Medieval Women’s Letters, 1350–1500

Letters represent one of the most common forms of women s writing that survives for the late-medieval period, and thus an important source for re-examining levels of lay female literacy and for exploring the lives and experiences of a range of women: royal, aristocratic, and mercantile. Perhaps the most probing question that confronts scholars of women s epistolary writing is that of composition. Most medieval women s letters appear not to have been penned in the woman s own hand, raising interesting issues relating to female literacy. Yet, the fact that a woman did not write a letter herself is not necessarily indicative of her inability to write: it is highly likely that medieval tradition dictated use of an amanuensis rather than a pen.1 Allied to the question of scribal status are issues of female authorship, and the degree to which varying forms of collaboration inflected and mediated women’s writing. In exploring the category of medieval women s authorship, this essay argues for the relative fluidity of the letter-writing process, the reconstruction of which demands attention to material, scribal, stylistic, intertextual, and historical concerns. It also investigates other issues relating to female epistolarity, assessing the degree to which letters were influenced by the ars dictaminis and other conventions, and how far epistolary modes were gendered or marked by social differences. Finally, the essay interrogates the question of ‘personal’ and ‘private in women’s letters, and outlines the nature of correspondence, sketching the uses women made of letters, and the light these documents shed on female activities and relationships.