Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

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Reader
(1,205 words)

1. To 1800

In the first centuries after Gutenberg’s invention of printing with movable metal type (c. 1450), we can assume that only in the cities and towns was there a European color::Lesenreading public that read regularly or even habitually, other than the small circle of scholars and clerics who read for professional or contemplative reasons (Literacy and illiteracy). The reading habits of scholars and the “illiterate” (as people who did not know Latin were called in the Middle Ages and e…

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Schneider, Ute, “Reader”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 08 June 2023 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_COM_023353>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20210107



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