How do you know what the literacy rates were back then?
Why do so many people presume so much illiteracy in the old days?
think about it, do you think that kids in the year 500 got up at 7:00 a.m. and went off to school to learn to read and write......their parents couldn't teach them to do so because they, themselves were unable to do it.....it was, as time went by, the Catholic church which pushed forward the idea of community educational facilities...schools, universities, whatever....it was ONLY through Catholic institutions that these things became popular....check it out