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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 1758701" data-attributes="member: 151">Well, like I mentioned in another thread, there's a sizable difference between literacy and total illiteracy.  Most tradesman understood enough to do their work, even if they might not need to read a full text of philosophy.  As Henry says, society was much oratorically-based in the medieval period.  The need for literacy was significantly less for the average person.  In the book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393317552/qid=1095255347/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/103-7875430-3060627?v=glance&s=books&n=507846" target="_blank">Guns, Germs and Steel</a>", Jared Diamond mentions some anecdotes of his experiences with South Pacific tribesmen in New Guinea, iirc.  While camping in the jungle, one of the hunters returns with some mushrooms he's just picked, and offers them to Diamond.  Diamond worries out loud that they may not be safe (knowing how some mushrooms can be poisonous, and how many kinds look alike).  The tribesmen are actually insulted and angry, when presented with the idea that they might be so stupid.  Over his time with them, Diamond realizes that while the tribesmen are illiterate and have no written language, they are virtual encyclopedias of the local flora and fauna, able to easily identify literally thousands of different plants and animals.  In short, Diamond realizes that they consider him to be the ignorant one, because he can't even tell a safe mushroom from a poisonous one.  It evaporates any sense of cultural superiority he has, when he realizes that he is as helpless in their world as they are in his.  Fantastic, entertaining book.  Highly recommend it.</blockquote>

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