Chapter Reading and writing for success: literacy, knowledge and social mobility

Overview & Synopsis

This contribution examines the nexus between literacy and social mobility during the late medieval period. Proceeding from an analysis of autobiographical Italian primary sources, it concentrates on patterns of presentation and self-representation, particularly as they concern education, literacy and participation in literate activities as instruments for the creation of new social identities. The various source materials (e.g. diaries, libri di famiglia, treatises discussing the performance of literate practices, manuscript colophons and probate inventories), are then contextualised within a broader European perspective, specifically with reference to France and the Low Countries.