The educational achievements of the post-Reformation period must be set against a background of widespread ignorance. It is probable that half the men and more than half the women were illiterate even in the more advanced European states. East of Vienna, north of the Baltic, conditions were a good deal worse. Illiteracy was found more in the country than in the towns, more among women than men, more among the poor than the well-to-do, but it existed everywhere and at nearly all social levels. To have received any degree of systematic teaching was a prerogative of the fortunate or the unusually persistent.

All the same, it is possible to maintain that the opportunities for instruction open to the young were more extensive than they had ever been before, and that they were eagerly utilised. We shall find it convenient to consider them under three heads: popular education, apprenticeship, and the training offered by universities and schools. We know only a little about the first and a good deal about the last; but they were of equal importance for the future of Europe.

Popular education may be defined for our purposes as education acquired independently of Latin. Its range varied greatly. While the majority of those who were ignorant of Latin remained ignorant in most other respects, some could claim to be well informed and an exceptional individual could attain to the many-sided learning of a Palissy. But in nearly all cases non-Latinists who made some progress in their studies did so through private reading.