I didn't think much about this topic before, but I remember reading a Back to the Future fanfic some years ago that takes place in 1666 London during the Great Fire.
The blacksmith in the story (who is a Tannen ancestor by the way, but isn't evil like his future relatives), explains to one of Doc's children after he tries to leave a written note to him, that he was "only taught his numbers, not his letters" as a boy from the senior blacksmith he learned the trade from.
It wasn't elaborated further, but I guess it means basic written Arithmetic, like long addition and long subtraction (maybe even multiplication and division) for simple bookkeeping purposes to manage his finances and his stock of supplies, and maybe to make more accurately-sized metal tools by measuring them.
Was this generally the common condition for urban tradesmen like blacksmiths, tailors and cobblers in the Early Modern Period, whose trades weren't literacy-related?
The blacksmith in the story (who is a Tannen ancestor by the way, but isn't evil like his future relatives), explains to one of Doc's children after he tries to leave a written note to him, that he was "only taught his numbers, not his letters" as a boy from the senior blacksmith he learned the trade from.
It wasn't elaborated further, but I guess it means basic written Arithmetic, like long addition and long subtraction (maybe even multiplication and division) for simple bookkeeping purposes to manage his finances and his stock of supplies, and maybe to make more accurately-sized metal tools by measuring them.
Was this generally the common condition for urban tradesmen like blacksmiths, tailors and cobblers in the Early Modern Period, whose trades weren't literacy-related?