Family Letters in 15th Century England

In the 15th century a number of English families began to write (and preserve) letters about family business and even some personal matters. This was very much a new departure in terms of family communication and lay literacy, and all these family letters are in English. For various reasons, the letters were collected and preserved, often for their use in legal matters and litigation. While we do not know if the collections we have are only the tip of the iceberg, there are no other references to comparable family collections that might have once existed. Many of the letters show considerable sophistication and it seems unlikely they came out of nowhere in terms of vocabulary, style, and organization. But in one swoop, in terms of lay literacy and as a window into family life and affairs, we go from a society with almost no intrafamily communications to one that offers some large collections of such items. There are almost one thousand letters written by or received by the Pastons, and though the other family collections are smaller, they too are impressive in their scope: in their scholarly editions, there are 247 letters and miscellaneous documents in the Cely collection, 333 for the Stonors, and 349 for the Plumptons. Moreover, except for the Celys, all the letter collections reflect multigenerational letter-writing. The Paston Letters mostly run from 1425 to 1492; the Plumptons, 1433–1552, and the Stonors, 1290–1483 (though mostly from the 15th century). Also of interest, a fair number of the letters were by women, though these were usually dictated rather than actually penned by the nominal writer. As both writers and recipients the women may figure as active agents in family business; more frequently they play the role of stay-at-home coordinator, the center point for communication while the men traveled. In some cases, especially for several of the Paston women, they emerge from the shadows and are “real” people whom we can follow over the years. The many editions of the letters—especially those of the Pastons—and the impressive body of writing about them indicates that the light they shed on late medieval family life continues to be of interest. All of the letter collections are now available in editions that meet current scholarly standards.