Doesn’t this class look great??

Department of History

Workshop

MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Professor Brigitte M. Bedos-Rezak

Medieval circumstances presented multiple challenges to media, mobility, and communication. Cultivators were bound to the land and monks to their monasteries; pilgrims traveled to holy places, crusaders and warriors invaded and then settled foreign lands, rulers and nobles were frequently itinerant. Literacy was largely limited to Latin, and possessed principally by churchmen and nuns so the transmission of ideas occurred mainly through the spoken vernacular word, and by means of gestures, images, and the manipulation of symbolic objects (thus, for instance, the relics of saints were carried to distant lands to collect alms, to recover possessions appropriated by nobles, or to aid in battle).

While seas, rivers, ports, networks of roads provided with rest houses, ferries and bridges, were generally available, routes and means of transportation selected differed markedly according to the traveler’s status and the journey’s purpose. Christianity stimulated pilgrimages, missions to convert the heathen, and crusades. Marriage took brides to foreign courts where they served as cultural ambassadors. Medieval kings and great nobles were continually on the road, changing their abode every two or three days. Lesser officials and messengers traveled on government business. Knights sought out tourneys and distant wars to advance their fortunes and reputations. Merchants and carriers transported goods to regional fairs, and engaged in international trade. Minstrels, jongleurs, and troubadours traveled to gain patronage and to extend their repertoire, spreading news and influencing the reputations of warriors, heroes, and kings. Students too journeyed extensively from place to place in order to sit at the feet of famous masters; some wandering scholars came to be known as Goliards. Artists were invited to decorate manuscripts and architects to erect buildings.
The pursuit of favorable opinion became an essential feature in the process of state-building during the Middle Ages. Those who challenged traditional norms also came to rely on the efficiency of communicative systems to expand their ranks with adherents. Through the use of propaganda, medieval society experimented with such forms and methods of communication as symbols, stereotypes, and slogans, thus elaborating features of communication which, however modified, are still in use today.