Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

V.H. Galbraith. "The Literacy of the Medieval English Kings" (Raleigh Lecture on History, read 10 July, 1935). Proceedings of the British Academy, 21:201-38.

Explains how the tripartite division of medieval society into "those who fought, those who worked, and those who prayed" (201) made literacy the virtually exclusive possession of the clerics and insured that most of lay society was illiterate. Traces the coming of literacy through surviving royal writings or signatures and through the development of the royal charter. Notes that "from 597 [the advent of Augustine] to 1100 it is exceptional for a king to be able to write at all, or to read Latin; in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries kings learn to read Latin but do not (even if they can) write it; in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries they are taught in youth both to read and write Latin, but in fact are far more occupied with French and English" (205-6).
Area: OE, ME, CP