historyanalysisWellcome Collection10th–16th centuries · Europe
Medieval Europe already had sign languages, in monasteries and villages
Long before modern deaf education, medieval Europeans communicated with signs. Monks in the Cluniac orders, who took vows of silence, developed broad sign vocabularies for everyday objects like bread, fish, water and books, and the system was largely shared across Cluniac houses in different countries. Deaf people in communities often developed informal family sign systems, a bit like today's kitchen sign, and miracle records describe groups of deaf travellers signing among themselves. An English parish register from 1575 records a deaf man, Thomas Tillsye, making his wedding vows entirely in signs.
Monastic sign systems worked by assigning a gesture to each common object or task, so monks could get things done during long periods of silence. Surviving lexicons show signs were formalised and passed between houses, though historians debate whether they were full languages or systems of gesture.
Many 19th- and early 20th-century educators assumed deaf people had no real sign tradition before their own era. The medieval evidence shows signed communication was far older and more widespread, and that deaf people were part of it.
Monastic sign languages are also documented in later centuries, including among Benedictine and Trappist communities, which shows how institutions with silence rules repeatedly developed signed communication.
Thomas Tillsye's wedding in Leicester in 1575 is recorded in the parish register, which describes his vows made through signs.
Wellcome Collection · CC BY 4.0
Illustrative photo · Uprising Man, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
