How far is it possible to discuss the relationship of women and literature in a period which had no real equivalent to our modern concept of literature? There is not a great deal of semantic overlap between Modern English ‘literature’ and its Medieval Latin ancestor litteratura. Both can mean ‘what is written, a body of writing’ but ‘literature’ is primarily associated with entertainment, litteratura with learning. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, litteratura was used only of works written in Latin; and its commonest meaning was not ‘literature’ even in this specialised sense, but ‘knowledge of Latin letters, scholarship’.

The extent of the semantic change here suggests the extent of the cultural changes which underlie it. Latin was the standard written language of early medieval Europe, and (although pre-Conquest Britain was a notable exception) writing in the vernacular was rare before the twelfth century. To be litteratus was not simply to be literate, but to be able to read and write in Latin. In the earlier Middle Ages, litteratura in this sense was normally (though not invariably) confined to those who had entered the religious life, and litteratus and clericus eventually came to be used as near-synonyms, as did illitteratus and laicus. The material that the clerici considered worth preserving in writing was not necessarily representative of the culture of their society as a whole. Herbert Grundmann argues: