The Written Word: from Domesday Book to Caxton

Abstract

It was in the middle ages that the foundations of modern literacy were laid. Medieval people were fascinated by the power of writing and harnessed it to a variety of purposes. In remote island monasteries, like Lindisfarne and Iona, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon monks had pioneered the writing of illuminated texts of the scripture. The Anglo-Saxons had also used writing for more ordinary purposes like recording the boundaries of property in charters. After the Norman Conquest these traditions continued and extended: skills in literacy spread from monks and royal clerks to knights and their ladies, merchants and artisans, and even to some peasants. By the time Caxton introduced printing to England in the 1470s, perhaps as much as half the population could read. How had this been achieved, and what did it signify?