I would say yes, the Middle Ages of western Europe was a written cutlure, even though literacy rates were very low compared to later periods. For the same reasons I'd say that the Carolingian period (late 8th and 9th centuries) was also a written culture (at least in some areas, i.e. those under Frankish control), even though it was relatively primitive compared with either the Roman empire or the 12th century, due to the very important copying of ancient manuscripts that went on in the Benedictine monasteries, which Charlemagne supported and reformed. Obviously, a lot depends on our definitions here, and how much writing makes a culture of "written culture". The 12th century compared with the 9th century present much greater development: trade stimulated by Crusades and the growth of cities are the big factors. 

I agree with Stephen but I must add that it is, for us, a written culture because of the ways that culture arrived to us. Without dening the importance of the 12th century cultural revolution, the fact is that there were several cultural performative arts that were never registered - or were much later, as in the troubadours' compositions - and thus never arrived to us. I don't know how could  we define a line between written and oral performance for this period, at least in common tongues. Besides, what arrives to our days is what was perceived as "worth keeping" throughout times - for instance, how the Moderns read and decided to keep/ destroy manuscripts. 

This is a very interesting question, as I work with fragment manuscripts, so I always have these problems: why was the original volume destroyed? Was it no longer "usefull"? If so, why destroy it? 

Martha's comments encapsulate to me the definition of "written culture", we have the use of written law codes, charters and commercial documents, as well as Church material, 'secular' histories and even fiction being written down, this suggests that the organs of society had embraced the written word to the extent of primarily functioning through it, this to me is more important to define a "written culture" than is worrying about the % of literacy in that society, in this respect the Medieval West stands comparison with other undeniably "written culture(s)" such as Classical Athens, Imperial Rome or Pharoanic Egypt

Very interesting answers!

When Mariana Leite asks "why was the original volume destroyed?" I also remember that the concept of "originality" itself is hard to define at this moment since a manuscript was usually the result of not only one "writer" or copyist. So, can we define the original one? Maybe there was some other version(s) before. If so, why destroy this "original"? Good question indeed.

Martha Catania-Peters, thanks for your contribution. I didn't know about this book! There is Zumthor's classic "The letter and the voice", which also discuss about this relation between orality and textuality in Middle Ages and he affirms that during the 12th Century the texts assume greater importance, but orality remains predominant.

in the case of legal documents such as charters and grants the suspicion is that many were destroyed deliberately in order to conceal the fact that changes had been made by the institutions concerned who were now using them to back up claims that the original charters didn't grant

Not all original documents will have been deliberately destroyed.  Many may simply have been lost, and accidentally destroyed or discarded.

Before the advent of printing, every document had to be copied by hand.  While I can't copy on the copying of legal documents, when it came to literary works, in most cases the originals do not exist any more, and there is a lot of debate about whether or not it is worth trying to establish the original wording of a work.  This is because scribes made errors, sometimes left out lines, and frequently felt it was perfectly OK to make their own additions and changes to the work.  Because of this, you can work out which later redactions were based on specific surviving earlier ones. Which helps to identify at least some of the additions to the original.

Of more significance to the 'written culture' question, is the shift away from Latin to major works being written in the vulgar tongue in the 12th century and earlier, whether French, English, German, Icelandic etc.  This allowed the written word to be read aloud and shared with those who only spoke the common tongue of their land.

In the case of legal documents, particularly those involving grants to the Church, the work I have been doing on the Book of Llandaff makes me suspicious that fraud was responsible for the destruction of the majority of these in the Medieval period.  The frequency with which a new copy had been made, providentially of course, just before the original had been lost in a fire is highly suspicious.

wrt literary works, the question of trying to identify the "original wording of a work" raises the question of what constitutes the "original wording", there is the suspicion that artists would modify their works dependent upon which patron they were trying to please, there is a long tradition of trying to identify where Gildas wrote by trying to work out the locations of those rulers he was particularly critical of on the assumption that he would not annoy the local ruler, the probability then is that if multiple versions were produced for different patrons then they would contain differences intended to flatter, or appeal

wrt the 12th century shift, in the British Isles in many respects this is merely the start of correcting the 11th century blip, prior to the Norman invasion Welsh, Gaelic and English were all used for both literature and legal texts, even by the Church, the dominance of Latin was a colonial imposition

Imperial China, that is its subsequent dynasties with various geographical extensions, were all written cultures. Archaeology recovers manuscripts on bamboo and silk from Early China, especially from the Sinitic state of Chu. In the twelfth century paper has been in use for more than thousand years already, and blockprinting is used together with paper manuscripts since the eighth century. In sum, Sinitic languages were written for 3000 years in Chinese script, and many more languages in East Asia later joined in and wrote with this writing system (Japan, Korea, Vietnam, etc.)

So, when speaking of the "Middle Ages" one has to be clear of what culture or region one speaks, because during the global middle ages the situation was very regionally different indeed when it comes to writing, literacy and printing culture.

Timothy, I'll bow to your knowledge of the Chrétien de Troyes, in respect of which the issues of manuscript transmission are a significant factor.  And to your point on Welsh, Gaelic and English were all used for both literature and legal texts prior to the Norman conquest.  I suspected that was the case but did not have the time to look into that when drafting my earlier post.

I'd contest your point on literary works.  While the issue you raise may be relevant to the works of itinerant troubadours, with Chrétien we know roughly when he wrote his works.  We also know he addressed two poems to specific named patrons, but there is no evidence to suggest that he modified his earlier works to appeal to his later patrons.

As an good example of the problems of manuscript transmission, and the issue of trying to establish what an author actually wrote, I'd recommend:

The Manuscripts of Chrétien De Troyes, ed. Keith Busby et al, Amsterdam, 1993

With respect to which, the following comments are relevant:

“The more than forty manuscripts and fragments which contain one or more of the romances of Chrétien de Troyes form one of the largest legacies of any known author of medieval romance. However, as with many twelfth-century authors, the earliest manuscript circulation is largely lost. No manuscripts survive from the second half of the twelfth century, the period in which the romances were written, and only one manuscript of Cliges survives from the end of the twelfth century or beginning of the thirteenth century.” Terry Nixon, p. 17.

 “An over-scrupulous concern for “what was actually read by a medieval audience” would make any accurate assessment of twelfth-century French literature impossible, since we have few contemporary manuscripts.  What we do know about twelfth-century texts is usually derived from critical editions which, imperfect as they necessarily are, do not conceal the problems and thus offer greater insights into their genesis and hence their meaning.

 “Thus it cannot be over-emphasized that there is an urgent need for a full critical edition of Chrestien’s romances …  A future edition of Chrestien should, then, proceed … on the basis of a thorough re-examination of the manuscript tradition of each individual work, he will select as a base manuscript the manuscript which, in his view of the transmission, represents most closely what Chrestien wrote.  To keep the number of assumptions and variables to a minimum it would be better to accept the scripta of the base manuscript as a norm and to assimilate to it all emendations which it is desired to make.” Tony Hunt pp. 29 - 30.

P.S. In addition to the other issues previously raised, the manuscript tradition of Chrétien's works also highlights how the transmission process was also affected by geographical factors relating to the various dialects of Old French spoken by the scribes whose copies, or copies of copies, have come down to us.

I've enjoyed the thoughtful answers here, and would echo Mariana's point about the culture of the Middle Ages as received being a written culture. I'd also add that written and oral culture coexisted and mutually informed each other (to say nothing of the performing arts, on which others have more expertise than I.) I'm a bit surprised not to find Michael Clanchy's classic From Memory to Written Record mentioned here, as I think it's relevant to the discussion.

In the legal documents I look at (Rhenish, mostly fourteenth-century) there are often instances of oral idioms being carried over into the written culture of law.

Lucy, you are quite right about Clanchy, checking back on my Book of Llandaff work I find that this was the cited source for the idea of ecclesiastical organisations 'losing' written documents in order to disguise the fraudulent emendations they had made, he also argued that there was a frenzy of this in the post Hastings era as institutions sought to protect their assets by producing documentation that would satisfy their new overlords, the point at which, if I had to choose one date, England and dependencies adopted a "written culture" it would be 1290 when Edward I's Quo Warranto required all the King's subject to prove by what right they held tenure, effectively this prioritised the written word over oral tradition, although the Earl Warrene's response suggests that not everyone agreed

I should have made it clear, when mentioning "original", I was refering to the codex or volume from which fragments were extracted or that was destroyed - not the "original" text, on which most of the times we can only make conjectures. 

On the other hand, there are some interesting aspects regarding material destruction: for instance, I have a Romanian friend who explained me a few months agor why was all the written medieval Romanian literature destroyed in the 15th and 16th centuries: because it wasn't written in cyrillic. I personally work with fragmentary textual transmission and I often ask myself why was the codex destroyed: one must also know the political/ economical/ cultural circonstances that could have lead to it. As an example, the commerce of parchments for book covers was very active during the 16th century: does it mean that the text in the parchment was no longer "useful" or could it have been copied into paper (a more fragile support)?

I am really enjoying this debate. I am sorry for not contributing with many bibliography, as I must admit most of it is in Portuguese, Spanish, and French (English is my 4th language).

Mariana, on the last point you raised, I remember reading recently of lost texts being found on manuscript pages that had been deliberately bleached and over-written.  Can't remember the details, now, but probably by x-ray or similar.  Old pages were also used for bookbinding, as discussed in the attached newspaper article.  In such cases the issue was probably more, who owned the paper at the time at what was more valuable to them, the material or its content.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/04/x-rays-reveal-medieval-manuscripts

of course as we get to later time periods then the amount of intentional destruction from other sources does go up, the Christian destruction of Alexandrine library perhaps being the most notable Classical example, due to political/religious desires, although this does occur much earlier in Ancient Egypt both for reasons of damnatio and simply for reuse of valuable materials, the probability is that many losses were the result of a combination of pressures, economic, social and religious, indeed I would doubt if there is one process that can be said to be dominant at any period

of course, although less relevant to medieval Europe, often it is the process of destruction that ensures survival of the written record e.g. the accidental firing of clay tablets, or in Europe perhaps the use of material in rebindings

I'd like to go back to Mariana's question of how do we define the line between written and oral performance during this period, however it is ultimately defined.

Looked at from the perspective of my own field, there was certainly an explosion in French Arthurian literature in the late 12th to mid-13th centuries.  (This following on from the earlier non-Arthurian Chanson de Geste (Songs of heroic deeds) and 'classical' themed romances such as the Alexander Romance, and the Roman de Thebes.

The sheer volume of Arthurian romances, both verse and prose, points to strong popular demand - a point reflected by the way many were quickly translated and retold in many other languages, who soon developed their own traditions.

The principle audience was clearly in the courtly society of the times, and, at least initially, the works were probably read aloud in sequential sections apart from the shorter lais which were probably recited as a single piece.  Thus delivering the works to a much larger audience than those who actually got to read them.

And, as DDR Owen noted in his introduction to his translation of the late 12th century Romance of Reynard the Fox, there was also a growing audience for other works among "the expanding class of the bourgeoisie".

In this way an expanding written culture was also reaching down to those who lacked the ability, or simply the opportunity, to read the works for themselves.

to me the existence of written copies of performance art is not really indicative of a "written culture", although it is part of it, since these works can be read aloud to an audience, I suppose my thoughts here are conditioned by the modern movie industry, compared to the number of people who watch a film how many actually read a script?

the key test is whether or not the functioning of society prioritises the written record over oral tradition in economic, educational and legal matters, e.g. the pre-Norman England had the concept of oath worth's which could be set against written evidence in court, from 1290 at the latest we really start to see this system undermined since written records theoretically trumped oral testimony and that to me is when you get a "written culture", it is not art dependent it is bureaucratic  

Summing up: There was, certainly, a "written culture" in the Middle Ages. But there was not a "written society" until much later, as written culture was confined to the very few, and the production and transmission of verbal messages, artistic or not, were predominantly oral.

Following on from Rudolf P's comments, it is interesting to compare the different degrees of emphasis placed on writing by various "High Cultures" and Civilizations.

Peru/Ecuador etc. under the Incas (with its well-developed highway network) was much better organized politically than the Mayan Empire ever was - but the South Americans did not have any form of writing - (just their 'quipus' or knots, which served purely for inventories and accounting). Similarly, the still undeciphered Indus Valley tablets only contain very short inscriptions - despite the fact that Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa were well-designed, sophisticated cities. And no really long texts have yet been found in Minoan Linear-B.

We are indeed lucky to have a rich heritage of literature from the Babylonians and from Pharaonic Egypt, and I cannot help wondering to what extent the Ancient Greeks benefited by having those two earlier writing systems as examples to copy and emulate: (we do know, of course, that the Greek alphabet was derived from the Phoenician) > i.e., if the Ancient Greek Culture had developed in isolation (like the Chimu/ Inca one), would it have taken longer for them to develop writing? [Obviously, we do not know !]

Available technology is surely another factor influencing the degree to which writing gets utilized - e.g. the invention (in China) of paper, and the development of movable type for mass printing.

Nowadays, that technology has become so sophisticated and advanced (with electronics and word-processors) that the volume of written material being churned out has become impossibly enormous and undigestible; i.e., most of it carries little or no permanent value.

Mariana Leite's question (and Timothy Jones's subsequent remarks) remind me of the criminal destruction of most of the Mayan (and Aztec?) codices by the Spanish conquistadors, who maintained that they were 'works of the devil'. On the contrary, they would probably have told us a lot about that Meso-American Culture.

I agree with you. i believe written culture ,oral history has always unbelievable new

David McNaughton's answer in which he says he wonders "to what extent the Ancient Greeks benefited by having those two earlier writing systems (Babylonian and Egyptian) as examples to copy and emulate: (we do know, of course, that the Greek alphabet was derived from the Phoenician)", touches on an interesting point regarding written culture.

David is right in saying that the Greeks derived the script we now recognise as Greek from the Phoenicians around 800 BC.  But this was not the first Greek writing form.  That was the Mycenaean (not Minoan) Linear B, which dates back to about 1500 BC.

Linear B was derived from the Minoan Linear A which has not yet ever been translated.  Linear B has, and the language is an archaic form of Greek.

What's significant for the present question is that the surviving documents are almost all 'accounting' records, with no literary texts, and from memory no legal decrees or correspondence.  The names of some Gods have been found, but few if any personal names.

If this a relatively accurate representation of the way the Mycenaeans used writing, then what we may be seeing here is an example of a proto-literate culture that was still largely dependant on oral transmission for cultural, social and possibly diplomatic interactions, at a time when it had seen the advantages of writing for bookkeeping,

http://www.ancientscripts.com/linearb.html

given the nature of deposition of Linear B it is unlikely that these are the sole usage of writing, it is merely that clay tablets tend to survive in bureaucratic contexts rather than others, in terms of correspondence, if Mycenae is indeed Ahhiyawa of Egyptian and Hittite records then these imply written correspondence so it is likely that it did exist, of course whether this was written in 'Greek' or Akkadian we won't know until we find some, given that even the Great King of Egypt corresponded in Akkadian it was probably the latter at least internationally, which again for me would be enough to classify Mycenae as a written culture for me since it seems to be reliant on writing to function

Bing, sorry to go slightly off topic but you may be able to answer this, your reply reminds me of something that my father says, 'the palest ink is better than the most retentive memory', he always claims it is a Chinese proverb, do you know if it is and if so to whom is it attributed?

Thank you Kathleen Toohey ... From your link, I learned one or two really interesting and important facts about Linear B which I did not know before - particularly this extract:

[Linear B] "was apparently designed for a non-Greek language, as it did not fit the sounds of Greek very well. In fact, it is likely that Linear A was used to write the pre-Greek language of Crete, and the incoming Greeks adopted this writing system for their own use, but without changing how the system fundamentally works. In doing so, they developed "spelling conventions" to represent sound patterns found in Greek but not in the syllabary... First, there are many Greek sounds that are missing in Linear B signs, such as [g], [kh], [gw], [b], [ph], [th], and [l]. To solve this problem, signs for similar sounds are used instead ..."

That^ raises the question as to whether the Minoan Culture (and what might be called its 'Mycenaean offshoot') should best be regarded as a completely separate phenomenon from the later one which came to fruition as Classical [or Hellenic] Greece. The "Greek Dark Age" came between those two Cultures; such that there was little or no significant continuity? I am inclined to suggest that another difference in 'culture character' was the strong emphasis placed by the Minoans on godesses rather than gods.

In any event, evidence seems to indicate that the Greeks did not ever develop their own writing system; instead, they borrowed from others.

In a hotel.  Wrote a much longer version of this but lost it when the internet connection dropped out.  I studied the Hittites under Trevor Bryce and still see him a few times a year at talks at UQ.  Back than Trevor disputed the Mycenaean - Ahhiyawa equation, but fully accepts it now.  See the discussion in the attached work on the Ahhiyawa references in Hittite texts, p. 4.

The texts include Hittite copies of correspondence between the Hittites and the King of.  I haven't gone into them today, but think it most likely that the Mycenaean court employed a Hittite scribe to translate and transcribe the king's correspondence with the Hittites, or at least someone who spoke and read Hittite.

The Babylonians and others also relied on Clay tablets for writing, but did not limit these to just bureaucratic records, but laws, religious and literary texts which have survived.  So that does not explain the absence of such from the surviving 5000 odd linear B texts.

the link to the Mycenaean writing is interesting, thanks Kathleen, but does make at least one important mistake, the evidence that it was intended for a non Greek language is not particularly convincing since it is based on the concept that certain sound are missing from the letter system, this presupposes that these sound forms existed in Mycenaean Greek, Peter Jones has argued that ph, th at least didn't exist in Classical Greek either but were an aspirated form until the 2nd century CE at the earliest, if we were to use the argument about inconsistency of sign use meaning that the system was not designed for the language then we would also need to conclude that Egyptian hieroglyphs were not designed for Egyptian since even after over 3000 years of scribal usage they are used inconsistently particularly where, as in linear B, certain letters have similar pronunciations or depend on the strength of breathing associated with it, g/k and t/th/d spring to mind

Apologies to all.  Only realised after reading Timothy's post, above, that I had failed to attach a link to the opening pages, including the introduction, of The Ahhiyawa Texts.  Now attached.

On the concern you raise, Timothy, regarding a possible mistake in the earlier site I posted on Linear B, your point is well outside my expertise.  I'm currently on holiday with only limited resources and time, so the site I gave was just the best one I found on a quick search, to make the point I wanted to make.

If it's of interest to anyone, and we are getting away from the medieval here, I've attached a scan of a handout given to me as a student which displays the geographical variations of the Greek alphabet (not Linear B) side by side.

https://www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/pubs/061528P.front.pdf

The Book of Memory by Carruthers and  the Presence of the Word bY Walter Ing have ippising views simewhwt in the wuestion if irao cuoturues, memory and writing, but they wouod add texture to your thinking about this issue,

I meant Walter Ong. Sorry

we suffer about sources middle ages but we can benefit from manuscripts ( we trust about it )

the problem Bahha with manuscripts is that they tell us that someone was producing them they don't tell us the extent to which the culture concerned is a written culture, if we went on the mere existence of text for example we could conclude that King Offa of Mercia was a Muslim since his coins carry Islamic slogans in Arabic, in this case we can be fairly certain Offa had not converted because the Arabic is upside down demonstrating that it was not an understood script, the same problem occurs with other texts, just because a handful of monks produce and read them this does not constitute a written culture, the point at which this is reached is the topic of debate here, hence what seem to be the differing views between Kathleen and myself wrt 12th or 13th century

tank you I agree with you . 

Consider also several cultures and languages in East Asia!