Introduction: What Does 'Literacy' Mean in this Period? . . 7

1. Conversion: Scribes, the Sacred and Social Change . . 13
   From Pamphlet to Pandect: the Codex and the Codification of Scripture The Book as Speculum of the Transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages . . 22
   Visualising Sound in Graphic Form: New Ways of Teaching and Learning . . 30
   Disseminating Scripture: Being the Book - the Scribe as Evangelist . . 44

2. Creating communities of reading . . 57
   The Rise of Written Vernacular Languages . . 60
   Women and the Book in the pre-Alfredian Era . . 73
   Inscriptions - words to be seen and not heard? . . 78
   Books and other Icons . . 85

3. Language, literature and libraries . . 99
   The Impetus of Incomers . . 99
   Official Intervention? Assessing the Alfredian Contribution . . 109
   Libraries: the Collection and Retention of Cultural Memory . . 127
   Women and other Bibliophiles . . 144
   The Last Word . . 149

Notes . . 157
Bibliography . . 171
List of Illustrations . .179
Index . . 181