Ryan Low

Biography

My research focuses on the history of information and information technologies in the Mediterranean Middle Ages. Using the massive amounts of legal and bureaucratic documents produced by late medieval scribes known as notaries in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, I study the rapid expansion of the written word in the form of legal contracts, especially in late medieval Provence. I treat these practical written documents as a new information technology that radically transformed how individuals throughout the medieval Mediterranean produced and consumed information related to social life and economic exchange. These transformations did not impact everyone in medieval society in the same ways, and much of my research focuses on the effects of this late medieval phenomenon on Jews, women, peasants, and artisans. 

I am also a project lead for The Documentary Archaeology of Late Medieval Europe, an international and interdisciplinary research project that collects, edits, and publishes lists of everyday objects recorded in late medieval household or estate inventories. I have edited dozens of archival manuscripts related to Jewish households, parish churches, and urban artisans. I have also contributed to the Historical Pharmacopeias Research Project which publishes lists of ingredients and medicaments found in pharmacies throughout Europe and the Western Hemisphere up to 1800.