A Renaissance without a bang

A leaf from a late 10th century manuscript written in a very elegant form of Caroline minuscule script and decorated with a D initial, Getty Museum, Ms. 16 (85.MD.317), fol. 28v

We like to think we’re the first to panic over a knowledge crisis. That literacy is crumbling, that no one reads anymore, that culture is a casualty of speed.

But over a thousand…