Oral and Literate Culture in England, 1500-1700 (Oxford Studies in Social History)

Oral and Literate Culture in England explores the rich oral culture of early modern England. It focuses upon dialect speech and proverbial wisdom, "old wives' tales" and children's lore, historical legends and local customs, scurrilous versifying and scandalous rumor-mongering. Adam Fox demonstrates the extent to which this vernacular world was fundamentally structured by written and printed sources over the course of the period.