Abstract
Formal letters adhere closely to Renaissance rules for laying out manuscripts, notably in having the signature or the name of the supplicant at the bottom right. Fulwood advised: ‘to our superiours we must write at the right syde in the nether ende of the paper, saying: By your most humble and obedient sonne, or seruant &c. And to our equalles we may write towards the midst of the paper saying: By your faythfull friende for euer &c. To our inferiors we may write on high at the left hand saying: By yours &c.’1 Other writers were more concerned with space than placement. Angel Day simply suggested correlating the social status of the writer and recipient with the amount of space left at the end, honouring elevated addressees with as much blank paper as possible, while Cooke counselled that ‘the concluding prayer likewise should never be crowded near the preceding words’.2
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
W. Fulwood, The enimie of idelnesse (London, 1568), sig. A8r. A. Stewart and H. Wolfe, Letterwriting in Renaissance England (Washington, DC, 2004), 35, treat this as normative.
C. Brant, Eighteenth-century letters and British culture (London, 2006), 324.
Quoted in P. Mack, Elizabethan rhetoric. Theory and practice (Cambridge, 2002), 269.
G. Dodd, Justice and grace. Private petitioning and the English parliament in the middle ages (Oxford, 2007), 284.
G. Koziol, Begging pardon and favor: ritual and political order in early medieval France (London, 1992), 46.
M. Martin, Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, circa 1695 (Stirling, 1934), 248.
K. Tribe, Land, labour and economic discourse (London, 1978), 59.
S.E. Whyman, Sociability and power in late-Stuart England: the cultural world of the Verneys, 1660–1720 (Oxford, 1999), 28.
Quoted in J.G. Jones, Concepts of order and gentility in Wales, 1540–1640 (Llandysul, 1992), 231.
W. Gregor, Notes on the folk-lore of the north-east of Scotland (London, 1881), 35.
For an example of compurgation on the Breadalbane estates in 1622 see W.A. Gillies, In famed Breadalbane. The story of the antiquities, lands, and people of a Highland district (Perth, 1938), 260.
G.F.S. Elliot, The Border Elliots and the family of Minto (Edinburgh, 1897), 32–3.
A. Edgar, Old church life in Scotland: lectures on kirk-session and presbytery records (London, 1885), 271–2. In 1535 the murderers of the Archbishop of Dublin were formally cursed.
S. Brigden, New worlds, lost worlds: the rule of the Tudors, 1485–1603 (London, 2000), 83.
Quoted in P. Maddern, ‘Friends of the dead: executors, wills and family strategy in fifteenth-century Norfolk’, in R.E. Archer and S. Walker (eds), Rulers and ruled in late medieval England (London, 1995), 165.
J.P. Earwaker, An account of the … ceremony of cursing by bell, book & candle which took place in the parish church of Leigh … 1474 ([Manchester], 1878). The original is in BL 4707.df.3.2.
D. Murray, Early burgh organization in Scotland 2 vols (Glasgow, 1924, 1932), vol. 2, 515. APS II, 297 (1525 c. 6). APS II 342 (1535 c. 3).
G. Neilson and H. Paton (eds), Acts of the lords of council in civil causes vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1918), 64, 392.
W. Ross, Lectures on the history and practice of the law of Scotland, relative to conveyancing and legal diligence 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1822), vol. 1, 100–102, 269–73. For early-eighteenth-century proscription of oaths denying ill-will see D. Macrae, Notes on the history of the parish of Lairg (Wick, 1898), 31–2.
R. Suggett, ‘Witchcraft dynamics in early modern Wales’, in M. Roberts and S. Clarke (eds), Women and gender in early modern Wales (Cardiff, 2000), 88–97.
S. Ollivant, The court of the official in pre-reformation Scotland (Edinburgh, 1982), 151.
G.H. Jenkins, R. Suggett and E.M. White, ‘The Welsh language in early modern Wales’, in G.H. Jenkins (ed.), The Welsh language before the industrial revolution (Cardiff, 1997), 120–25.
H.G. Graham, The social life of Scotland in the eighteenth century (London, 1937), 325–6.
K. Thomas, Religion and the decline of magic (London, 1971), 502–12.
M. Todd, The culture of Protestantism in early modern Scotland (London, 2002), 352–5.
G.H. Jenkins, Literature, religion and society in Wales, 1660–1730 (Cardiff, 1978), 97–100.
H.B. M’Call, the history and antiquities of the parish of Mid-Calder (Edinburgh, 1894), 28.
G.M. Griffiths, ‘A visitation of the archdeaconry of Carmarthen, 1710’, National Library of Wales Journal 18 (1973–4), 287–311.
Quoted in D.W. Howell, The rural poor in eighteenth-century Wales (Cardiff, 2000), 117. The Mostyns had a track record of oppressing tenants. Teale, ‘Battle against poverty’, 82.
CRO D/LEC/265/5. Sixty-two inhabitants were named, but the area had at least 2,000 inhabitants at the time. J.B. Bradbury, A history of Cockermouth (London, 1981), 236.
T. Pennant, A tour in Scotland and voyage to the Hebrides, 1772, ed. A. Simmons (1774–6. Edinburgh, 1998), 45.
R. Horrox, ‘Service’, in R. Horrox (ed.), Fifteenth-century attitudes: perceptions of society in late medieval England (Cambridge, 1994), 61–78.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2014 Robert Allan Houston
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Houston, R.A. (2014). Ending. In: Peasant Petitions. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137394095_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137394095_11
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-48379-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-39409-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)