Writing in Britain and Ireland,c. 400 toc. 800

Abstract

Haec in praesenti iuxta numerum librorum quibus lex diuina scripta est, quinque gentium linguis unam eandemque summae ueritatis et uera sublimitatis scientiam scrutatur et confitetur, Anglorum uidelicet Brettonum Scottorum Pictorum et Latinorum, quae meditatione scripturarum ceteris omnibus est facta communis.At the present time, there are five languages in Britain, just as the divine law is written in five books, all devoted to seeking out and setting forth one and the same kind of wisdom, namely the knowledge of sublime truth and of true sublimity. These are the English, British, Irish, Pictish as well as Latin languages; through the study of the scriptures, Latin is in general use among them all. JMH Smith, CHEMEL Chapter 1 2 identity in exceptionally creative ways which transformed the cultural landscape. As will rapidly become clear, Ireland is deeply implicated in that British story: the purpose of this survey is to sketch the framework for these interconnected literary histories.We should acknowledge at the outset that throughout the centuries covered by this volume, writing was a separate activity from reading, and that writing in the sense of composing meaningful text was often distinct from writing in the sense of crafting the shapes of characters. The vast majority of the population was illiterate, and, of those who could read, even fewer could write. Instead, oral and symbolic communication bound most people to each other, their deities and even their ancestors. Nevertheless, literate modes of communication co-existed with non-written ones: early medieval men and women encountered writing by seeing it around them, marked on the landscape, in Christian books, or in the hands of royal or ecclesiastical officials. They would also have heard it read aloud by priests, bailiffs and sometimes even by kings, yet, unless the writing was in their local language, it would not have been comprehensible without a translator to hand. The written word was thus an elite mode of interaction, not an everyday one. It carried heavy symbolic