Dr. Harrington’s Blog

This is chapter 9 from Clanchy’s book From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307, in which Clanchy explores the myriad uses of literacy in medieval England.  He argues that literacy grew in this period because of the explosion in record-keeping; he’s interested in the spread of literate practices (the production of documents) as well as literate mindsets (how writing became socially important).

“Trusting Writing” looks at the issue of how people came to trust the documents they encountered.  Whereas we assume, Clanchy asserts, that written texts are more reliable than spoken words, medieval people had to be persuaded that written records were trustable.  Read here to understand how trust is created in documents, and to learn about a time when the notion that a written text is trustworthy was controversial.  We’ll take the framework here and start to think about how we know when and why we trust texts.

What were the attitudes of medieval readers?  What did medieval writers do to make their documents seem trustworthy?

There is a long history of distrusting writing–remember Krause’s discussion of Plato’s critique of writing–becuase writing stifles eloquence and human trust and substitutes impersonal paper (233).  Medieval documents might be forged, and it’s curious that English practices didn’t folllow Roman models (using notaries and public registries) to verify the authenticity of documents).

Clanchy discusses problems in determing the date of documents and the evolution of writing down dates (236 ff); issues in signing documents (241 ff); the use of seals and other symbols to authenticate documents (244 ff); forging documents (248 ff.)