Writing and the Administration of Medieval Towns: Medieval Urban Literacy I

Review "...[this volume] represent[s] a remarkable achievement, offering readers a sense of the state of the question regarding important aspects of urban literacy across a vast swath of Europe over a period of three centuries. These essays will be particularly helpful to specialists in medieval history who do not otherwise have access to scholarship in Dutch, Hungarian, and Polish, as well as the Scandinavian languages." --David Bachrach, The Medieval Review Product Description In medieval towns, written statements of law and administration appear more prevalent than in non-urban spaces. Certain urban milieus participating in written culture, however, have been the focus of more scholarship than others. Considering the variety among town dwellers, we may assume that literacy skills differed from one social group to another. This raises several questions: Did attitudes towards the written word result from an experience of the urban educational system? On which levels, and in which registers, did different groups of people have access to writing? The need and the usefulness of written texts may not have been the same for communities and for individuals. In this volume we concentrate on the institutional written records that were most indispensable to communal order, including collections of written law, charters of liberties, and municipal registers.