Comment by nkrisc
1 month ago
Well, probably not most children. I don’t really know anything about that particular region at that particular time, but based on history generally, literacy was - until recently - often reserved for higher social classes.
From the wiki article:
> Scholars believe that the Novgorod Republic had an unusually high level of literacy for the time, with literacy apparently widespread throughout different classes and among both sexes.
I read that too and I was surprised, but then the first thing that popped into my mind was that this is probably a case of survivorship bias
Ah, I missed that important bit.