What did they write about in the middle ages?

Answer 1

Writing, like every aspect of life in the very long medieval period, evolved and changed over time. This means that there was not only one style of writing.

Initially, during the Saxon period, writing today termed uncials and half-uncials was used - for example in the Lindisfarne Gospels. The language written was mainly Old English.

Later, Caroline miniscule was used, developing into Insular miniscule by the 10th century - this lasted until the 12th century. Caroline miniscule also continued in use for writing Latin up to the early 13th century, when Gothic Script or Blackletter was introduced. Gothic lettering consisted mainly of close, short vertical strokes, so much more text could be squeezed on to a page (and at the same time making it far more difficult to read).

During the 12th to 14th centuries a special type of writing called Charter hand or Chancery hand was used in all legal documents, wills, charters and royal warrants. This included very tall ascenders on letters such as h, l, d and k.

Later medieval scripts called Batarde and Rotundawere popular in France and Italy.

So there is no such thing as "medieval writing" - you have to specify which period: 11th century script, 12th century script and so on.

The links below take you to samples of some of these types of writing:

Answer 2

The monks who spent their lives copying books and writing books wrote about religious stories and thinking. The Book of Kells is a prime example of the type of work these men did.