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For a long time, the benefits of writing for the writer and his community were insignificant as a subject for research compared with the use of the written word as a source. In recent decades, medievalists have also begun to discover the media in the message; the significance and dynamism of the written word have been the subject of controversial discussions in many aspects. Was the western world in the Middle Ages a largely oral society in which a few clerks and monasteries formed islands of the written form with initially little effect, or did the influence of writing extend far beyond? After all, writing in the Middle Ages constituted an extraordinary social investment in labour and material. This volume examines examples of the connections in which such investments could bring benefits. It considers two aspects, firstly the pragmatic instrumental use of writing in the narrower sense, i.e. the recording in writing and the exchange of relevant information. At the same time, the volume also addresses the broad field of texts that had a directive effect on action, giving meaning, producing significance and creating identities.
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