Transforming the Medieval World
Uses of Pragmatic Literacy in the Middle Ages (A CD-ROM and Book)
Edited by Franz-J Arlinghaus Edited by Marcus Ostermann Edited by Oliver Plessow Edited by Gudrun Tscherpel
When viewed retrospectively, the period between the eleventh and the fifteenth centuries was a phase of European history that was characterized by a radical and fundamental media transformation. Before this time, the vast majority of the population had never encountered the written word in their day-to-day activities. From the beginning of the second millennium, however, texts began to appear in, and influence, almost every sphere of human life. Medieval written texts were subject to revision, copying, embellishments, and deletions; they were read silently and aloud, and they were recited in a variety of contexts. This CD-ROM and book, Transforming the Medieval World, presents these changes dynamically by linking texts and images from this period, and by providing detailed commentaries on each of them. The multimedia environment offered on the CD visualizes these textual transformations and illustrates the adaptability and dynamism of writing and its reception. The uses of writing in this early phase of intensive European literacy are analysed in eleven separate multimedia presentations, which are almost all based on research carried out by the Special Research Unit (SFB) between 1986 and 1999. The CD also contains an anthology of important essays, which provide the user with further reading materials, as well as a general bibliography. The book which accompanies the CD-ROM facilitates the use of the CD itself, and provides the various multimedia presentations in written format. As such, Transforming the Medieval World will be invaluable to both scholars and students interested in medieval literacy.
When viewed retrospectively, the period between the eleventh and the fifteenth centuries was a phase of European history that was characterized by a radical and fundamental media transformation. Before this time, the vast majority of the population had never encountered the written word in their day-to-day activities. From the beginning of the second millennium, however, texts began to appear in, and influence, almost every sphere of human life. Medieval written texts were subject to revision, copying, embellishments, and deletions; they were read silently and aloud, and they were recited in a variety of contexts. This CD-ROM and book, Transforming the Medieval World, presents these changes dynamically by linking texts and images from this period, and by providing detailed commentaries on each of them. The multimedia environment offered on the CD visualizes these textual transformations and illustrates the adaptability and dynamism of writing and its reception. The uses of writing in this early phase of intensive European literacy are analysed in eleven separate multimedia presentations, which are almost all based on research carried out by the Special Research Unit (SFB) between 1986 and 1999. The CD also contains an anthology of important essays, which provide the user with further reading materials, as well as a general bibliography. The book which accompanies the CD-ROM facilitates the use of the CD itself, and provides the various multimedia presentations in written format. As such, Transforming the Medieval World will be invaluable to both scholars and students interested in medieval literacy.
- Edited by Franz-J Arlinghaus
- Edited by Marcus Ostermann
- Edited by Oliver Plessow
- Edited by Gudrun Tscherpel
Other Titles in this Series
Understanding Monastic Practices of Oral Communication (Western Europe, tenth-thirteenth centuries)
Volume 21
Seeing the Invisible in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
Papers from Verbal and Pictorial Imaging: Representing and Accessing Experience of the Invisible, 400-1000 (Utrecht, 11-13 December 2003)
Volume 14
Stilus – modus – usus
Regeln der Konflikt- und Verhandlungsfuhrung am Papsthof des Mittelalters / Rules of Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at the Papal Court in the Middle Ages
Volume 44
The Use of Pragmatic Documents in Medieval Wallachia and Moldavia (Fourteenth to Sixteenth Centuries)
Volume 47
Reading Images and Texts
Medieval Images and Texts as Forms of Communication. Papers from the Third Utrecht Symposium on Medieval Literacy, Utrecht, 7-9 December 2000
Volume 8
Accounts and Accountability in Late Medieval Europe
Records, Procedures, and Socio-Political Impact
Volume 50
Cultures of Religious Reading in the Late Middle Ages
Instructing the Soul, Feeding the Spirit, and Awakening the Passion
Volume 25
Digital Philology and Quantitative Criticism of Medieval Literature
Unconventional Approaches to Medieval Latin Literature II
Volume 49
Spoken and Written Language
Relations between Latin and the Vernacular Languages in the Earlier Middle Ages
Volume 24
The Politics of Memory and Identity in Carolingian Royal Diplomas
The West Frankish Kingdom (840-987)
Volume 19
Ruling the Script in the Middle Ages
Formal Aspects of Written Communication (Books, Charters, and Inscriptions)
Volume 35
Diplomatics in the Netherlands
The Use, Editing, and Study of Charters by Dutch Historians from the Middle Ages to the Present
Volume 63
Epigraphic Literacy and Christian Identity
Modes of Written Discourse in the Newly Christian European North
Volume 4
Sins of the Tongue in the Medieval West
Sinful, Unethical, and Criminal Words in Middle Dutch (1300-1550)
Volume 36
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