ABSTRACT
The evidence of the state papers preserved in the archives can be analysed to answer a series of quantitative and qualitative questions. This chapter is concerned with the hands, paper, endorsements, and survival of multiple copies of letters in the archives and treats the state papers as sources for the study of the work of the Elizabethan clerks and secretaries. The aim is to reconstruct the dynamics of production at court through the analysis of the forms and physical characteristics of the papers. Building on research on the forms of early modern letters and on recent studies on the correspondence of Elizabeth I, the analysis tailors the material reading of early modern letters to the reconstruction of the inner workings of the Elizabethan secretariat. The information that can be obtained from the documents is complex, and each document bears several layers of information coded in its shelf mark, paper features, signatures, etc.
