Sganarelle Existence De Dieu

a strong oral tradition. But by the twelfth century most works were intended to be read and by the thirteenth century literacy rates had risen further with the emergence of a new middle class of merchants, lawyers and civil servants. Though the existence of a tripartite social hierarchy (clergy, aristocracy and the rest) might suggest separate literary constituencies, the notion of a ‘public’ for literature is difficult to define. About 40 per cent of chansons de geste begin with variants of ‘Oiez