Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 4.djvu/160

 r I g i n a I 39 o cum t n t s. Among indii'ect evidences of the state of English society in the middle ages, few are more valuable than those manuscript treatises prescribing forms for the preparation of deeds and the composition of letters, which are preserved in our public libraries. They cast the same light upon the nature of epis- tolary intercourse at various periods that the Registrum Brevium sheds upon the formulae of legal processes during early times ; and, happily, many private letters, written between the thu"teentli and fifteenth centuries, which have descended to us, prove that these forms, however strange some may appear, were, generally, well adapted to the social exi- gencies of the periods at which they were compiled. These treatises on dictation are frequently confined to an enumeration of the ceremonial phrases for commencing and ending letters to persons of various ranks ; but in numerous cases the authors have gone more deeply into the subject, and supplied entire epistles, which, mutatis mutandis, might be at once adopted and copied by the scribe of an earl or an esquire. As may be readily imagined such compositions refer chiefly to those petty cares and vexations of human existence which are not peculiar to any age ; they include solicitations for pre- ferment, for protection, for loans of money; these are their chief features ; but as they were prepared for unlettered times, when the most ordinary principles of composition were, un- known to any but the clergy, the authors occasionally descended to the humblest affairs of life, and prescribed the terms in which a farmer should ask the loan of his neighbour's plough or cart. It may be observed, however, that there are no forms of amatory declaration provided, although an lago of the thirteenth or fourteenth century is taught how to intimate to her injured lord the supposed perjury of any contemporary Desdemona. I select from a manuscript which has recently fallen under my notice, three forms presenting very characteristic features. The first is an application by an imaginary earl of Gloucester