ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the letter as a privileged source of authority for elite medieval women, for whom, given the myriad restrictions on their mobility and institutional access, letter-writing often afforded their best means to demonstrate authority, transact business and advocate for their families, natal or spiritual. The chapter argues that, consequently, women writers deployed the genre to articulate claims for prestige and acuity in gendered terms. Letters enabled religious women to disseminate their theology, as well as claims for independence from local ecclesiastical oversight; and noblewomen to practise patronage, build alliances and communicate with menfolk away at war or conducting business. For most, letter-writing was the only form of writing open to them, and so it became fundamental to the making of women’s authority in the Middle Ages.
