New Approaches to Medieval Communication?1

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20 MARCO MOSTERTtake into account not only commonly known facts about the period, but alsomuch that is common to all human communication. However, a summarymight be helpful of questions which might in principle be asked about anycommunicative behaviour encountered in medieval sources. This summaryshould obviously not be confused with a full-fledged methodology or researchstrategy. 19 With this proviso, the main variables in early medieval communicativebehaviour seem to be the following: 201 Who are represented by the ‘senders’?1. supernatural beings: God; Christ; the Virgin Mary; angels; devilsand demons; saints deceased; the souls of the deceased. 2. human beings,divided into 2.1 non-christians: Jews, muslims; and 2.2 christians,divided into 2.2.1 clergy: secular clergy; regular clergy and 2.2.2non-clergy: king; higher aristocracy; lower aristocracy; urban patricians;other town dwellers; agrarian population.2 Which is the sender’s sex?male; female; none.3 Which is the sender’s age?child; adolescent; grown-up; elderly; none.4 Which forms of communication can be distinguished?attitudes; gestures; physical contact; visual signs; olfactory signs; flavours;auditive, non-verbal signs; speech acts; writing as author; reproducingwritten texts; reading aloud; reading silently; listening; commenting;a combination.5 What is the subject of the message?concerning the social function of the sender; concerning training oreducation for a social role; concerning the image the social group ofthe sender has of itself and others; concerning social organization (normativeand sanctioning; concerning government or management; concerningthe relations with the supernatural; magical; concerning theorganization of communication; a combination.6 Who is represented by the ‘receivers’?19Other important questions may have to be included, e.g. where does the ‘sender’ or‘receiver’ come from? What is the esteem for ‘sender’, ‘receiver’, or message? Is the messageserious or jocular? Is it meant to convey truth or fiction? etc.20Unfortunately, it is not possible to apply these questions quantitatively to medievaldocuments. The results would prove misleading, as the data are not suitable. Social groups aredifficult to identify, a person’s age is hardly ever known, etc. Qualitatively, these questions canbe answered only when we address the difficult task of trying to establish standardizeddescriptive criteria.
New Approaches to Medieval Communication?21See (1). Add: humankind; christendom; the sender himself; a combination.7 Which is the receiver’s sex?See (2). Add: combination.8 Which is the receiver’s age?See (3). Add: combination.A few explanatory notes on details of this questionnaire may be necessary.In the Middle Ages, supernatural beings were considered to have propertieswhich allowed them to communicate freely with mortals. This means that theyhave to figure among the groups of senders (1) and receivers (6) of messages,together with the social groups studied until now. The study of the symbolicuses of writing is greatly helped by the provisional inclusion of these medieval‘realities’. When we want to inform or instruct others, we need our senses, thereceivers to decode the messages. Our message has to be encoded in olfactory,sapid, tactile, audible or visual form. Information, according to our twentiethcenturyideas, may only be transmitted via physical media, and apart from hissenses man has no ‘receivers’ in Shannon’s sense. If, in the Middle Ages,someone thought a supernatural being to communicate a message by immaterialmeans, his appearance was usually described as if it was perceived by theordinary senses.The list of subjects of the messages communicated (5) is obviously notcomplete: those listed concern mainly types of social activities with whichhistorians are well acquainted. Some readers may be surprised to find thatneither literature, art, nor music is represented by itself; they seem subsumedunder the heading “concerning the image the social group of the sender has ofitself and others”. This does not represent an aversion from aesthetics. Medievalcommunication, however, is an historical rather than merely a literary orartistic subject. All forms, products and traces of acts of communication arestudied for the light they may shed on the subject.It will be clear that not all forms of communication were available to allmedieval men, nor to all medieval societies. More in particular, this is the casewith the written word. And here a problem arises. When thinking about communication,recent research has a tendency to focus its attention to oral andwritten messages. Verbal forms are indeed a privileged part of communication.Yet non-verbal phenomena which may be apprehended by our senses are alsopotential channels of communication.Verbal forms of communication are privileged because they concern thespoken and written natural languages. No society is conceivable without lan-
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New Approaches to Medieval Communication?1

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