The Interaction of Oral, Written, and Literate Processes

Abstract

Abstract One of most dramatic developments to take place during the thirteenth century was the spread in learning and, in particular, the laicization of the book. There was a vast increase in the production of books and especially those in the vernacular. Bernhard Bischoff, Brian Stock, Simon Gaunt, and others have commented in different contexts about the emerging ‘centrality of writing in medieval French culture’ from the twelfth century onwards and the tendency ‘to privilege the written word over the spoken word’. Although by the time the production of the extant books containing the trouvère lyric repertoire was undertaken the tradition was in many regards in decline, literacy nonetheless had an influence not only in the transmission of this repertoire, but also, to a degree, on some facets of the development of the later repertoire.