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History Forum / General / British History / February 2004Literacy and Kings
The subject of Alfred the Great came up the other day (we do talk about some strange things around this house) and his advocacy of education. But that made me wonder if he, himself was literate. My guess is that he was. But what about other Saxon Kings? Do we know who the last illiterate King was? Is it safe to say all the Kings after William were? What about Harold? I imagine Edward the confessor was. What about the Danish Kings? What about Aethelred or the Edmonds and so on? Who was that last illiterate King? Who was the first literate King? Rod >The subject of Alfred the Great came up the other day (we do talk about some >strange things around this house) and his advocacy of education. But that >made me wonder if he, himself was literate. My guess is that he was. But >what about other Saxon Kings? He was literate both in English (which would have been normal for a ruler of the time) and in Latin (much less common, except among churchmen). >Do we know who the last illiterate King was? Is it safe to say all the >Kings after William were? What about Harold? I imagine Edward the >confessor was. What about the Danish Kings? What about Aethelred or the >Edmonds and so on? > >Who was that last illiterate King? Who was the first literate King? Interesting question, but I suspect the answer is that we would only know if some chronicler happened to mention it. We know about Alfred because he had a reputation for exceptional learning.  SignatureDon Aitken Mail to the addresses given in the headers is no longer being read. To mail me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com". > >The subject of Alfred the Great came up the other day (we do talk about some > >strange things around this house) and his advocacy of education. But that [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > know if some chronicler happened to mention it. We know about Alfred > because he had a reputation for exceptional learning. Bede mentions that King Ceolwulf of Northumbria was highly literate, Ceolwulf resigned his throne in AD 737 and became a monk at Lindisfarne. Cnut had proclamations and charters issued in Latin, I think he could at least sign his name in Latin. Harold's sister Edith, the wife of Edward the Confessor was educated at the monastery of Wilton and could certainly read and write, she also spoke four languages. Jamie >The subject of Alfred the Great came up the other day (we do talk about some >strange things around this house) and his advocacy of education. But that [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > >Rod Perhaps more interestingly, who was the previous last illiterate President? > >The subject of Alfred the Great came up the other day (we do talk about some > >strange things around this house) and his advocacy of education. But that [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > Perhaps more interestingly, who was the previous last illiterate > President? President of what? And why would that be more interesting to members of alt.history.british? Mekon >> >The subject of Alfred the Great came up the other day (we do talk about >some [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > >President of what? New South Wales Shove Ha'penny Association, of course. > And why would that be more interesting to members of >alt.history.british? Beats interminable postings regarding American politics, Anti-Semitic claptrap and all the other bizarre stuff you haven't seen fit to comment on. >The subject of Alfred the Great came up the other day (we do talk about some >strange things around this house) and his advocacy of education. But that >made me wonder if he, himself was literate. My guess is that he was. But >what about other Saxon Kings? >Do we know who the last illiterate King was? Is it safe to say all the >Kings after William were? What about Harold? I imagine Edward the >confessor was. What about the Danish Kings? What about Aethelred or the >Edmonds and so on? >Who was that last illiterate King? Who was the first literate King? It is very hard to know. The word "literate" meant, to the medievals, an ability to read and write Latin. We have evidence that, in Saxon England, far more folks could read the vernacular than could read Latin. The Lindesfarne Gospels are not the only book in Latin with an interlinated vernacular translation. On the other hand, writing was an art form. Forming a word with a quill pen in a legible (to others) manner took some artistic skill and many dips of the feather (a truly lousy writing implement...) Thus while there some evidence that Alfred wrote books, that shows little of other kings. A while back the notion that practically everyone was illiterate (in the modern sense of the word) but clerics, at least up to the 1100s or 1200s or some such date. On the other hand, having to depend on other, perhaps unreliable folks to read your secret correspondence to you seems a bit unlikely. We know that the French nobility was educated. Louis the Fat famously went to school at St. Denis and so did many other children of the later kings. It would be strange if the English royals did not do the same. As for the first provable one, I think that I've read that Henry I, during his poor days as the landless third son, wrote his own letters. But I'd guess that Harold and his predecessor, Edward the Confessor, were also literate. Can't be sure about William. He spent his childhood trying to stay alive. But I'd suspect his children were literate too. I can't prove most of that, but it is my slightly educated opinion. ---- Paul J. Gans >>The subject of Alfred the Great came up the other day (we do talk about some >>strange things around this house) and his advocacy of education. But that [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] >Gospels are not the only book in Latin with an interlinated >vernacular translation. It's not certain whether A-S spelling was exactly phonetic but it was clearly much, much more so than modern English. This would have made it relatively easy for those with access to writing to achieve some level of literacy in the vernacular. I doubt if many kings were completely illiterate in the modern sense. SignaturePhil C. > It's not certain whether A-S spelling was exactly phonetic but it was > clearly much, much more so than modern English. This would have made > it relatively easy for those with access to writing to achieve some > level of literacy in the vernacular. I doubt if many kings were > completely illiterate in the modern sense. Which makes me wonder about "The Venacular". Under let's say Knute how did the Danes and the Saxons communicate? What was "The Venacular" under the Danes? For that matter what, about the Celts and the early Saxons? With the highly educated I suppose Latin was the common denominator but that's not venacular to anybody but the Romans. Rod >> It's not certain whether A-S spelling was exactly phonetic but it was >> clearly much, much more so than modern English. This would have made [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >the Danes and the Saxons communicate? What was "The Venacular" under the >Danes? It's claimed that A-S and Danish were _reasonably_ mutually intelligible - they came from the same area. This is put forward as the reason why English began to simplify and lose its irregularities. The essentials of the two languages were similar but the fine points had diverged and became a hindrance. It also seems to be the reason why the two languages merged in areas of Danish settlement rather than one displacing the other. Very different languages don't tend to merge grammatically except perhaps in specialised circumstances such as border dialects. I suspect, though, that mutual intelligibility would have taken some practice in a mainly illiterate society. It's much easier to make sense of a related language when it's written and you have time to reflect than it is to decode spoken babble. Even one's own language can be almost unintelligible if spoken with a very thick accent. SignaturePhil C. On 24 Feb 2004, Phil C. wrote -snip- > I suspect, though, that mutual intelligibility would have taken > some practice in a mainly illiterate society. It's much easier to > make sense of a related language when it's written and you have > time to reflect than it is to decode spoken babble. Even one's own > language can be almost unintelligible if spoken with a very thick > accent. With respect, though, that sounds like a conclusion drawn almost exclusively from modern culture -- a culture which relies strongly on written/recorded language. Can we be so certain that this is inherent, and dthat it would also be the case for societies which are almost exclusively oral? I suspect our abilities to decode marginal speech are much cruder than those of oral cultures: for such a culture, what we perceive as "spoken babble" might well fall into the category of "strongly accented but far from unintelligible". SignatureCheers, Harvey For e-mail, change harvey to whhvs. >On 24 Feb 2004, Phil C. wrote > [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] >"spoken babble" might well fall into the category of "strongly accented >but far from unintelligible". I wonder (speculatively) if it's actually the other way round - that the high degree of mutual intelligibility assumed by some modern scholars is based on the written similarity of the languages rather than the realities of a speech-based society. The absolute advantages of translating a written language are clarity of what is to be translated and time to ponder - the spoken word disappears into the ether. A-S and Norse had quite a lot of differences - hence the large importation of new vocabulary. Those familiar with hearing a variety of spoken dialects/accents might have had skills that we now lack but I wonder how common that would have been among the A-S folk newly mingling with Norse settlers. I suspect many would scarcely have heard any speech but that of their own locality. SignaturePhil C. >> It's not certain whether A-S spelling was exactly phonetic but it was >> clearly much, much more so than modern English. This would have made >> it relatively easy for those with access to writing to achieve some >> level of literacy in the vernacular. I doubt if many kings were >> completely illiterate in the modern sense. >Which makes me wonder about "The Venacular". Under let's say Knute how did >the Danes and the Saxons communicate? What was "The Venacular" under the >Danes? For that matter what, about the Celts and the early Saxons? >With the highly educated I suppose Latin was the common denominator but >that's not venacular to anybody but the Romans. As far as I know most non-peasants during the entire medieval period found it necessary to speak several languages. The early medieval period was a time of orality. Folks trained their memories (there are a number of studies of this) and were fairly quick at picking up things that relied in major part on memory, such as language. Even more interesting was the schoolboy arithmetic problems of some complexity that were worked in their heads. Doing paper and pencil work (in their case wax tablet and stylus work) was not easy given Roman numerals. One of the very major advantages of a positional number system of the sort we use now is that it lends itself to paper and pencil working. Anyway, byways aside, it is very likely that Knut and company could well communicate with the Saxon nobility. And likely not in Latin. ---- Paul J. Gans > Even more interesting was the schoolboy arithmetic problems of some > complexity that were worked in their heads. Doing paper and pencil work > (in their case wax tablet and stylus work) was not easy given Roman > numerals. There are still kids who need to complete arithmetic in their heads. I encountered one who couldn't do long multiplication because the intermediate steps didn't make sense to him. After I'd taught him to multiply two 4-digit numbers in his head in one step he was quite happy and (probably) went on to appreciate the multi-step version. I also had a maths lecturer atv college who took the process one step further and read two six-digit numbers on the way to college [put 2 car number plates together for one number and repeat for the second number] remembered the two numbers and worked out the answer in his head - writing all 3 numbers on the board on arrival at college and asking us to check them. No I don't believe he cheated and traffic was *much* lighter in those days. ;-) SignatureJohn Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 Qercus magazine & FD Games www.finnybank.com www.acornuser.com Qercus - a fusion of Acorn Publisher & Acorn User magazines > On the other hand, writing was an art form. Forming a word with a quill > pen in a legible (to others) manner took some artistic skill and many > dips of the feather (a truly lousy writing implement...) Did you never have to write with a steel dip pen into an inkwell of school ink liberally stuffed with blotting paper and goodness knows what? I can't believe quill pens were *any* worse. ;-) SignatureJohn Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 Qercus magazine & FD Games www.finnybank.com www.acornuser.com Qercus - a fusion of Acorn Publisher & Acorn User magazines > > On the other hand, writing was an art form. Forming a word with a quill > > pen in a legible (to others) manner took some artistic skill and many [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > ink liberally stuffed with blotting paper and goodness knows what? I can't > believe quill pens were *any* worse. ;-) Yep! For some reason I still have a page of 'handwriting test' that I did at about the age of 6 with one of those xxxxxx things. The effects were so bad, they must have been massively allowed for, 'cos I passed! Surreyman >> On the other hand, writing was an art form. Forming a word with a quill >> pen in a legible (to others) manner took some artistic skill and many >> dips of the feather (a truly lousy writing implement...) >Did you never have to write with a steel dip pen into an inkwell of school >ink liberally stuffed with blotting paper and goodness knows what? I can't >believe quill pens were *any* worse. ;-) Actually I did. But they were worse, which is why steel dip pens replaced them. Seriously. ---- Paul J. Gans >> On the other hand, writing was an art form. Forming a word with a quill >> pen in a legible (to others) manner took some artistic skill and many [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >ink liberally stuffed with blotting paper and goodness knows what? I can't >believe quill pens were *any* worse. ;-) We had an hour a week of that in the first year of secondary school. There was never a lesson where I got more ink on the paper than I did on me. In other lessons (except maths) we had to use a (bladder-type) fountain pen, which at least kept me more or less clean. Liz > >> On the other hand, writing was an art form. Forming a word with a > >> quill pen in a legible (to others) manner took some artistic skill [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > >school ink liberally stuffed with blotting paper and goodness knows > >what? I can't believe quill pens were *any* worse. ;-) > We had an hour a week of that in the first year of secondary school. > There was never a lesson where I got more ink on the paper than I did on > me. In other lessons (except maths) we had to use a (bladder-type) > fountain pen, which at least kept me more or less clean. We used pencil in the infants, dip pen in the juniors and fountain pen at secondary school. Thereafter ball points and bad writing took over. ;-( SignatureJohn Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 Qercus magazine & FD Games www.finnybank.com www.acornuser.com Qercus - a fusion of Acorn Publisher & Acorn User magazines > The subject of Alfred the Great came up the other day (we do talk about > some strange things around this house) and his advocacy of education. > But that made me wonder if he, himself was literate. My guess is that > he was. But what about other Saxon Kings? I always understood that he was illiterate. SignatureJohn Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 Qercus magazine & FD Games www.finnybank.com www.acornuser.com Qercus - a fusion of Acorn Publisher & Acorn User magazines F.Stenton "Anglo Saxon England" p.271/2/3 "his unique importance in the history of English letters.." "It is clear that he had a natural intellectual curiosity, which was stimulated by the extraordinary experience of two journeys to Rome undertaken before the age of seven." Stenton notes that in 853 Pope Leo invested him with honorary dignity of a Roman Consul. He may have been illiterate, but circumstantial evidence supports the opposite. Thur > > The subject of Alfred the Great came up the other day (we do talk about > > some strange things around this house) and his advocacy of education. > > But that made me wonder if he, himself was literate. My guess is that > > he was. But what about other Saxon Kings? > > I always understood that he was illiterate. > > The subject of Alfred the Great came up the other day (we do talk about > > some strange things around this house) and his advocacy of education. > > But that made me wonder if he, himself was literate. My guess is that > > he was. But what about other Saxon Kings? > > I always understood that he was illiterate. Why did you think he was illiterate John?. Alfred's translation of Gregory the Great's 'Pastoral Care' into English is the most famous I think. Some say he learnt to read and write at the age of 38, I'm pretty certain Asser says he learnt as a child. http://virtual.park.uga.edu/~mathelie/mathv3.html#beowulf ÆLFRED, (King) King Ælfred of Wessex. King Alfred's Boethius. [with 'prose Boethius'] John W. Sedgefield, ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1899. -------. Alfred's Metres of Boethius. Bill Griffiths, ed. Pinner (Middlesex, England): Anglo-Saxon Books, 1991. -------. King Alfred's Version of St. Augustine's Soliloquies. Thomas A. Carnicelli, ed. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1969. [reprinted, San Jose (California), New York, Lincoln (Nebraska) & Shanghai (China): toExcel, 1999]. Jamie > Why did you think he was illiterate John?. Myth. It's one of those things I was told a a child and I've never studied the period at a time when you might reasonably expect the truth. One of the reasons a made the statement... > Alfred's translation of Gregory the Great's 'Pastoral Care' into English > is the most famous I think. Some say he learnt to read and write at the > age of 38, I'm pretty certain Asser says he learnt as a child. > http://virtual.park.uga.edu/~mathelie/mathv3.html#beowulf ...was in hope that I'd get someone to confirm or denay the myth. many thanks! SignatureJohn Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 Qercus magazine & FD Games www.finnybank.com www.acornuser.com Qercus - a fusion of Acorn Publisher & Acorn User magazines |
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