Introduction
During the Middle Ages, long-distance communication between two parties was not as simple and convenient as it is today. The methods were limited, costly, took time and had their certain risks, but communication was, despite all the inconveniences, as necessary as it is today.
Most people could not read or write, however, as education was simply not available to them, and as ordinary peasants who spent most of their days working to their occupation whether it be a serf, a blacksmith, a miller or some other profession, they never really had any use of being literate to do their work anyway.
Messengers
Members of the clergy and those who were noble rarely travelled long distances to deliver a message themselves, rather they often used messengers to carry either an oral message that the messenger must memorize word by word or a written letter to their intended recipient.
Such services, of course, were expensive and risky as roads were not spared of outlaws, bandits and other dangers. Travel costs for accommodation and food supplies also had to be provided. There were many inconveniences in this method of communication, and much could go wrong - there were risks of the letter itself being accidentally damaged or ruined on the way, the messenger accidentally forgetting a word while orally delivering the message, the message being misinterpreted by either party, the messenger having their own personal agenda and twisting the words of the sender accordingly, or the message never even arriving in the first place.
News & Information
Those who could not write their own messages or could not afford a scribe to do it for them would use oral communication, as it was the most common and most trusted means of communication at the time.
To communicate news, such as tax changes, declarations of war, new laws and etc., town criers were often employed to make those announcements to the common folk in heavily populated areas, oftentimes being the market or the town square.
General information, such as the outcome of a battle, tournaments, news, and events from other countries usually arrived with people who travelled from there, such as passing armies and merchants. Because something was said or written however, does not make it true, this may be obvious to today's people, most of whom are educated and can verify information for themselves, but verifying information was not something peasants could do as easily and reliably as today, and usually listened to whatever they heard and took it as truth, especially if the speaker were to be someone with status.