ABSTRACT
Medieval vernacular literacy begins with the history of Late Latin (or Vulgar Latin, the language of the people) and its gradual transformation into the various Romance languages of Europe. Celtic and Germanic languages developed their own vernacular literacies alongside the emerging Romance tongues. In some cases, as in Anglo-Saxon, Irish, and to some extent German, all of which developed a written literate culture between the seventh and the eleventh centuries, Latin functioned as a learned and ecclesiastically based language, but not normally as a vernacular. By the eleventh century a flourishing vernacular literacy was developing throughout Europe, providing greater possibilities for literate engagement among women, who were less able to gain a Latin-based education. Rising vernaculars may also have contributed to the emergence of a number of heretical and heterodox movements beginning in the twelfth century. By the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, numerous factors, but most especially the expansion of elementary schooling, resulted in an explosion of vernacular literacies and literatures. By the eve of the Reformation, Latin was more and more reserved for higher levels of learning and the ecclesiastical sphere, while the printing press, centralising bureaucracies, and developing nationalist sentiments contributed to a growing prestige and greater authority of the vernacular.
