<i>Rædan, areccan smeagan</i>: how the Anglo-Saxons read

Abstract

The Middle Ages inherited from antiquity a tradition of reading which embraced the four functions of grammatical studies ( grammaticae officia ): lectio, emendatio, enarratio and iudicium . Lectio was the process whereby a reader had to identify elements of the text — letters, syllables, words and sentences ( discretio ) — in order to read it aloud according to the accentuation required by the sense ( pronuntiatio ). Emendatio , a process entailed by the realities of manuscript transmission, required a reader (or his teacher) to correct the text in his copy, and sometimes tempted him to ‘improve’ it. Enarratio was the process of examining features of vocabulary, rhetorical and literary form, and above all of interpreting the subject matter of the text ( explanatio ). ludicium was the process of exercising judgement of the aesthetic qualities or the moral and philosophical value of the text ( bene dictorum conprobatio ).