Toggle Main Menu Toggle Search

Open Access padlockePrints

Language, literacy, and cultural development in early medieval England and Ireland

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Hermann Moisl

Downloads

Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.


Abstract

There is a striking difference in the relative roles of vernacular literacy in early medieval England and Ireland. To judge from the distribution of texts that have survived from both areas Latin was, in England, the dominant language of literacy and written Old English had a circumscribed role, whereas in Ireland the vernacular became an increasingly important language of literacy across a wide range of applications from the later seventh century onwards. The language of religion and the language of the people were, therefore, broadly different in Anglo-Saxon England in the sense that the primary language if the Christian establishment was Latin, but in Ireland Latin had to share its status as the language of religion with the vernacular. The aim of this paper is to suggest how this situation came about, and to attempt to assess its implications for cultural development in these areas.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Moisl HL

Editor(s): Bremer, E; Jarnut, J; Richter, M; Wasserstein, D

Publication type: Book Chapter

Publication status: Published

Book Title: Language of Religion - Language of the People: Medieval Judaism, Christianity and Islam

Year: 2006

Pages: 219-232

Print publication date: 01/03/2007

Edition: 1st

Publisher: Wilhelm Fink Verlag

Place Published: Munich

URL: https://www.fink.de/katalog/titel/978-3-7705-4281-9.html

Library holdings: Search Newcastle University Library for this item

ISBN: 9783770542819


Share