7 - Writing Others and the Self

Summary

Early modern Europe was witness to a great age of letter writing, so much so that some have suggested that it saw an “epistolary revolution.” The seventeenth century, in particular, has been labeled the golden century of correspondence, and the “great century of discussion,” abetted by tfhe availability of paper and the expansion and systematization of postal systems across Europe. The great expansion in epistolary traffic in early modern Europe was seeded by medieval practices. Starting in the eleventh century, there had been a rebirth in the art of epistolary rhetoric, which had ultimately led to the conventions of the ars dictaminis, which governed letter writing within the church and became important mediators in the exercise of political power. Between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, the epistolary art migrated from the public to the private sphere, remaining formalized but becoming increasingly personalized.