own mental processes, and most of us are far from 
     competent in this respect, the fact remains that his idea 
     of language is irrevocably modified by his experience of 
     printed matter.

     The alternating of modes or ratios between habitual 
patterns of sight and sound experience creates a large gap 
between the mental processes of the medieval and the modern 
reader. Chaytor writes (p. 10):

     Nothing is more alien to medievalism than the modern 
     reader, skimming the headlines of a newspaper and 
     glancing down its columns to glean any point of interest, 
     racing through the pages of some dissertation to 
     discover whether it is worth his more careful 
     consideration, and pausing to gather the argument of a