Literacy
E. J. Christie
Writing was a defining technology, and the growth of literacy crucial social trajectory, Middle Ages. The study medieval attempts to account for what seems like foundational paradox, that vast majority population in strict sense illiterate yet culture profoundly oriented toward authority written knowledge. In order accommodate this must be understood as more than ability individuals read write. Where writing can thought reading skill, simultaneously names capacity write with varying levels sophistication conceptual ideological ramifications such sophistication; it is complex state which societies depend on or structure themselves around texts, example, by institutionalizing power through records. A literate society thus not only, even necessarily, one preponderance write, but enshrines its laws, conducts business, records history comes therefore evince widespread belief writing.
The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain