ABSTRACT
In the Middle Ages, letter writing was a professional skill practiced by dictatores, masters of the art of Latin prose composition. The ars dictaminis, as it was called, adapted the rhetoric of the classical oration to the public documents of a feudal society. Like the oration, the medieval letter was divided into parts, usually five: greeting (salutatio), opening (exordium or benevolentiae captatio ‘securing of goodwill’), statement of the situation (narratio), request (petitio), and conclusion (conclusio). Since etiquette required that the letter reflect the correspondents’ social status, handbooks offered formulas for courteously addressing such dignitaries as the pope, bishops, abbots, kings, noblemen, and magistrates. The style was as artful as the dictator could make it, often employing the cursus, an accentual prose rhythm.
