Introduction

While medieval learning has long been the object of scholarly attention, ‘horizontal learning’ – that is, knowledge transmitted and acquired in a context of informal interactions, to which traditional categories such as ‘teachers’ and ‘disciples’ do not necessarily apply – remains little studied. To fill this gap, this volume builds on ideas formulated by Jean Lave and Étienne Wenger to approach learning as a situated phenomenon that can never be decontextualized from the social and even physical environment in which it took place. The contributions collected here will exemplify various means of learning, considering the interplay between literate and non-literate modes as well as the problems posed by the necessity of using written sources as attestations of non-literate forms of learning.