Readin', Writin' and 'Rithmetic
I think most of us have a pretty good grasp on the idea that literacy was not universal in the Middle Ages ... and that it was limited to a small number of people ... but there are some very interesting wrinkles that most people don't know and which can have a considerable impact on how RPGs are run ...
Readin'
Reading was taught by rote - generally from a Psalter (a collection of The Psalms from the Bible) - directly from the (almost universally) single copy of the book that was available for the class and in Latin.
But the actual language (Latin, that is) wasn't taught ... students had glosses (think 'Cliff Notes' or summaries) to explain what the passage(s) was/were about but wouldn't actually know what each word was.
Oh, and they read aloud, often by following the line of text with their finger to keep track - and this was the case even for well-educated people (who presumably knew Latin). There is actually a reason for this, modern investigations have shown that a different part of the brain engages when reading aloud, and makes it easier to read medieval texts - because medieval Texts used Scriptio Continua (i.e. there was no punctuation and no letter spacing between words, not even to indicate where sentences ended or began) and sounding out the letters made it easier to recognise the words!
So, as often as not, people could be deemed 'literate' who could only 'read' texts they were familiar with but might not actually understand the words that made them up in any other context as they might not actually understand Latin, and only understand the text because they had memorised glosses!
And the need to read texts aloud gives at least some excuse for Mages needing to be able to have their hands free and able to speak the words of a spell aloud!
Oh, no chalk, no slates ... no blackboards ... all are much later developments. Some people still used wax tablets and metal or bone styli as the Greeks and Romans had, but even that seems to have been rare.
Writin'
Students were taught to read first.
Writing was taught later - and usually by a separate teacher, often not on the permanent staff, an itinerant Scrivener.
If you're in the education trade you'll know that automaticity (being able to repeat an action or series of actions automatically) takes around three years to achieve ... which is why early-stage students learning writing look so awkward and seem to have to concentrate so much to draw their letters ... and generally do such a poor job of it, though gradually improving ... so that's why modern schools teach reading and writing simultaneously.
So you can probably see what effect the different way of doing this the medievals had would have been ... a lot of supposedly, indeed, a lot of actually, literate people might only be able to read well, and their writing ability might actually be ... rubbish.
'Rithmetic
Despite 'common knowledge' that Arabic Numerals were introduced to Europe in this period, it's another case of something not being entirely true ...
Yes, knowledge of Arabic numerals and positional notation were introduced ... but to an extremely limited audience and were rarely used. Almost everyone still used Roman Numerals ... it's only with the introduction of the Printing Press in the mid 15th century that Arabic numerals spread explosively and displace Roman numerals ... though the latter fight a rearguard action for another century or more.
There's a lot more about medieval literacy, numeracy and general education in the Ars Scholastica chapter in OM2.
I think most of us have a pretty good grasp on the idea that literacy was not universal in the Middle Ages ... and that it was limited to a small number of people ... but there are some very interesting wrinkles that most people don't know and which can have a considerable impact on how RPGs are run ...
Readin'
Reading was taught by rote - generally from a Psalter (a collection of The Psalms from the Bible) - directly from the (almost universally) single copy of the book that was available for the class and in Latin.
But the actual language (Latin, that is) wasn't taught ... students had glosses (think 'Cliff Notes' or summaries) to explain what the passage(s) was/were about but wouldn't actually know what each word was.
Oh, and they read aloud, often by following the line of text with their finger to keep track - and this was the case even for well-educated people (who presumably knew Latin). There is actually a reason for this, modern investigations have shown that a different part of the brain engages when reading aloud, and makes it easier to read medieval texts - because medieval Texts used Scriptio Continua (i.e. there was no punctuation and no letter spacing between words, not even to indicate where sentences ended or began) and sounding out the letters made it easier to recognise the words!
So, as often as not, people could be deemed 'literate' who could only 'read' texts they were familiar with but might not actually understand the words that made them up in any other context as they might not actually understand Latin, and only understand the text because they had memorised glosses!
And the need to read texts aloud gives at least some excuse for Mages needing to be able to have their hands free and able to speak the words of a spell aloud!
Oh, no chalk, no slates ... no blackboards ... all are much later developments. Some people still used wax tablets and metal or bone styli as the Greeks and Romans had, but even that seems to have been rare.
Writin'
Students were taught to read first.
Writing was taught later - and usually by a separate teacher, often not on the permanent staff, an itinerant Scrivener.
If you're in the education trade you'll know that automaticity (being able to repeat an action or series of actions automatically) takes around three years to achieve ... which is why early-stage students learning writing look so awkward and seem to have to concentrate so much to draw their letters ... and generally do such a poor job of it, though gradually improving ... so that's why modern schools teach reading and writing simultaneously.
So you can probably see what effect the different way of doing this the medievals had would have been ... a lot of supposedly, indeed, a lot of actually, literate people might only be able to read well, and their writing ability might actually be ... rubbish.
'Rithmetic
Despite 'common knowledge' that Arabic Numerals were introduced to Europe in this period, it's another case of something not being entirely true ...
Yes, knowledge of Arabic numerals and positional notation were introduced ... but to an extremely limited audience and were rarely used. Almost everyone still used Roman Numerals ... it's only with the introduction of the Printing Press in the mid 15th century that Arabic numerals spread explosively and displace Roman numerals ... though the latter fight a rearguard action for another century or more.
There's a lot more about medieval literacy, numeracy and general education in the Ars Scholastica chapter in OM2.