ABSTRACT
The use of European vernacular languages in correspondence from around the mid-fourteenth century encouraged women without formal training to compose letters, aided by a literate scribe. In developing urban centres, letter-writing was indispensable to mercantile activity and the needs of family businesses drew the wives of entrepreneurs into epistolary culture. Those women often used letters for their own purposes, expressing emotions and opinions while reporting practical matters. Gentry women managing estates on behalf of absent husbands also maintained a more than utilitarian correspondence with their menfolk. Letter-writing had always been essential for nuns communicating with patrons and family members. However, during the sixteenth century, as the Church’s stricter enclosure of convents also threatened their financial viability, letters became the primary means of engaging with the outside world.
