Pragmatic Literacy

Pragmatic Literacy. New Perspectives on Charters and Documentary Practices?
The term "pragmatic literacy" is employed primarily, although not exclusively, to describe texts and documents that emerged following the increase in writing during the 11th and 12th centuries. This field of research focuses on documents and manuscripts produced in judicial or administrative contexts as well as for the transaction of business. The workshop employs Clanchy's phases of "Making - Using - Keeping" to evaluate the significance of the documents for various actors and to delineate and analyse the consequences this had for the evolution of the documents. Based on case studies we will discuss whether “pragmatic literacy” can be developed into an interdisciplinary research paradigm that is capable of analysing the complexity of documentary writing practices.