Language, education and religion
1 For a more extensive introduction, see Ch. Appel and M. Fink-Jensen, ‘Introduction. Books, Literacy, and Religious Reading in the Lutheran North’, in Ch. Appel and M. Fink-Jensen (eds), Religious Reading in the Lutheran North (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2011), pp. 1–14.The written language in both Denmark and Norway 1500–1850 was predominantly Danish (in Norway from the sixteenth century, particularly for commerce, administration and religion). This was cemented following the Reformation, Norway’s gradual loss of autonomy 1397–1537 and the introduction of print with Copenhagen as its centre. Danish prevailed even after the dual monarchy broke up in 1814, thereby retaining a major gap between spoken Norwegian and the written language encountered in school, church and other areas of public life. However, Danish in general saw a purge of foreign words during the 1700s, greatly influenced by the writings of Ludvig Holberg. Simultaneously, the importance of Latin diminished in printed works and communications, replaced by vernacular languages accessible by wider audiences, as was the tendency across Europe. While some Norwegian-born writers increasingly experimented with writing in their native language or dialect during the 1700s, the language was not systematically studied until the 1840s but then gradually implemented. The process eventually resulted in two official variants: riksmål (later bokmål) and landsmål (later nynorsk). Sami languages and other minority languages did not gain official status until the twentieth century. Written and spoken Swedish would be intelligible to most in Denmark–Norway, unlike the non-Germanic Finnish language. However, the number of original texts from the other side of the border would generally speaking amount to only a fraction of imported print, while translations were rare.
Early Modern and Enlightenment Denmark–Norway remained multilingual in terms of spoken, written or read foreign languages. A Danish gentleman (pre-Holberg) would typically use Latin for work, speak German to his dog, French with the women and Danish with his servants, according to a later, humorous poem.
3 C. Wilster, ‘Ludvig Holberg’, Digtninger (Copenhagen, 1827), p. 63. In this ‘four-language culture’, German was the first foreign language (and the main language in the Duchy of Holstein and increasingly in the Duchy of Schleswig, both parts of the Danish composite state) and widely used in the military and trade. Furthermore, German and French dominated court circles in Copenhagen, and French was widely read among educated and upper-class men and women.
4 This is demonstrated for instance by a publication such as La Spectatrice danoise (Copenhagen, 1748–50), see K.-D. Ertler et al. (eds), La Spectatrice danoise de La Beaumelle. Édition commentée (Berlin, Bern, Brussels, New York, 2020). English or Dutch were known by few in Denmark–Norway, although more so in commercial circles. Non-Danish books and periodicals were imported to and published in Denmark–Norway, while local newspapers could carry texts in a number of languages simultaneously or even be entirely in German or French. Furthermore, switching between languages required proficiency in two sets of typefaces (roman and gothic/black letter) and the two corresponding types of handwriting. Gothic was what every commoner felt most familiar with, as it was used for texts in Danish and German throughout the hand-press period, while it took more effort and practice to read the roman letters in French or English. The need for full sets of both typefaces made it a major investment for small printers, meaning some would mainly print texts in Danish.
With the Reformation, which took place 1536–7 following the conversion of Christian III, Denmark–Norway entered Lutheranism. In the shift to and dissemination of Protestantism, the book medium was central: Bibles, primers, hymnals and particularly Martin Luther’s
Kleiner Katechismus (cf. Haarberg in this volume) soon became key texts of religious instruction that would play a significant role in the spread of literacy. Studies of literacy in Denmark and Norway (
c. 1600–1840) point to a surprisingly high percentage of the population being able to read print (to some degree), across all strata of society. All children from the age of seven were taught reading in local schools, as established by law in 1739. Writing, on the other hand, was not a government priority in children’s education until the 1850s, when there was a higher emphasis on secular subjects such as writing and arithmetic. Perhaps fewer than 20 per cent could write (and read) handwriting, although there were significant local and regional differences. For most girls, handwriting was considered particularly unnecessary. These levels of literacy mirror those found in other Nordic and North-Western European countries, including Sweden.
5 J. Fet, Lesande bønder (Oslo, 1995), chap. 2, and Skrivande bønder (Oslo, 2003), pp. 22–4 and 38–9; L. Byberg, ‘På sporet av 1700-tallets lesere’, in T. Rem (ed.), Bokhistorie (Oslo, 2003), pp. 82–101; Ch. Appel, Læsning og bogmarked i 1600-tallets Danmark (Copenhagen, 2001); H. Barker and S. Burrows, Press, Politics and the Public Sphere in Europe and North America, 1760–1820 (Cambridge, 2002), p. 9; R. Chartier, ‘Reading Matter and “Popular” Reading: From the Renaissance to the Seventeenth Century’ and R. Wittman, ‘Was there a Reading Revolution at the End of the Eighteenth Century?’, both in G. Cavallo and R. Chartier (eds), A History of Reading in the West (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 269–83 and 284–312; R. Darnton, ‘First Steps Towards a History of Reading’, in J. L. Machor and Ph. Goldstein (eds), Reception Study (New York, London, 2001), pp. 160–79. See also Ch. Appel and N. de Coninck-Smith (eds), Dansk skolehistorie, vols 1 and 2 (Aarhus, 2013). While schooling was not compulsory in Sweden until the mid-nineteenth century, reading levels rose sharply in the eighteenth century to levels similar to those in Denmark and Norway.
6 Ch. Appel and M. Fink-Jensen, ‘Introduction. Books, Literacy, and Religious Reading in the Lutheran North’, pp. 6–9; M. Lyons, A History of Reading and Writing in the Western World (Basingstoke, New York, NY, 2010), pp. 90, 98.The increase in literacy rates meant larger and more varied audiences, and the eighteenth century saw an upsurge of publications in the region. In addition to texts with religious contents and purposes, a variety of texts in different genres and formats flourished, not least represented by the rise of the periodical press. Such developments were, of course, also due to the general secularisation taking place from the eighteenth century onwards. As such, the book market was now to a higher degree oriented towards new target groups in terms of age, gender and class, and with other purposes than merely those of education and religious indoctrination.
7 See for example J. S. Kaasa, ‘Hvordan bli en tidsskriftleser? Medieoppdragelse i 1700-tallets barnemagasiner’, Arr, Idéhistorisk tidsskrift, 31:4 (2019), 21–31. Evidently, these expansions in the book market and media landscape did not occur in a Scandinavian vacuum but were the result of dynamic interactions with political, technological and intellectual developments in Enlightenment Europe and North America.