For many years the received wisdom about the intelligence of prehistoric people was that they were basically ignorant and working on a level not much higher than animals. I always suspected that this was untrue because it took intelligence to not only hunt and survive but to discover fire, the wheel, adopt farming and run tribal systems. Archaeological discoveries have shown us that they also discovered the principles of malting grain and making beer, mined metals and produced extraordinarily beautiful and complicated metal artefacts and had systems of trade and travel that enabled a flint axe factory in the Lake District to export their wares as far as Europe in about 2,000BC.
Estimates of literacy in 'The Dark Ages' (roughly the fourth to the eleventh centuries) were equally dismissive, the general view was that very few could read or write. Again, I was sceptical. I knew about King Alfred's letter to his bishop Werferth in about 870. Alfred had translated the Latin Text 'Cura Pastoralis' into English and sent a copy to all his bishops, he was urging Werferth to make it freely available to anyone who could use it.
Research into documents related to the Domesday Book has revealed a wealth of material written by people of lower rank connected with claims and counter claims arising from the implementation of the DB as a legal document. Not only this, but claimants were going before the courts, representing themselves, arguing their case and often winning a favourable decision. All this is recoded in the comprehensive court documents.
Again, when I was researching The Black Death of the fourteenth century I was struck by the fact that one of the consequences of the catastrophe was the fact that ordinary people started to question the infallibility of the Church and in the end this was the birth of non-conformism. I tried to imagine where and how this opinion was formed and came to the conclusion that on dark nights, with no outside distractions, ordinary people sat round the fire and talked about what was happening. Remember that some of these men had fought in the French campaigns and had been encouraged to sack monasteries and churches. From the evidence of the Domesday research it is almost certain that some would be able to read and would read any texts that came their way to their neighbours. The end result was a seismic shift in their attitudes towards the church and their lords which, once triggered, could not be stopped.
My conclusion is that on the evidence we have we should not underestimate the intelligence or literacy of our old Barlickers. This is reinforced by the documentary evidence we have that when the Cistercian monks destroyed their 'Ancient Church' in the twelfth century they took their case first to York and then Rome. These were not ignorant peasants, they were intelligent and independent thinkers and history does them a disservice if it ignores this. Indeed, in the absence of pollution by 'news' they may have been more aware than people today.
A replica of a Saxon buckle dated 700AD
