viewed as important to go through the trouble of translating the Bible from Greek/Hebrew (and sometimes Latin) into dozens of native languages if the native speakers couldn't actually read. Instead, we see this being pushed forward as being of utmost importance while the Catholic church cracked down in a bid to retain power (once again, this would be unnecessary if the books couldn't actually be read). Luther didn't nail his 95 Thesis to the Church door because he thought nobody else could read them.
Well yes but the invention of the printing press just prior to the reformation had probably raised levels of literacy considerably. One of the reasons the reformation happened when it did, and not before, was that many more people had access to religious writings and the Bible and could now question them. I don't think the fact that many people could read when the reformation happened is good evidence for literacy throughout the medieval period.
The Reformation took place at the brink of Renaissance, so I wouldn't consider that to be medieval. We are talking about the early 16th century here. And it still has to be proven that his 95 thesis were meant for the public. What is known that it was an addition to a letter to the archbishop of Mainz, written in Latin.
And there was a literacy (as we would define it today) of around 20 % at that time, so a translation of the bible for those who could read (and afford) it still would make sense, even if peasants or farmers couldn't.
Early Bible translations were typically translated from Latin, and sometimes Greek. Rarely did anybody translate from Hebrew before the Modern period.
Shad, glad to see your doing well after your surgery. Cheers!
Fantastic, Shad. People today that are semi-literate operate in the same vein. Glad to see you back🇯🇪
Great points. Literacy is deep an complex even today a person cam read and write and have low literacy for being unable to comprehend properly what is written.
Now show me proof that people today can read. Also dragons.
I can tell you the second. The Komodo Dragon, a massive lizard with an extremely venomous bite. No fire tho.
@Sightless_Seeker Oh god that's even cooler...
@Carey Hunt Eastern dragons hold a pearl of infinite wisdom so technically you're both wrong...
Shad, please do talk about the world building in the Mistborn and the Stormlight series. I see thesse books in the background and I've been dying to hear you talk about them for ages. Sanderson has created masterpieces with his worlds and I could listen for ages to you ranting on about the intricacies of magic systems, character arcs and how to plot your own metal fueled rebellion.
Also I hope you're doing well after the surgery, much love
Your comments on how the birch bark texts humanized people of the past reminded me of a text I read in ancient history class.
It was a letter from a Greek man that had settled in a village in Egypt, and who was complaining against the xenophobia he endured, specifically an old woman throwing a bucket of pee at him.