Adinel C. Dincă

By the Book!

Literacy and the Societal Development of the Transylvanian Saxons in the Middle Ages (ca. 1350–1550)

Þriðjudaginn 5. maí 2026 kl. 16.30 / Tuesday, May 5, 2026, at 16.30
Fyrirlestrasal Eddu (E-103) / Edda auditorium (E-103)

This talk explores various forms of textual evidence that underscore the significance of literacy and learning in the history of a particular wave of Western European settlers in the southeastern regions of the continent, commonly known as the Transylvanian Saxons, during the Late Middle Ages. It examines the chronology and typological development of textual production in parallel with its social significance, extending to the community-level strategic implications of accumulated knowledge.

A granular, horizontal analysis of charters, private and institutional correspondence, accounting registers, liturgical texts, sermons, and theological or legal compilations (whether handwritten or printed) attending to their graphic, aesthetic, material, and institutional dimensions, as well as their circulation through domestic or foreign collections, highlights how reading and writing practices functioned not only as markers of literacy but as active forces in the co-constitution of literacy and community life: each shaped and reinforced the other.

Within this framework, meticulously reconstructed historical contexts and rigorous theoretical inquiry are accorded equal weight: while literate behaviour in premodern settings appears to be shaped by both structural acculturation and locally embedded agency, its study now demands an updated methodological toolkit capable of interrogating surviving and fragmentary sources, as well as vanished traces — or even texts that may never have existed.

Adinel C. Dincă is Associate Professor at Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca in Romania. In addition to his individual research on the medieval history of Southeastern Europe, legal literacy, and history of the Latin Church, Adinel Dincă is also supervising critical editions of primary sources regarding Transylvania and manages several international projects on textual heritage.

Fyrirlesturinn verður haldinn á ensku og er öllum opinn. / The talk will be delivered in English and is open to all.

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