Literacy and urban society: scribes in the early medieval city

Keywords: Scribes, Prosopography, Urban history, Literacy, Kingdom of Leon

Abstract

In recent years, the uses of literacy have become an increasingly important research topic in studies concerning the early medieval kingdom of Leon. However, the social history of scribes has been a largely disregarded topic, especially regarding those who lived and worked not as members of the itinerant royal court or as monks in some great monastery, but as local scribes. In particular, urban scribes, who produced hundreds of documents concerning northwestern Spain in the Early Middle Ages, have been mostly ignored to this day. This paper shall focus on the cases of León, Oviedo and Astorga in order to show how scribes living and working in cities were relevant members of the urban societies of the time.

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Published
2021-04-13
How to Cite
González González R. (2021). Literacy and urban society: scribes in the early medieval city. En la España Medieval, 44, 193-235. https://doi.org/10.5209/elem.75420
Section
Articles