Could medieval peasants even read the headlines
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Title.
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@Gustav Of course, that wouldn't stop snobbish noblemen from writing up quests in latin.
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@PleegWat I also hate when a manager take over my duties to show off his self-perceived mad skillz and gets in the way of getting the work done.
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@PleegWat said in Things that remind you of WDTWTF members:
Of course, that wouldn't stop snobbish noblemen from writing up quests in latin.
I kinda want this to be a thing in some game. When you walk up to a quest board, some quests are just gibberish because your peasant-ass barbarian character didn't get a 'proper education'.
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[this notice is old, and has clearly been here for some time. It is filled with complex words only a nobleman would understand.]
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@cvi can’t you produce something like this in Disco Elysium?
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@Gustav said in Things that remind you of WDTWTF members:
most medieval peasants could read,Do you have any source/link about that? That sounds quite dubious.
it's just that few of them could write (due to lack of need, and lack of pens) and even fewer knew Latin.
Lack of pens is plain dumb, you can write with anything, from a bit of charcoal or a stick (in reusable wax tablets, which is what e.g. Romans used, or clay ones).
Lack of need to write implies lack of need to read -- what would you read in a world where you can only read what's already written and where there is no process to mass-produce stuff to read? If you're talking about reading e.g. the bible, books were rare-enough that most people wouldn't have one (unless you're not talking "middle ages" but "modern period" or "early modern" at best). If you're assuming some other kind of written material... well for one thing we haven't found much (any?) of it, which is a bad start, and for another if it's "mundane" material (e.g. receipts or letters) then you'd need to be able to write it as well as read it.
Apart from books, the other major source of written text that we have are charts and deeds and decrees, but for one thing they were restricted to something that's not really everyday life (inheritance or the like) and for another I don't think there is much evidence that many people could read them? But I'm interested in hearing about that.
Then again, "medieval peasants" covers more than a thousand years and very varied cultures (even restricting it to Europe, which is the usual implied restriction). So while I've never heard that, say, 9th century French peasants could read, maybe 14th century Polish ones could. I've never heard about it, but maybe.
That said, there definitely is an age where most people can read (a little bit) even if they can't write, and that's when writing becomes commonplace, i.e. the modern period. But that's an age where there is mass-production of written material (printing!), and also a lot of archaeological evidence of various kinds of writing (letters etc.) that imply many people could read it.
I know, I know, funny stuff.
Too late,
/ 
triggered.
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@remi I've also heard it suggested they may not have been able to read but did do basic bookkeeping.
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@remi said in Things that remind you of WDTWTF members:
Lack of need to write implies lack of need to read
Not in a society heavy on reading prayers from Catechism.
(I'd reply to the rest too but FUCK YOU BOOMZILLA!!!)
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@PleegWat stuff like tally sticks is well attested pretty much everywhere in the world since well before the middle ages, and the idea of using symbols (e.g. drawn with charcoal) for that isn't hard to imagine -- I mean, it's hard to come up with the very first time but once the idea floats in the society, you don't need to be able to "read" or "write" to use e.g. simple roman numerals.
So yeah, in that sense, I agree that most people probably could "read" that kind of thing (but note, they could also "write" it! one doesn't really go without the other...).
That's still quite far from any real sort of "reading."
Also, note how in Roman times we have a lot of public inscriptions on e.g. buildings (but also much less official things such as tombs lining the roads). These mostly disappear in medieval times. AFAIK, early medieval sarcophagus (sarcophagii?) don't have much in terms of inscriptions (later, the burial practices change so that muddles things), and there is not much in terms of public inscriptions (at most a couple of names in painting in churches? and barely that...).
(for Roman times, we also have stuff like Pompeii graffitis, that properly attest of common people writing (and thus, we can infer, reading?), but AFAIK this kind of thing disappears in the middle ages?)
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@Gustav said in Things that remind you of WDTWTF members:
@remi said in Things that remind you of WDTWTF members:
Lack of need to write implies lack of need to read
Not in a society heavy on
readingmemorizing prayers from Catechism.(I'd reply to the rest too but FUNNY STUFF!!!)
FTFY. Not an argument.
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@PleegWat that's the difference between white and black people, we didn't rely on the aging brains of our elders to preserve our culture and our religious chants
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@Gustav said in Things that remind you of WDTWTF members:
@remi said in Things that remind you of WDTWTF members:
Lack of need to write implies lack of need to read
Not in a society heavy on reading prayers from Catechism.
I'd say "
WRONG!"I don't think people regularly read their catechism (and/or the bible) before there was mass-production of books (i.e. printing press, i.e. no longer medieval). People can not read and still say their prayers, source: close family who before Vatican 2 learnt by heart their prayers in latin without understanding a word (and with, in hindsight, some funny phonetic misinterpretations). And, again, there is no archaeological trace (that I know of) of "popular" bibles or catechism i.e. what a peasant could be expected that have access to and read.
See also the Carolingian "revolution" of writing and how monks decided to "purify" writing and almost entirely changed it (and how there was many different "writings" before (and after, though less...)). None of that was done with any regard or mentions of ordinary people, which there would have been if they had been in any way expected to be able to read the bible (making sure they say their prayers correctly is one of the rare cases where the rich people did care about what poor people did...).
(I'd reply to the rest too but FUNNY STUFF!!!)
Too late...
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@Gustav said in Things that remind you of WDTWTF members:
@PleegWat I also hate when a manager take over my duties to show off his self-perceived mad skillz and gets in the way of getting the work done.
Way back when (I was fresh out of high school), I was working the grill at a steak place and we were short handed. The district manager stepped in to help. I finally asked (nicely, but firmly) that he stop.
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@remi said in Could medieval peasants even read the headlines:
@Gustav said in Things that remind you of WDTWTF members:
@remi said in Things that remind you of WDTWTF members:
Lack of need to write implies lack of need to read
Not in a society heavy on reading prayers from Catechism.
I'd say "
WRONG!"I don't think people regularly read their catechism (and/or the bible) before there was mass-production of books (i.e. printing press, i.e. no longer medieval). People can not read and still say their prayers, source: close family who before Vatican 2 learnt by heart their prayers in latin without understanding a word (and with, in hindsight, some funny phonetic misinterpretations). And, again, there is no archaeological trace (that I know of) of "popular" bibles or catechism i.e. what a peasant could be expected that have access to and read.
See also the Carolingian "revolution" of writing and how monks decided to "purify" writing and almost entirely changed it (and how there was many different "writings" before (and after, though less...)). None of that was done with any regard or mentions of ordinary people, which there would have been if they had been in any way expected to be able to read the bible (making sure they say their prayers correctly is one of the rare cases where the rich people did care about what poor people did...).
(I'd reply to the rest too but FUNNY STUFF!!!)
Too late...
during the medieval ages, literacy was considered the ability to read and write Latin.
A lot of people could read and write, just not Latin or Greek, and there wasn't really rules to the written language as we interpret it now. The rate of literacy varied greatly with geography and time as well, so it's kinda hard to answer the question of literacy in Europe during the dark ages. But successful families probably carried the ability to read across generations. Books and paper was expensive though, so eh
You're less likely to run into illiterate people today than during the medieval times in Europe at least.
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What if they could read,
but just could not be bothered to do so?
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@BernieTheBernie said in Could medieval peasants even read the headlines:
What if they could read,
but just could not be bothered to do so?
They posted on TDWTF.
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@Carnage again, I've never heard any serious argument saying that, so if you have anything, I'd be interested.
What seems to run counter to this is what I said several times: where is the archaeological evidence for that? If so many people could read & write, even if it's not latin, then where are all the graffitis that we find for other periods (Roman or modern) where such literacy is well attested? There should be a lot of small written inscriptions in castle walls, in house beams, in pottery shards... Are those things really common?
I've never seen much of that, at least in Western Europe, but again "middle ages" covers widely different things, so maybe, say, Northern Europe in the 13th century wasn't like France in the 10th.
(another argument that came back to my memory last night is that IIRC during the Carolingian revolution (or was it later? I'm not sure) there was a clear effort by bishops to ensure priests were properly trained and in particular that they could read, with detailed instructions on how to give them reading tests -- if literacy was so wide-spread, this wouldn't have been such a stressed-upon topic)
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@remi Kids will be kids. Illiteracy is not a bar to crude drawings.
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@PleegWat sure, and there are plenty of medieval graffitis. But just look how few of them contain text -- unless, of course, you stretch the definition of text (in a society that already knows, and uses, "text" in its modern form).
Compare, for example, with Roman graffitis, which almost all contain at least a couple of words.
(searching for "modern graffiti" of course doesn't show what I want, but for example "tudor graffiti" already exhibits waaay more text than "medieval graffiti")
I still don't see much evidence for medieval people being, on average, even superficially literate.
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@remi said in Could medieval peasants even read the headlines:
(for Roman times, we also have stuff like Pompeii graffitis, that properly attest of common people writing (and thus, we can infer, reading?), but AFAIK this kind of thing disappears in the middle ages?)
Don’t forget things like Roman letters:
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@Gurth and a lot of stuff from Roman Egypt also (there's a huge conservation bias here, Egypt is the outlier where a lot of organic material got preserved, but that hints to writing being widespread in the Roman empire). I've got to admit I'm not familiar with the medieval Islamic world (from Syria to Spain?) to have any idea what degree of literacy persisted after the Roman empire.
Graffitis are interesting though because they illustrate the behaviour of the lowest classes. Even a letter is a somewhat formal document, of which the poorest may not have any need, compared to e.g. stuff scribbled on a wall in latrines (everybody needs to go!).
Official inscriptions on public buildings (typically temples/churches but also e.g. castles or milestones) is also IMO a great indicator of how much of the population was expected to be able to read it. Roman buildings very often have e.g. dedications. This disappears in the middle ages (despite buildings (cathedrals!) being heavily decorated, so it's not a lack of means), before making a strong comeback in the modern period.
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@remi said in Could medieval peasants even read the headlines:
Official inscriptions on public buildings (typically temples/churches but also e.g. castles or milestones) is also IMO a great indicator of how much of the population was expected to be able to read it.
The tradition of barbers having a red-and-white pole, or a pawnbroker having three balls, or an inn having a punny graphic on a signboard...
