Monastic literate practices in eleventh- and twelfth-century northern France

Abstract

This article aims to apply the concept of literate practices to the production of written artefacts in northern France during the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. It is argued that the increasing impact of the written word in society was not a straightforward process but one that suffered setbacks and whose nature depended on how it was applied at a micro-level. Using the vantage point of the archives of a number of Benedictine monasteries in the valley of the Scarpe, a small river currently situated near the current Franco-Belgian border, it is shown how the monks responded to the uncertainties of their age by exploring the advantages of producing and receiving large numbers of documents, all of which were created, used and stored in functional and specific, but changing, contexts.