Reading the Unreadable: Lay Literacy and Negotiation of Text in Anglo-Saxon England

Lectures are free and open to all. Please RSVP before 1 May to Erik Kwakkel
With Dr. Kathryn Lowe (University of Glasgow)
Evidence supplied by records of lawsuits and settlements of disputes during the Anglo-Saxon period demonstrates that laymen were prepared to expend considerable efforts to acquire title-deeds to their estates. But what, if anything, did such laymen actually make of these charters? How readily would a diploma give up its secrets to someone who could neither read nor write? What might the layman make of such a text himself unaided? In the paper, I illustrate changes made to the form of the diploma from the seventh to the eleventh century. I utilise research into print recognition and the grammar of visual design as well as studies such as Paul Saenger’s Space Between Words. The paper, informed by research into print recognition and child literacy acquisition, argues that the developments I identify would have allowed the layman to engage with a charter’s text in an unmediated way, thus facilitating growth of what Michael Clanchy has so memorably called the ‘literate mentality’.