Materials and Tools of Letter-Writing

Abstract

The task of writing in early modern England was a rather laborious one — far more complicated than merely picking up ‘pen and paper’ — and various skills had to be acquired and materials assembled before sitting to write a letter.¹ Paper was an expensive commodity, often imported, that needed to be treated before it could be written on, cut to size and folded correctly. The colour, thickness and size of sheets, the measurement of chain lines and identification of watermarks that they contain all offer invaluable clues that shed significant light on specific letters and the habits and practices of individual letter-writers. A range of other materials was employed in the task of the writing of letters: pens and penknives for cutting and re-cutting quills; feathers of varying types to turn into quills; ink for writing with and its accoutrements, an inkpot or inkhorn for holding the ink, a dust box, sand box or pounce pot for sprinkling sand onto a manuscript in order to blot wet ink; wax, string, floss, ribbons, seals and signets used for sealing correspondence. Personal and household accounts and inventories and receipt books detail the purchase and provisioning of items related to letter-writing, which connects the art of writing to the domestic and household sphere as well as office spaces. This in turn suggests that letter-writing was not merely an elite activity associated with government and business, but one in which wide-ranging social groups, including women could engage. The account books of John and Richard Newdigate dating from October 1618 onwards while they were undergraduates at Oxford record regular purchases of materials associated with letter-writing: ink, quires of paper, wax, a desk, writing tables, paper books, printed epistolary texts (‘Plinnies’s Epistles’ and ‘Simachas Epistles’) as well as frequent payments for the carrying of letters.² Likewise, the household accounts of Margaret Spencer (d.1613) record purchases of three quires of paper (12d.), ‘inke & quilles’ (10d.), ‘2 rolles of harde wax’ (12d.), ‘a payer of tabell bouckes’ (12d.) and an inkhorn (12d.).³