Negotiating with the Material Text

Abstract

Abstract Royal letters were an integral part of early modern diplomatic communication, intended to shape inter-princely relationships through their content and their material form. The exchange of letters was a communicative mechanism on multiple, not simply textual, levels. Utilizing an interdisciplinary methodology and focusing on letters sent to and from English monarchs in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, this chapter demonstrates the dynamic interactions between material text and the diplomatic conventions—ceremonial, material, visual, spatial—in which they need to be understood. Knowledge of the ceremonial context into which letters were sent shaped the considerations of how they looked and how they travelled. Although the predominant form of inter-princely letter exchanged within Europe was different from the predominant form of letters between European and non-European rulers, several of the same factors were at play. Rather than indicating a lack of cultural understanding between English diplomats and non-European princes, the epistolary practice of Elizabeth I and James VI/I suggests that many of the semiotics of power at extra-European courts were adeptly recognized by English diplomats.