Lost Letters of Medieval Life: English Society, 1200–1250 trans. and ed. by Martha Carlin and David Crouch (review)

Abstract

Lost Letters Medieval Life: English Society, 1200-1250. Edited translated by Martha Carlin David Crouch. [The Middle Ages Series.] (Philadelphia: University Pennsylvania Press. 2013. Pp. xxvi, 334. $29.95. ISBN 978-08122-4459-5.)This elegant scholarly volume reproduces a strong proportion the model correspondence contained in two early-thirteenth century formularies, one surviving in the British Library the other in the Bodleian. They both emanate, it seems, from Oxford, both cater to the needs business students. A crisp introduction covers, in addition to description the manuscripts themselves, a history such formularies; the political context; an introduction to contemporary Oxford the study letter writing there; literacy in early-thirteenth-century society; and, most interestingly, a study epistolary conventions with particular reference to forms address dictated by courtesy social status. The subjects range from commercial transactions; processes provisioning accounting; requests for assistance creation reciprocal obligation to issues concerning lordship, administration, war, politics. One the most fascinating sections concerns a knight's correspondence regarding the building a barn. The context is one those grants, so common on the Chancery rolls, where a royal servant is granted oak trees from the royal forest for building works. Few readers these entries will have given much thought, one suspects, to what precisely happens next. Here, however, we have a sequence events that might follow. The recipient writes to a forester, described his friend, asking him to convey the to his men requesting that the recipient supply the oaks but adding that he might increase the royal as you can without betraying the king's trust (p. 278). What does this mean? The forester's response is to comply, adding the crowns the trees and everything that belongs to the forester's office (p. 280) for the knight's hearth, together with all assistance to his carpenters. In a third letter the forester instructs his sergeants to add a fifth oak of our own gift (p. 281) to obtain assistance from the surrounding communities in carrying the oaks to the knight. The knight then hires a carpenter to finish his windmill to build a barn instructs his bailiff accordingly. The latter replies saying that all has been done requested that he has borrowed money to cover the expenses. …