Women’s Voices in Medieval Artes Dictandi and Model Letter Collections

The focus of the research project is the figure of the woman in medieval model letters. The aim of the study is to prepare a thematic census of form letters by and to women contained in medieval epistolary treatises and didactic collections both edited and unedited from the period of the 12th-14thcenturies. The research on manuscripts should be conducted in Austrian libraries, especially in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, which is one of the richest worldwide libraries that preserve epistolary sources. The repertory will be accompanied by a theoretical introduction providing guidelines for the usage of female form letters as a source for the study of the history of women in medieval society. Medieval manuals of letter writing and their related didactic letter collections were created by masters of rhetoric for specific practical purposes. They were samples to be used for writing actual letters. The census construed will allow to determine what kind of letters were especially used by medieval women, depending on the position they occupied in medieval society (in courts, cities, monasteries), which will contribute to our knowledge of female organization (family, body, marriage) and agency (power, negotiation, autonomy, freedom). Furthermore, a comprehensive stylistic analysis of the source database of medieval model letters by and to women will lead to registering the evolvement of literary and social womens voices over the 12th and to 14th centuries. The project, which will be carried out at the University of Vienna under the supervision of Christina Lutter, is divided into three phases. First, I will investigate womens voices in epistolary edited texts (ca. 130); the second phase of the project will be partially conducted in libraries through research on manuscripts which preserve epistolary works, namely those indicated in the catalogue prepared by Emil J. Polak (2015) for the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (8 selected mss.); the third phase of the project will focus on the social, statistical and stylistic analysis of the census. To develop my research project I will use the following methods: paleography, codicology, textual analysis, statistical analysis, stylistic analysis and digital editing. The gender approach does not include any specific study focused on medieval form letters by and to women in terms of collecting the data and their analysis. The project should fill this research gap by preparing the described depository with an introductory study that will be ultimately produced as both, a printed book and a digital publication. The results achieved will be considered the starting point for a long-term project aimed to prepare a considerable repertory of form letters by and to women in both edited and unedited epistolary texts.

The aim of the research project was to draw attention to the historical value of model letters sent by and to women contained in medieval epistolary treatises and didactic collections both edited and unedited from the period of the 12th-14th centuries. In the past historians interpreted letters as a source to reconstruct the actual behaviour of women and neglected model letters. However, the "fictional" voice of women in model letters should be considered as a meaningful and complementary source for womens and gender history. Masters of rhetoric created medieval manuals of letter writing and their related didactic letter collections for specific practical purposes. They were samples to be used for writing actual letters. Indeed, model letters complement the information provided by archival sources, and thus greatly add to our knowledge of different types of women' s letters that did not come to us because they were considered unworthy of record. In this respect consider, for instance, the model letters exchanged between mothers and their children living away from home while studying which are one of the most common types of form letter found among the model letters explored. Model letters do not only unveil neglected forms of women's actual letter writing practices. They are also the intellectual product of masters of rhetoric who reproduced ideas of gender and corresponding norms and values in various forms. The abundant rhetorical composition of model love letters provides relevant clues to the central role love epistolary practices played in medieval times. However, it also stresses the emphasis masters of rhetoric put on women's emotional epistolary communication, which seems to reflect a medieval gender stereotype that emanated from traditional ancient and medieval medical and judicial thought that associated women with emotionality. Three substantial research articles and a comprehensive systematically researched source repertory document the results and findings of my work conducted during the Lise Meitner funding period. The articles offer guidelines and practical examples for the usage of model letter collections as a meaningful source for studying the history of both women and gender. The repertory includes ca. 500 entire or fragmentary model letters written by and to women that give evidence of a differentiated geographical diffusion of women' s dictaminal letter writing across Europe during the 12th-14th centuries. Approximately 80% of the material is edited and 20% unedited or partially edited. The repertorys content will be made available in an online database currently in preparation ("Womens Voices in Medieval Artes Dictandi and Model Letter Collection"). It will be hosted by the Centro di Ateneo per le biblioteche "Roberto Pettorino" at the University of Naples Federico II and thus serves as an important basis for further research, but also for interested wider audiences.