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The Stonor Letters are one of the significant collections of 15th century correspondence that have survived. This series of documents, though not the earliest private letters known in English, has more number and variety in terms of interest, [1] along with the other two major collections from this period, which are the Paston Letters and the Cely Letters . [2]
Like the Paston family, the Stonor family was founded by a royal judge; his name was John Stonor. [3] The Stonors did not participate in the Wars of the Roses; [4] but Sir William Stoner was nevertheless attainted in 1483, and his papers seized by the crown, as well as his lands. Though the latter were restored, the papers remained in crown ownership - hence their subsequent survival. [5]
Although the letters do not discuss political issues, Charles Lethbridge Kingsford has said that they "do not fall short" for content about English society and social life during the period. Subjects discussed in the letters include local office, estate management, legal business, social and domestic life, marriage and the wool trade. [6] The collection has nearly 400 documents. [7] It also included documents such as wood-sale deeds and accounts. [8]
The letters also provided insights about existing norms. For example, based on the sample of writings, the letters show that women of the propertied class adopted three practices when writing: 1) dictating a letter to a literate transcriber; 2) dictating the content but personally writing a signature, greetings, and postscript; and, 3) writing the letter in its entirety. [9]
Kingsford's transcriptions, however, have been described by one 20th-century scholar as "unreliable". [10] There are scholars who use alternative sources such as Alison Truelove's Fifteenth-century English Stonor letters. [11]
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The Paston Letters is a collection of correspondence between members of the Paston family of Norfolk gentry and others connected with them in England between the years 1422 and 1509. The collection also includes state papers and other important documents.
Sir John Fastolf was a late medieval English landowner and knight who fought in the Hundred Years' War. He has enjoyed a more lasting reputation as the prototype, in some part, of Shakespeare's character Sir John Falstaff. Many historians argue, however, that he deserves to be famous in his own right, not only as a soldier, but as a patron of literature, a writer on strategy and perhaps as an early industrialist.
Paston is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The village is 4 miles (6.4 km) north-east of North Walsham and 9.1 miles (14.6 km) south-east of Cromer. It is 19.2 miles (30.9 km) north-east of the city of Norwich. The village sits astride the coast road between Mundesley and Bacton. The nearest railway station is at North Walsham for the Bittern Line which runs between Sheringham, Cromer and Norwich. The nearest airport is Norwich International.
Lady Eleanor Beauchamp, Baroness de Ros and Duchess of Somerset was the second daughter of Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick and Elizabeth de Berkeley, daughter of Thomas de Berkeley, 5th Baron Berkeley.
Charles Lethbridge Kingsford, FBA was a scholarly English historian and author.
Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, 4th Earl of Somerset, 1st Earl of Dorset, 1st Marquess of Dorset styled 1st Count of Mortain, KG, was an English nobleman and an important figure during the Hundred Years' War. His rivalry with Richard, Duke of York, was a leading cause of the Wars of the Roses.
Mary Christine Carpenter is an English historian who serves as professor of medieval English history at the University of Cambridge.
William Paston, the only son of Clement Paston and Beatrice Somerton, had a distinguished career as a lawyer and Justice of the Common Pleas. He acquired considerable property, and is considered "the real founder of the Paston family fortunes".
Sir George Browne was an English politician. He was the eldest surviving son and heir of Sir Thomas Browne, beheaded 20 July 1460. He took part in Buckingham's rebellion, and was beheaded on Tower Hill on 4 December 1483.
John Paston I was an English country gentleman and landowner. He was the eldest son of the judge William Paston, Justice of the Common Pleas. After he succeeded his father in 1444, his life was marked by conflict occasioned by a power struggle in East Anglia between the dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk, and by his involvement in the affairs of his wife's kinsman, Sir John Fastolf. Between 1460–1466 he was Justice of the Peace for Norfolk, and was elected as a member of parliament in 1460 and again in 1461. A number of his letters survive among the Paston Letters, a rich source of historical information for the lives of the English gentry of the period.
Sir John Paston was the eldest son of John Paston and Margaret Mautby. He succeeded his father in 1466, and spent a considerable part of his life attempting to make good his father's claim to the lands of Margaret Mautby's kinsman, Sir John Fastolf. A number of his letters survive among the Paston Letters, a rich source of historical information for the lives of the English gentry of the period. Although long betrothed to Anne Haute, a first cousin of Elizabeth Woodville, he never married, and was succeeded by his younger brother, also named John.
Sir John Paston, was the second son of John Paston and Margaret Mautby. He succeeded his elder brother, Sir John Paston, in 1479. He fought at Barnet and Stoke with John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, served as his deputy when Oxford was appointed Lord High Admiral of England, and was a member of the Earl's council. A number of his letters survive among the Paston Letters, a rich source of historical information about the lives of the English gentry of the period.
Sir Henry Heydon was the son of John Heydon of Baconsthorpe, Norfolk, 'the well-known opponent of the Paston family'. He married Anne Boleyn, the daughter of Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, great-grandfather of Henry VIII's queen Anne Boleyn.
John Heydon of Baconsthorpe, Norfolk, was of humble origins, the son of a yeoman, William Baxter of Heydon. He became a successful lawyer, and is known, through the Paston Letters, as one of the principal agents in East Anglia of William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and one of the chief opponents of the Paston family.
Manchester Medieval Studies is a series of books on medieval history published by Manchester University Press. The series is intended for the non-specialist reader and attempts to combine traditional scholarship with the latest academic approaches to the subjects covered.
Raluca L. Radulescu is professor of medieval literature at Bangor University. She is a specialist in Arthurian and non-Arthurian romances including Sir Thomas Malory and pious romances, medieval chronicles, political culture and gentry studies.
The Cely Letters are a collection of family correspondence written in the 15th century, which describe the lives and business activities of a family of London wool merchants. Key members were Richard Cely and his wife Agnes and their sons Robert, Richard, and George. This collection is one of the few surviving letter collections from the 15th century, along with the Paston Letters and the Stonor Letters. While the Paston Letters cover a period spanning over 3/4 of a century, the Cely Letters cover a much shorter period of time between 1472 and 1488. The Cely letters were preserved only because they were used as evidence in a lawsuit. The Cely Letters are primary sources of information about the English economy and English society at the end of the Wars of the Roses. Only one thing that was known about the wives from the letters is that they would take care of the house and land the husbands own since they would be away
Sir Robert Howard (1385—1436), Knight, of Stoke by Nayland, Suffolk, was an English nobleman, the eldest son of John Howard, of Wiggenhall and East Winch, Norfolk, by the latter's second wife, Alice Tendring. Alice was also an heiress, although not to the same degree as John Howard's first wife, Lady Plaiz, who had brought him estates worth over £400 per annum. They had two sons; Robert was the elder. His younger brother, Henry Howard was later murdered by retainers of John, Baron Scrope of Masham, after his parents and brother had died.
Elizabeth Paston was a member of the English gentry who is regularly referred to in the extensive collection of Paston Letters. She was the only daughter of a Norfolk lawyer, William Paston and Agnes Barry. In her late teens and twenties she resisted marriage to several men proposed by her mother and brothers, before marrying Sir Robert Poynings in 1458, with whom she had a son Edward Poynings.
Colin F. Richmond is a British historian of late medieval England. After degrees from the University of Leicester and the University of Oxford, he spent his entire career teaching at Keele University, rising to become Professor of Medieval History.