Literacy and Written Culture in Early Modern Central
Europe
István György Tóth (1956–2005) was Associate Professor of History at the Central European University, Budapest and Senior Research Fellow at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
This unequalled volume’s key value is to place
Hungary on the map of European literacy
rates over the whole period between the initial stimuli
of Renaissance and Reformation
and the developed, state-organized educational systems
of the (later) nineteenth century.
Suitable for academics across a wide range of subject
areas, Tóth’s work is a broad
international comparative analysis, concentrating on
the long-term development of
literacy rates and the use of written and oral culture
in early modern societies. Tóth also
examines the social history of elementary schools and
its teachers, and book reading
among peasants and noblemen throughout the sixteenth
to nineteenth centuries in
Hungary.
Literacy and Written Culture includes references
to the development of libraries
during the period and on the use of different languages
– of particular importance is an
examination of Latin usage. This volume is an extremely
lively and stimulating guide
providing fascinating insights into village life, legal
and administrative issues and the role of
the clergy. Its overall content contributes to major
debates in the fields of language,
literacy, linguistics and social history.
"This book is a model study of scrupulous rigor
in its numerically minded social analysis, of challenging
methodological innovation in its approach to the problem,
and of marvelous insight into the social and cultural
meaning of early modern literacy and illiteracy."
- American Historical Review
"...offers a fascinating view of trends in literacy
in Hungary in, basically, the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, but with some earlier material on the aristocracy
and some later information on the peasants." -
Slavic Review
"This book's great strength lies in careful analysis
of rich archival evidence, impressively
documented in footnotes..." - Libraries &
Culture
"...a very well documented work, with abundant
maps, tables." - Ungarn - Jahrbuch, Zeitschrift
für interdisziplinäre Hungarologie
"The present work was first published in Hungarian
in 1996 ... It is now published by CEU Press in not
only flawless English but also under a quite different
and rather more earnest title... may serve as an excellent
introduction not only to the study of Hungarian literacy
but also to the social history of the early modern period."
- Slavonic and East European Review
"István Tóth is fully versed in
the literature and provides a model of sensitive analysis
and interpretation of the place of the written word
in central European culture, from the peasantry on up
tthrough the landed gentry and various levels of nobility...
the depth of research, the felicity of the prose, the
picaresque anecdotes, and the many insights into the
nature of early-modern central European cultural and
intellectual life should be enough to interest most
scholars of the place and period in this book."
- Journal of Modern History
"The author successfully combines quantitative
research together with qualitative study of the place
of reading among different social groups and by doing
so, provides extremely valuable insights into religious
life in different social groups.... The book is well
translated and it has an index. The quantitative data
does not disturb the flow of the description, and the
colorful descriptions the author cited make this a very
enjoyable read." - Religious Studies Review
"This work should definitely finds its way
into libraries and seminars examining written culture
in early modern Europe. It is the first of such significance
on the subject for a relatively poorly examined part
of Central Europe." - Seventeenth-Century News
Contents
Introduction. Part 1: Door to the world of
writing: the social history of elementary schools Part
2: The written word is gaining ground slowly in
the peasant culture Part 3: Writing and reading
capacities of the nobility Part 4: The lower
layer of nobility: the petty nobleman living in an oral
world Part 5: The culture of well-to-do noblemen:
libraries and their proprietors Part 6: Outlook
in space and time Conclusions
2000
200 pages
ISBN 978-963-9116-85-6 cloth $49.95 / €42.95 / £35.00
ISBN 978-963-9241-30-5 paperback $27.95 / €25.95 / £23.99
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