Seminar Presentation: Was Manuscript and Oral Culture Transformed by
Print - Oliver
Background
 Not purely oral culture for years – written documents had since been recording,
defining and prescribing all elements of life so that by the late Middle Ages the
‘written word extended further into almost every aspect of economic, social and
cultural life’1
 But amount of written material change rapidly after the 1440 invention of printing
press:
46 titles a year published in 1500
259 in 1600
By mid-century could have 2000 titles appearing2
Historiography: Print Revolution
 Elizabeth Eisenstein saw ‘print revolution’ as catalytic to the spread of ideas for
religious reformation and modern science because of the effect print had on
being able to disseminate information much easier3
 Alvin Gouldner saw as key to the ‘democratization of writing’ because print’s
mass production made writing more accessible to all4
 Emphasise print medium displacing older traditions
Examples Cited
 New Epistemology: Print meant preservation and acknowledgement for all time –
1611 King James Authorized Bible translated anachronistically Job 19.23 ‘oh that
my words were now written! Oh that they were printed in a boke’5
 John Lillburne and the Levellers and Propaganda6
 Printed Sermons – see especially John Wilkin’s Ecclesiastes as a bibliography of
other sermons and commentaries of the bible for other preachers to use as a
model7
 Rapes of Lucina – Harold Love8
 Catholic Martyrology – Arthur Marotti9
 Ballad of Chevy Chase – Adam Fox10
Adam Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in England, 1500-1700 (Oxford, 2000) p.12
Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in England, 1500-1700, p.14
3 Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe
(Cambridge, 1983)
4 Alvin Gouldner, The Dialectic of Ideology and Technology (New York, 1982) p.40
5 David McKitterick, Print, Manuscript and the Search for Order (Cambridge,
2005) p.23
6 Peacey, Jason, ‘The hunting of the Leveller: the sophistication of
parliamentarian propaganda, 1647–53’, Historical Research, 78, 199 (2005)
pp.17-42
7 Arnold Hunt, English Preachers and their Audiences, 1590-1640 (Cambridge,
2010) pp.60-116
8 Harold Love, ‘Rapes of Lucina’ in A. Marotti and M. Bristol (eds) Print,
Manuscript and Performance (Cambridge, 2000) pp.200-14
9 Arthur Marotti, ‘Manuscript Transmission and the Catholic Martyrdom Account
in Early Modern England’ in in A. Marotti and M. Bristol (eds) Print, Manuscript
and Performance (Cambridge, 2000) pp.172-199
10 Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in England, 1500-1700, p.1-2
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