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This book explores the complex relations between the written word and medieval society by focusing on the proliferation of administrative and business documents during the so-called ‘long thirteenth century’. It deals with northern France and the area covered by the historic Low Countries, but places these regions in a broader European context and in the general history of literacy.Based on an exhaustive first-hand analysis of numerous archives and many document types, and featuring over a hundred illustrations, this book presents the reader with a large sample of documentary sources. But it also presents important hypotheses regarding literacy and the sociological dimensions of writing in the Middle Ages. Using codicology, palaeography, and diplomatics, it offers a general outline of a key period in the history of literacy which, with hindsight, can be shown to have transformed the Middle Ages.Further, as the documents that are discussed were used in everyday life, they also have a significant social dimension. At first, these documents were not backed by a clear legal authority; there were no extant rules, formulas, or structural frameworks to which they needed to conform. Thus they shed new light on the men and women who had to learn to make, keep, and use them.Table des matières :PrefaceList of Figures and GraphsMap of the Southern Netherlands and Northern France (Beginning of the Fourteenth Century)Foreword —MICHAEL CLANCHYIntroductionPreliminariesChapter 1. The Life-Expectancy of DocumentsThe Longer TermSanctuary Status; Diplomas, Royal Ordinances, Papal Letters; Acts of Foundation and Charters of Freedoms; Placing in the Treasury (Sacralising the Royal Charter: The Role of the Treasury of Charters; An Era of Treasuries)The Shorter TermWax Tablets: Ephemeral Writing (Analysis by Type of Function, 1250-1400; Models of Tablets); Leases and Schedules (Leases; Schedules and Notelets)Chapter 2. Living DocumentsRe-Appropriation: Born-Again ChartersParasited DocumentsMutating DocumentsChapter 3. Compiling, Abridging, and CompactingCompilatioand AbbreviatioCompilatioCompilation before 1200; ‘New’ Compilations; Books as Tools; An Example of Evolution of the Compilation Type during the Thirteenth Century: The Legendary; The Deploying of Compilation; Compilation the Fight against HeresyAbbreviatioCompacting (Reducing the Size of Documents)Codicological Downsizing: Biblical and ‘Literary’; Manuscripts; Codicological Downsizing: Archival Documents; Codicological and Palaeographical Downsizing: A Semi-Quantitative Analysis of an Archive of SchedulesChapter 4. OrdinatioPage LayoutJustification and Ruled Lines; Blocks and Blanks; Long Lines and ColumnsPresentation of the TextThe Data; Categories; Numerical and Alphabetical Order; SubclassesOrdinatio: InnovationsFrom Colour to Black-and-White; The Modest Triumph of Headwords and Titles; Accessibility Tools: Indexes and TablesChapter 5. Graphical SignsSigns and SymbolsTally Sticks; Signs, Symbols, Marks, and Abbreviations; Scribal AbbreviationsRoman NumeralsAlphabetical WritingCursive Scripts; Ordinary Scripts; Textualis and Cursive Scripts: A Sociological ApproachChapter 6. Documentary Networks and Lack of System: In Search of Everyday DocumentsNetworksThe Concept of a Documentary Network; An Example: The Rent- Based Documentary NetworkTowns and Clerics: the Mass Use of WritingsThe Written Record in Urban Communities: Tangled Networks; Clerical Documentation: The Gregorian Rigour of SynodsWriting Outside The SystemManuals of Reformers and Individual Workbooks; Schedules and MicrochartersChapter 7. The WritersWriters and Writings: From Institutions to IndividualsThe Individual: Thierry d’Hireçon, Private Use and Recourse to ‘Professionals’; The Individual in the Thirteenth Century; Graphical Communities; Litterati and Illitterati; The Clerici – Clerks and Clerics; Learning to WriteWorkshops, Departments, and Offices: Writing ‘Machines’The ‘Lower chanceries’ of the Thirteenth Century; The Production of Documents in TownsGraphical Communities and Micro-communities: The Case of the Count of Flanders’ Schedules‘Graphical Communities’: The Questions We Need to Ask; The Social Dimension of the Flanders Quittance Collection and Its ProducersConclusion: Functions and QuestionsCommunicationThe Proliferation of DocumentationCredibilityGrowing Uniformity; Code is LawMemory and RecordInterpretation, Monitoring, and PredictionImprovisers and Poachers; Quickening of PaceFinal SummaryBibliographyIndexInformations pratiques :Paul Bertrand,&#160;Documenting the Everyday in Medieval Europe. The Social Dimensions of a Writing Revolution, 1250–1350, Turnhout, Brepols, 2019 (Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy, 42). XXIII+493 p., 81 b/w ill., 39 b/w tables, 156 x 234 mm. ISBN: 978-2-503-57990-0. Prix : 120 euros.Source :&#160;Brepols