Affectionate Terms of Address in Twelfth-Century Latin Epistolography: A Comparative Study of the Letters of Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter the Venerable, and Peter of Celle

Abstract

This article considers the conventions of affectionate address in medieval Latin letter-writing through case-studies of three important twelfth-century monastic letter collections. A method is proposed for correlating affectionate address to various measures of “social proximity” between correspondents and to the functions of letters in order to assess the value of letters and letter collections as evidence for social and political networks. It is argued that affectionate address neither reflected emotional relationships nor was merely a polite convention for pragmatic exchanges. Two types of affectionate address are identified: the first, comprising carissimus, dilectissimus and dilectus, was associated primarily with the promotion or defence of the collective interests of monasteries or orders and the cultivation of important corporate relationships; the second, comprising a range of rarer terms, was mostly reserved for high-status institutional allies, but exhibited variations among writers. Both are distinct from friendship language. Affectionate address is proposed as part of a shared monastic language, or language of inclusion, used to cultivate, to advertise, and to preserve a record of selected relationships. The implications of this for the use of letters as evidence of networks and for our understanding of the nature and purposes of letters collections are discussed.