Session Abstract

Throughout the Middle Ages, members of the ruling classes created, sent, and received written documents for a variety of purposes. These documents often took the form of charters (legal documents) and even more frequently, letters. While traditionally studied separately, the form and function of both the charter and letter bear a striking number of resemblances: both documents had at times rigid, at others flexible, formulaic constructions; required physical transmission, typically through a messenger; assumed both private and public functions; and formed, solidified, and destroyed political and personal relationships. Each of these shared traits merit individual investigation—as does the almost inevitable blurring of these two genres—but perhaps none so much as one final, under-investigated characteristic. Though many modern scholars tend to associate letters and charters with male literacy and male authority, our three panelists’ re-evaluations of the extant evidence reveal that medieval women were commissioning, sending, receiving, and archiving Latin letters and charters on a scale which has been heretofore underestimated.

This session seeks to investigate the commonalities and distinguishing features both of charters and letters as genres and to investigate how women participated in the documentary culture of the early Middle Ages as social, cultural, and political agents. This session seeks to go beyond pointing to isolated cases, or arguments over the extent of female literacy. Rather, our goal is to determine how women used these two genres, how these documents were transmitted, and for which audience(s)—and, at the same time, ask whether any substantial, qualitative differences occurred in comparison to the masculine norm. Hailey LaVoy draws attention to women exchanging gifts in letters and charters and, by drawing upon recent anthropological discussions of the gift in pre-modern societies, she investigates how women participated in larger dynamics of economic and social gift-exchange. Julie Hoffman also focuses on the social and economic impacts of exchange, but through a more detailed discussion of the cartularies of eastern Carolingian monasteries’ witness lists in order to ultimately investigate what role women played in the politics of property on a local level in East Francia. Warren Brown branches out from the particulars of property transactions, by drawing attention to the evidence for women’s archival practices—both secular and lay, royal and ‘ordinary’—in early medieval formularies.

Coupled with Joan Ferrante’s commentary, this session will inspire medieval and, indeed, modern scholars to investigate and revaluate the varied economic, political, and social roles of women in diplomatic and epistolary situations in and outside of Europe. By drawing attention to the overlapping particulars in letters, charters, their collections, and their formularies, these panelists will reinforce the importance of focusing on both the precise functions and consequences of these genres and, ultimately, the women who used them.