Reading and writing for success: literacy, knowledge and social mobility Sabrina Corbellini University of Groningen, Netherlands This is a section of La mobilità sociale nelle società preindustriali: tendenze, cause ed effetti (secc. XIII-XVIII) / Social mobility in pre-industrial societies: tendencies, causes and effects (13th-18th centuries)(DOI: 10.36253/979-12-215-0667-9) by Angela Orlandi Firenze University Press Florence 2025 https://doi.org/10.36253/979-12-215-0667-9.27

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This contribution examines the nexus between literacy and social mobility during the late medieval period. Proceeding from an analysis of autobiographical Italian primary sources, it concentrates on patterns of presentation and self-representation, particularly as they concern education, literacy and participation in literate activities as instruments for the creation of new social identities. The various source materials (e.g. diaries, libri di famiglia, treatises discussing the performance of literate practices, manuscript colophons and probate inventories), are then contextualised within a broader European perspective, specifically with reference to France and the Low Countries.

 social mobility literacy france low countries late middle ages

It is available online at https://doi.org/10.36253/979-12-215-0667-9.27

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