Reading Practices in Europe — part III (Medieval Europe)

polina's blog
Thought Thinkers
Published in
8 min readApr 25, 2024
photo: Jez Timms on unsplash

This is a new post in the series of posts devoted to reading practices in Europe. The next period in turn is the Middle Ages (V — XV century). In this post I will briefly outline the situation with reading in the first two periods of this epoch (the Early Middle Ages and the so called high medieval period, or the Age of scholasticism). Here you can read the previous text, about Ancient Rome.

It is interesting that when getting acquainted with reading practices of the Middle Ages I found out that our modern reading habits have much in common with those which were popular in the medieval times! I think, you will also recognize the similarities.

Let’s go then!

Early Middle Ages
V — X century.

New aim of reading

In the Middle Ages there was an inextricable connection between religious and literary education. It was believed that reading allowed to get closer to God, that one needed to read in order to save his soul. Advanced culture was no longer the privilege of the elite — it became obligatory for all Christians.

Change in the attitude towards the written word

As I wrote in the previous posts, in Antiquity it was aloud reading and recitation that was valued most of all. Silent reading existed as a preparatory stage: it helped better understand the text which was then supposed to be read aloud.

In the Middle Ages this pattern changed. Reading aloud was preserved only in the liturgy.

Since the VI century, people started paying more attention to silent reading. It made possible deeper perception of the text, because it required less physical effort and let the reader think about what he was reading.

This happened due to the change in the attitude towards the written word in the whole. Written speech in the Middle Ages began to be perceived as another manifestation of language, as a separate language with its own «substance» and independent status [1].

The main book

In the Early Middle Ages it was of course the Bible that was considered to be the most important book and actually the book at all. All authors that mention the process of reading the Bible describe it using the verb «ruminatio», which can be translated from Latin as «chewing». It was slow, regular and attentive reading. Many abstracts from the Bible were learnt by heart and some of the sayings of those who devoted their lives to God were constantly reflected on [1].

The Age of Scholasticism
X — XIII century.

This is also the period of the Middle Ages, but the next stage of this long epoch. In the age of scholasticism there happened a total update of the concept of reading.

Manuscript Missel dit de Louis de Male. Photo: Biblithèque Royale, Brussels Belgium

Changes in the models of reading

Between the end of the XI and the beginning of the XIV century a new stage in the history of reading began. Cities were revived, and in the cities there were schools which definitely needed books. The level of literacy increased, the written language developed, the variety of ways books were used and produced diversified. People began to read more and began to read differently. Now it was not enough just to make out the written letters (like in antiquity) — it was necessary to understand the meaning of the text in order to understand the author’s idea [1].

In addition to all this, in the XIII century libraries appeared. They were supposed to function as places for reading, but not just for collecting and storing heritage, as it was before. Library science appeared, which was based on the catalogue. The catalogue was now understood not just as a list, but as a reference tool designed to determine the place of a book in the library [1].

A shift in the organization of the reading process

During the age of scholasticism, enormous changes in the reading culture occurred.

First, it was exactly in this era that the reading was began to be recognized as a process. The process which can not be imagined without specific conditions and circumstances. From the XIII century the ideas of usefulness and convenience of reading begin to prevail over other considerations. From now one people start reading only after special preparation. Before reading they need to get acquainted with techniques that can be used during reading. Formalization of the reading process soon created new demands. For example, the demand to easily find needed abstracts in the text without scrolling through the whole volume [1].

This influenced the ways books were printed: the text began to be divided into parts, paragraphs were numbered, chapters were named, tables of contents and indexes were made.

Second, in the age of scholasticism schools and universities became the main places for reading (while in the Early Middle Ages, reading was concentrated primarily within monastery walls).

Finally, during the era of scholasticism, monastic orders played a special role in the reading process. Although they were not considered to be reading centers already, they participated in the transmission of written culture and the selection of works for reading. Some texts were considered dangerous by the church authorities and were prohibited, while others, on the contrary, were encouraged to be disseminated [1].

The role of the printing press

An event that for sure had a huge impact on reading patterns in this epoch was the advent of movable-type printing press. It was invented in 1440s by Johannes Gutenberg, a German inventor and craftsman. The first book printed on his press was of course the Bible (it is known now as the Gutenberg Bible).

Due to this invention the price of books reduced greatly, the production time of books was also decreased and readers had access to a larger number of books. Moreover, printing made it possible to reproduce texts in a large number of copies, which also changed the conditions of their transmission and perception. This does not mean although that the creation of the printing press itself produced a fundamental revolution in the reading of texts. This revolution lies in the change which happened in the very function of the written text, and this happened in the XII — XIII centuries [1].

Gutenberg Bible (printed in 1450s). Photo: Wikipedia.

This shift consists in the fact, that instead of the monastic model the scholastic model came. The monastic model considered the written text to perform the function of storage and memorization (which is not particularly related to reading itself). While the scholastic model turned the book into an object and instrument of intellectual activity. The difference between being able to read silently and being forced to read aloud is fundamental here. Reading silently establishes a freer internal connection between the text and the reader and makes it possible to read easily and quickly. Thus, the revolution in reading preceded the revolution in the way books were produced [1].

The aim of reading

With all the changes in the reading model which I described earlier the aim of the reading also changed of course. The book was no longer considered to be a course of wisdom The reader’s main goal now was to have a set of «keys» that allowed him to quickly find passages he would use. As a result, reading ceased to be a reference to the original sources: the original text first passed through the hands of the compiler, through the primary selection filter, and only then made it to the reader [1].

Systematic and sequential reading specific to the earlier epochs gave way to fragmentary and fractional reading.

This method of reading made it possible to become familiar with selected passages, but did not require deep analysis of the text. The demand of immediate benefit prevailed over the desire for knowledge [1].

Prioritizing the benefits, not the saved soul

The production of books grew continuously from the XII century onwards. It was necessary to search for reading techniques that would allow the educated reader to become familiar with a larger number of works. Since medieval authors always referred to authorities in their writings (the Bible, the writings of the church fathers and classical authors, etc.), there were anthologies, encyclopedias and collections of quotations compiled, which made it possible to quickly find the necessary passages. These compilations allowed anyone who wanted to rely on authoritative judgments to turn to accessible and organized material. The collections were summarized in short, easy-to-remember phrases of doctrine that was often verbalized in a confusing and incomprehensible way [1].

Thinking and reflection on a book completely gave way to benefit, and this profound shift completely changed the very role of reading.

Collections and anthologies of quotes replaced the use of originals not only in monastic orders, but also in educational institutions: colleges and universities. Even famous authors of the Middle Ages used such tools to quickly get the information they needed [1].

These collections simplified the lives of students who entered the university a lot. At that time, students of all majors had to take a mandatory course at the Faculty of Arts at the beginning of their studies. The texts which were discussed at the classes were incomprehensible for the great number of students due to the insufficient knowledge base acquired at school. Compilations of quotes from philosophers saved students allowing them to become familiar with the philosophical systems, the essence of which they simply could not understand when reading the original works. Compilations also helped professors, because it was easier to teach students a brief and easy-to-remember presentation of the material than to explain for a long time incomprehensible parts of texts from the course [1].

The trend towards simplification began to intensify everywhere, especially at the Faculty of Arts (due to the reasons I outlined in the previous paragraph).

Compilations weaned medieval people from reading original texts.

Moreover, the selection of quotations from the original text was entirely left at the mercy of the compiler. It meant, that compilation often distorted the author’s thought, and those passages that the compiler considered useless were not included in the collection at all. The art of argumentation began to be valued more than deep knowledge of texts which the parties were arguing about. Individual creativity in many cases gave way to texts with an already given internal structure, forced into rigid frameworks and filled with scholastic formulas and expressions [1]. (I think, now you understand why I wrote at the beginning of the text that the reading models of the Middle Ages reminded me of the reading practices we deal with now…).

That is what the situation was like in the Early Middle Ages and in the scholastic epoch. I find each next historical period I write about more and more interesting in terms of the reading patterns it used! Can not wait to reach the modernity, to tell the truth.

The next post will be devoted to the Late Middle Ages. Thank you for reading and stay tuned!

P.

Literature:

  1. Cavallo G., Chartier R. Hitoire de la lecture dans le monde occidental. Moscow, 2008. 544 p.

If you found this post interesting, you can read some of my other texts:

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polina's blog
Thought Thinkers

I am a philologist specializing in Russian literature. I write about reading practices and books' perception. My posts help deeper understand texts and oneself.