Heresy and Literacy, 1000-1530 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature)

Did growing literacy in the later medieval period foster popular heresy, or did heresy provide a crucial stimulus to the spread of literacy? This collective volume, by established scholars from Britain, continental Europe and the United States, considers the importance of the written word in pre-Lutheran heresies, and explores the extent to which heretics' familiarity with books paralleled or exceeded that of their orthodox contemporaries.