1.

Record Nr.

UNISA996247891003316

Autore

Stock Brian

Titolo

The implications of literacy : written language and models of interpretation in the eleventh and twelfth centuries / / Brian Stock

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Princeton, New Jersey : , : Princeton University Press, , [1983]

©1983

ISBN

1-4008-1927-X

1-4008-2038-3

Descrizione fisica

x, 604 p. ; ; 25 cm

Disciplina

001.543094

Soggetti

Written communication - Europe - History

Learning and scholarship - History - Medieval, 500-1500

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (pages [533]-576) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- PREFACE -- CONTENTS -- Introduction -- I. ORAL AND WRITTEN -- II. TEXTUAL COMMUNITIES -- III. THE EUCHARIST AND NATURE -- IV. LANGUAGE, TEXTS, AND REALITY -- V. RITUALS, SYMBOLS, AND INTERPRETATIONS -- CONCLUSION -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

This book explores the influence of literacy on eleventh and twelfth-century life and though on social organization, on the criticism of ritual and symbol, on the rise of empirical attitudes, on the relationship between language and reality, and on the broad interaction between ideas and society.Medieval and early modern literacy, Brian Stock argues, did not simply supersede oral discourse but created a new type of interdependence between the oral and the written. If, on the surface, medieval culture was largely oral, texts nonetheless emerged as a reference system both for everyday activities and for giving shape to larger vehicles of interpretation. Even when texts were not actually present, people often acted and behaved as if they were.The book uses methods derived from anthropology, from literary theory, and from historical research, and is divided into five chapters. The first treats the growth and shape of medieval literacy itself. Theo other four look afresh at some of the period's major issues--heresy, reform, the



Eucharistic controversy, the thought of Anselm, Abelard, and St. Bernard, together with the interpretation of contemporary experience--in the light of literacy's development. The study concludes that written language was the chief integrating instrument for diverse cultural achievements.