ABSTRACT

Literacy for its part was at least as much an indicator of attitudes and opportunities created by social, economic, cultural and political factors as it was an independent force for change. Educational provision improved across Europe between 1500 and 1800 and, partly as a result, so too did levels of literacy. Mass literacy existed in parts of north-western Europe. The uses to which literacy could be put had increased greatly. Books were the products and producers of their culture rather than simply literary documents, economic commodities, or technical artefacts. Education was designed to transmit set information and approved viewpoints. It could open up the possibility of transmitting new ideas, for example between members of religious or secular groups who questioned the existing structures of power and authority. The study of education and literacy in early modern Europe shows how different meanings and understandings fit together to produce cultural characteristics, it is that sense of context which history so perfectly provides.