On vernacular literacy in late medieval Norway
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Jan Ragnar Hagland
Abstract
For the study of literate people and local administrative literacy in late medieval Norway, a relatively large corpus of charters constitutes practically all the available source material. The present chapter tries to shed some light upon this material and to explore what answers we may deduce from it. Who were the literate people in Norway, apart from a few trained scribes in administrative positions, and to what extent is it possible to unveil literacy on the basis of the source material we have got? These are difficult questions to answer with any precision, but a distinct process of literarization can be observed, which is to say that the situation was less miserable than has traditionally been claimed in Norwegian historiography.
Abstract
For the study of literate people and local administrative literacy in late medieval Norway, a relatively large corpus of charters constitutes practically all the available source material. The present chapter tries to shed some light upon this material and to explore what answers we may deduce from it. Who were the literate people in Norway, apart from a few trained scribes in administrative positions, and to what extent is it possible to unveil literacy on the basis of the source material we have got? These are difficult questions to answer with any precision, but a distinct process of literarization can be observed, which is to say that the situation was less miserable than has traditionally been claimed in Norwegian historiography.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface & Acknowledgments vii
- Editors’ introduction ix
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Part I. The evidence of place-names
- Celts in Scandinavian Scotland and Anglo-Saxon England 3
- The colonisation of England by Germanic tribes on the basis of place-names 23
- Ancient toponyms in south-west Norway 53
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Part II. Code selection in written texts
- On vernacular literacy in late medieval Norway 69
- Four languages, one text type 81
- On variation and change in London medieval mixed-language business documents 99
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Part III. Linguistic developments and contact situations
- Old English–Late British language contact and the English progressive 119
- The Old English origins of the Northern Subject Rule 141
- For Heaven’s sake 169
- North Sea timber trade terminology in the Early Modern period 193
- ‘Nornomania’ in the research on language in the Northern Isles 213
- Index of subjects, terms & languages 231
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface & Acknowledgments vii
- Editors’ introduction ix
-
Part I. The evidence of place-names
- Celts in Scandinavian Scotland and Anglo-Saxon England 3
- The colonisation of England by Germanic tribes on the basis of place-names 23
- Ancient toponyms in south-west Norway 53
-
Part II. Code selection in written texts
- On vernacular literacy in late medieval Norway 69
- Four languages, one text type 81
- On variation and change in London medieval mixed-language business documents 99
-
Part III. Linguistic developments and contact situations
- Old English–Late British language contact and the English progressive 119
- The Old English origins of the Northern Subject Rule 141
- For Heaven’s sake 169
- North Sea timber trade terminology in the Early Modern period 193
- ‘Nornomania’ in the research on language in the Northern Isles 213
- Index of subjects, terms & languages 231
