'I shalle send word in writing': lexical choices and legal acumen in the letters of Margaret Paston.

Margaret Paston's letters have been said to contain 'many obvious echoes of legal phraseology', (2) and both their tone and their content have led historians to surmise that she had a certain familiarity with the law, bur the extent of her legal knowledge has hitherto been largely ignored or taken for granted. Focusing specifically on an important subgroup of Margaret's vocabulary, however--her use of legal words--affords new insight into the level of her understanding of the law. (3) Furthermore, by assessing any correlation between these specialist terms and the scribal hands in which they appear it is possible for the first time to gauge the degree to which the words Margaret used in her letters represent her own lexical choices, and thus shed new light on her involvement with the letter-writing process generally. Such a survey also gives additional insight into the increasing availability of the vernacular legal expressions which enabled Margaret Paston (and by implication other women like her) to function efficiently in an administrative capacity, (4) provides the opportunity to examine the intersection between a fifteenth-century woman's understanding of the lave and her literate practice, and invites us to reassess contemporary attitudes to the relationship between education and literacy. (5)

Regarding, first, the broader issue of authenticity, although Margaret's letters are without exception the product of a secretary's pen it is the general contention that they represent her own thoughts and syntax and constitute a faithful transcription of her words. (6) Even at first glance they are immediate in style and often give the impression of having been taken down verbatim from somewhat headlong dictation in an unselfconscious tone that has been described as having 'many of the features of oral narrative'; (7) and the mode of expression used for personal or domestic concerns is not appreciably different from that used for business topics. Indeed, Margaret could slip from culinary requirements to estate matters with hardly a pause for breath. Yet in order for a study of Margaret Paston's knowledge of the law as revealed by the legal linguistic competence of her letters to have any validity it is necessary to consider how much help she might have received not only in understanding the legal concepts her correspondence contains bur also in expressing those concepts correctly in letter form.

As far as business and administration are concerned, Margaret's correspondence indicates that she was personally aware of every aspect of her family's activities, that she had a comprehensive understanding of the legal formalities necessary, and that her own involvement in the management of the Paston holdings went beyond the superficial awareness of one who delegated such functions to others. She was well able to 'kepe a corte', extract 'reparacion' for late rent, or issue a 'qwetans' when a payment had been made, (8) and seems similarly at home with the more complicated legalities entailed in retaliating against the depredations of land-hungry local magnates whose acquisitive ambitions often went relatively unchecked during the political instability of the mid-fifteenth century. Inevitably, such crises often occurred during her husband's frequent absences, and Margaret's letters make it clear that when necessary support and guidance were available to her from friends and associates. One such adviser was William Skypwyth, who amongst other duties had been MP for Norwich from 1463 to 1465 and a JP for Norfolk from 1469 to 1470 and had considerable legal experience. In a letter to her husband in 1465 it emerges that Margaret had asked Skypwyth 'what hym thought ... were best to doo ... and most wyrschypfull' pertaining to some distrained goods, and had been advised by him on the relative advantages of a writ over a replevin. She also mentions that he supported her when she went to see the Bishop of Norwich about 'the riotous and evyll dysposicyon' of a local priest, and asks John to 'thank ... [him] ... of hys gode wyll for he was ryght well wyllyd to go wyth me and yeve me hys avyse' (63 and 180.82f.). (9)

Although letters relating such activities to her husband or sons were dictated by Margaret to numerous secretaries over more than forty years of correspondence there is no evidence that she chose her amanuenses according to the content of her letters; no sign, for instance, that one hand penned the correspondence to do with domestic matters while another was reserved for more complicated or sensitive business dealings. (10) It seems rather that she drew on the services of particular scribes as they were available, and individual outputs are often consecutive or grouped together for this reason. The most prolific of her secretaries, for instance, identifiable only as 'Hand 128' after the first letter he wrote for Margaret according to Davis's numbering, wrote almost every letter she sent between 1448 and 1454, but otherwise contributed only a few drafts for her husband between 1452 and 1455 before disappearing. Other hands then appear, write a few letters, then disappear, although they often pop up again at a later date. As they grew old enough her sons were also pressed into service in much the same way.

Such a pattern of scribal use also suggests that although many of the Paston estate servants are known to have had some legal expertise, no particular secretary was specifically chosen to write letters with specialist legal content, which in turn implies that Margaret did not need help in selecting the correct legal terminology. It is possible to investigate this hypothesis further by checking the incidences of the first recorded use of each legal term (the occasion on which it might be possible to argue that Margaret was being 'introduced' to that expression) against the known scribal hand in which that first appearance occurs. When an average number of first uses of legal words per letter written by each of the eleven identifiable scribes is obtained, the result is, on the whole, fairly uniform (see Table 1, averages emboldened), giving a mean total of between one and three new technical terms per letter, too close a tally to reveal any correlation between scribe and word. Examination of the distribution of individual legal words amongst the scribal hands also shows that a significant number of words appear in more than one hand, and many in four or more. Those words confined to the use of a single hand were, with very few exceptions, only used on that one occasion, suggesting that the term in question had a particular application which did not recur, rather than being inserted on the initiative of the individual scribe. If Margaret was not receiving guidance from any one secretary, can conclusions be drawn from the dates when legal words first appear? As she did not generate the same number of letters per year a mean figure must again be taken. On recording the average number of legal words first used per business letter (11) per year, with one notable exception (1448) the result is between 1 and 7 (1462) (see Table 2).

Discounting the anomalous high in 1448 (something to which I shall return in a moment), if those years for which only one business letter has survived are discounted, since strictly speaking that precludes calculation of an average, a tight grouping is revealed, clustered between 1.3 (1472) and 3.7 (1461) first appearances of legal words per business letter per year.

Returning to the letters of 1448, the high average figure of eleven legal terms is notable enough to deserve closer scrutiny. Margaret composed two business letters in that year, number 128, containing fourteen legal terms, and number 129, which used eight. Letter 128 was the first surviving business letter that Margaret wrote after her husband became head of the Paston family, and letter 129 was written only a few weeks later. I would suggest, therefore, that it is understandable that a somewhat larger percentage of the legal words in Margaret's lexicon might seem to appear in these particular letters for the first time, particularly in view of the four-year gap in the record that precedes them. Perusal of the specific words used, moreover, shows that while each has a definable legal application they tend to be of only low-level specialization. Furthermore, when the average number of legal expressions used in the letters written by that particular scribe (Hand 128) is calculated, the resulting total of 2.6 words used for the first time per letter in his output is less than that recorded for John Gresham or Richard Calle, and the same as the figure for John Wykes, who wrote Margaret's letters at a much later date, indicating that any possible contribution by Hand 128 did not comprise an unduly large proportion of the whole. The nature of the vocabulary also suggests that although so many of Margaret's early letters were penned by him she was not, even in this early correspondence, being influenced to use a disproportionate amount of legal jargon.

With regard to the analysis of specific vocabulary, however, if Margaret's legal expressions are plotted on a graph according to their first appearances between 1441 and 1480, discounting once again the spike in 1448, a regular distribution curve is discernible, showing a trend towards a high at the busy mid-point of the period (1452-70) representing her greater level of legal activity during the more active middle time of her life (letters 143-310) than in her earlier child-bearing years or in old age (Figure 1).

This result also indicates that Margaret's use of legal words was a response to the diversity of topics under discussion at the time, and that she used the appropriate terminology for new circumstances because the need arose. Again, since so many amanuenses were used during this period, there would appear to be no correlation between scribe, topic, and lexical choices.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Since it seems that Margaret was not suiting scribe to content or relying on guidance from her secretaries, where else might her technical vocabulary have originated? A possible source is the correspondence she received from family members and others. The thirty surviving business letters that were sent to Margaret between 1447 and 1479 yield a total of eighty-six legal terms. Fifty of these, however, she had already used, and twenty-three never appear in her letters. Only thirteen of these words crop up later in Margaret's writings, but of these only three are made use of quickly, within a few months. The date of reappearance of the rest varies from a year to six years later--a randomness that suggests Margaret was not gleaning vocabulary from the letters she received in order to fill gaps in her knowledge.

Since we know nothing about her education we can only surmise that Margaret acquired her impressive legal linguistic competence initially as a function of growing up, augmented in the early days of her marriage by informal exposure to the Pastons' considerable legal expertise and through oral discourse--the business discussions with her husband that are hinted at in the letters.

Margaret Paston's legal usage

Before attempting to isolate the legal language in Margaret's letters (and having established that her legal lexicon really was her own) it is necessary to define what for present purposes constitutes legal terminology. (12) Such vocabulary falls into several distinct groups. Of those words that are clearly specialist in character some, like amerce or chevisance, are no longer in current use even by legal professionals and are now considered archaic. Others are familiar to the modern reader, although their emphasis might have changed with time. The duties of the coroner, for instance, were not restricted in the fifteenth century to matters associated with suspicious deaths as they are today. Another category of vocabulary is made up of non-specialist expressions, words that then as now are given a precise and specific legal meaning by their context--words like claim, appeal, or charge. Many of the everyday words that are included in Margaret's lexicon, such as properly or tenant, may appear somewhat simplistic even when used in a legal context, but it would be subjective and misleading to attempt to categorize fifteenth-century legal terminology according to its degree of supposed complexity from a modern viewpoint. Consequently, to avoid subjectivity all words with an accepted legal definition or that could be used in a legal context, as well as job titles such as justice of the peace or bailiff which indicate a legal functionary or one whose work includes legal duties, have been included in this survey, even though such words would undoubtedly have formed a part of everyday vocabulary and not been viewed as the province of the legal specialist in Margaret's day any more than they are now.

Working from these principles it is possible to list the legal vocabulary used by Margaret Paston in her letters, as well as that used in letters she received, to reveal that during the course of her surviving correspondence Margaret Paston used or was exposed to 182 definable legal words or phrases, expressions which, it can therefore be said with confidence, constituted at least part of her legal lexicon. This total includes the twenty-three technical terms mentioned previously that were used in letters written to her, and with which, therefore, it can be alleged that she was familiar, even though she did not make use of them personally--at least in those of her letters that have survived.

Procedural terms

Of Margaret's 182 legal words, two-thirds are procedural terms showing her familiarity with the bureaucracy that underpinned the uniquely complex judicial system of the day. This category also includes the important sub-groups of the names of courts and the titles of both Latin and non-Latin documents. Of the multiple and overlapping procedures of the contemporary judicial system it was with those of the local courts that Margaret was most closely involved. She makes specific references to the shire court, hundred court, sessions of the peace, the assizes, and even the Admiral's Court, indicating an appreciation of their different areas of jurisdiction and the times when they were in session. (13) As an heiress and the wife of a landowner, she was often personally responsible for the manor courts held on the Paston estates. In August 1465 she wrote to her imprisoned husband that she had sent two of the estate administrators to Drayton in an attempt 'to hold the court ... and to clayme ... [the] tytill' (189.3) in his name. In the same letter she used the term 'the Kynges lete' (189.35f.) to refer to a court. Although on that occasion Margaret had delegated the responsibility, she did not always take a back seat, and under less dangerous circumstances in May she had been prepared to hold the court at Drayton herself during her stay at nearby Hellesdon (see 179.7-10).

As the daughter-in-law of a justice in the Court of Common Pleas it is not surprising that Margaret should also have been well informed about the superior courts--she mentions both Chancery and the Court of Common Pleas by name--yet her use of the appropriate terminology also indicates that her knowledge extended beyond a mere passing acquaintance into awareness of the technicalities of correct procedure and the names of Latin writs. She is even willing to draw on her technical knowledge to suggest to her husband how he might proceed in legal matters. Her request in a letter of May 1465, for instance, that her husband's men 'myght haue a supersedeas owte of the Chauncere' (180.93f.) indicates not only that she understood that such paperwork originated with that court, but that she was aware of the precise nature of a supersedeas. Similarly, less than three months later Margaret made use of the Latin terms alias and capias. She was acting on advice received, and referred a little diffidently to what 'councell thynketh' (189.75), perhaps unwilling to appear dictatorial, so we cannot know whether this was the first time she had come across these terms, bur her reference in the same letter to a supplicavit (189.91) gives every impression of long familiarity with its use, entailing no attempt to justify or elaborate on the correct terminology. Furthermore, there is reason to believe that Margaret's fluency in technical usage, particularly her familiarity with Latin terms, was widely known. In a letter she received from John Pampyng, for instance, probably written in 1463, he appears to take for granted that she would understand the use of a fieri facias writ (719), making no attempt to define it. Since Margaret does not use the term in her surviving outgoing correspondence this is our only indication that she was aware of it. In the same vein, her husband's letter of September 1465 involved no explanation of the term subpoena, and her son John II does not elaborate on the use of a writ of diem clausit extremum (315.21), both of which can also be added to Margaret's lexicon of Latin writs even though she did not use the expressions herself in any of her surviving letters.

In addition to the six types of Latin writ that Margaret mentions and the three with which she was also familiar, her vocabulary includes twenty-six documents with non-Latin names, divided between generic terms that could be applied to those suitable in numerous situations--bill, indenture, or deed, for instance--and specific titles, for example privy seal, mortgage, or patent. Moreover, it is also clear from the following extract, which refers to an individual arrested for the theft of some Paston property, that Margaret's knowledge went beyond the theoretical in both Latin and English, that she was familiar, for instance, not only with the concept of habeas corpus, but with the practice of applying for a writ of trespass rather than a replevin in such cases since the restitution available in a personal action of this sort was superior. (14) She remarked:

   and now ther ys com down an habeas corpus for hym, and most appyre
   at the Comyn Place on Fryday next comyng. Wher-fore yf it pleased
   you that there myght be taken an accyon in Wykys name of trespas,
   vndere such forme as there may be a capias a-wardyd ... (PL 181,
   lines 15-18, Margaret to John I)

The Church, marriage, and inheritance

Margaret's involvement with the processes of ecclesiastical law was on an understandably smaller scale, a fact that is reflected in the relatively modest quantity of relevant specialist vocabulary it generated. The scandal of the clandestine marriage agreement between her daughter Margery and Richard Calle, however, necessitated a meeting with the Bishop of Norwich accompanied by his 'schawnselere' (203.41) or legal agent under circumstances which made the processes of religious jurisdiction unavoidable. In a letter to John II, Margaret describes how Margery and Calle were 'exameynd' to discover the validity of the contract between them, a word which, when used in its legal sense, denoted the method by which guilt was assessed, and which Margaret uses several times in describing the bishop's questioning, (15) her choice of term underlining her familiarity with the vocabulary of ecclesiastical procedural matters. In the same letter she refers to 'pe devors' (203.68) that John II had suggested might be obtained, a word which at that time meant the dissolution of a union that had always been invalid--an example of an apparently familiar legal term that had a narrower, more specialized meaning then than it does today. Margaret was adamant that no such step be taken, however, possibly reasoning that since the episcopal enquiry had pronounced the union valid, even if a divorce could have been arranged it would have had a very dubious moral basis, and thus, as she pointed out to John II, 'xuld offend God and [??]owr conshens and ... put [??]owr-sylfe and othere in gret joparte' (203.70 and 72). Margaret's reaction indicates that her grasp of the technicalities was at least equal to that of her legally trained son.

The area of marriage was one where sacred and secular jurisdiction overlapped. Unsurprisingly, as a woman of property Margaret was also familiar with the concepts of jointure and dower. (16) She used the term jointure personally with respect to the marriage of a neighbour in 1448 (128.54).

If, as has been suggested, the legal agreements preceding marriage marked 'the point of establishment of a conjugal estate', (17) or were at least part of the process by which an estate could be augmented, then it was the legalities surrounding death that were intended to ensure the smooth passage of that estate to the next generation, thereby ensuring financial stability. As a widow, Margaret's own will is preserved in the corpus, enabling us to be sure that she was aware of the conventions surrounding its making and the vocabulary that was customarily employed. (18) Furthermore, an important sub-group of Margaret Paston's legal vocabulary was concerned with matters pertaining to inheritance. Thirteen words in her legal lexicon pertain specifically to such matters, affording additional insight into her understanding of the laws underpinning the judicial process and the degree to which the financially driven legalities of property ownership, inheritance, and death were intertwined. Her use of the correct terminology--words like entail, escheat, and disposition--is a measure of the centrality of such matters, and her choice of the term quethe-word, implying spoken wishes, with reference to her husband's nuncupative bequests is an indication of the precision of her usage.

Indeed, on the death of her husband in May 1466, Margaret became even more closely involved with the legal ramifications of inheritance. Although John I's wishes were known, strictly speaking he died intestate since he had been overtaken suddenly and swiftly by illness, (19) leaving the family with the administrative problem of settling his estate at the same time as dealing with the probate hearings that were still proceeding with regard to the Fastolf inheritance. Margaret wrote:

   ... as for youre fader ys wyll, I wold ye shold take ryght gode
   counsell therin, as I am enformyd it may be provyd thogh no man
   take no charge thys twelfmonth. Ye may haue a lettere of
   mynystracyon to such as ye wyll ... (PL 198, lines 12-14, Margaret
   to John II)

We can be sure that Margaret had known about the uses of a letter of administration for at least five years, since in a letter of 1461 John Salet advised, through her, that Thomas Denys's wife obtain one. (20) Whether, therefore, she speaks from a recollection of this earlier incident or with reference to the more recent advice mentioned above, is not immediately clear from the wording of the letter, although since she begins her next sentence with 'I avyse you ...' (198.15), presumably switching at this point to her own opinions, the latter would seem likely.

The uncertainty surrounding the whole matter is reflected in the imprecise use of the word will. In referring in her letter to John II to 'youre fadere ys wyll' (198.18f.) Margaret can only be using the term loosely, meaning not the legally executed document (there was none in existence) nor even nuncupative deathbed instructions, but his heartfelt wishes, which was after all how the term came into being. (21) The word even seems to have been used in this sense in Margaret's will itself. (22) This document makes little distinction between will and testament, referring on two occasions to 'my testament and last wille' (230.5.and 219), and also to 'wille' alone (230.207), while the closing sentence refers specifically to 'present testament' (230.227), only at this late stage using the strictly correct term to refer to a document necessarily dealing solely with the bequest of moveable goods. (23) Such a document would have been drawn up according to a uniform code of practice and does not necessarily reflect Margaret's personal level of understanding of the exact legal meanings of the terms. (24) Indeed, such usage in a legal document might even imply that the customary form was already undergoing a degree of transformation and the distinction between will and testament was becoming blurred, at least in the minds of non-professionals. Such appears to be the case in a letter of 1465 in which Margaret herself seems to use the two terms in a composite sense, referring to 'a serge in the regestre ... aftre the wylles and testementys of suche as hought the maners ... this c yere ...' (193.1-3) even though the transfer of real property would have been accomplished through the will, and would therefore have left little trace in any testaments. While, then, it cannot be stated categorically that Margaret was aware of the fine distinction between the two terms, her usage in this respect can be alleged to be consistent with contemporary practice.

Property: its administration and protection

It is not surprising that Margaret Paston, so often responsible for overseeing the family holdings, should have been fluent in the technical expressions necessary for the landowner and administrator, or that the extent of this category of her legal usage should reflect its importance. Beyond the thirteen terms associated with inheritance it is possible to identify a further twenty-six legal words in Margaret's vocabulary related to matters connected with property, as well as another three used in letters she received, giving property-related matters the largest number of specialist words in her legal lexicon after the procedural terms.

Margaret's first reference to property matters comes early in her correspondence, in a letter of 1444, about four years into her marriage and only a few weeks before the death of her father-in-law William. Whereas her first three letters had been concerned almost exclusively with domestic matters and local gossip, this fourth letter opens with the report of a non-payment, presumably of rent, which left Margaret short of money. It also emerges in this letter that Margaret had been entrusted with certain 'herrendys to myn modyr [by whom, as Davis points out, she meant her mother-in-law, Agnes (25)] and myn hunckyl' (127.8), including one concerning 'pe feffeys of Stokysby' (127.8f.), tasks which mark the first tentative beginnings of Margaret's activities in domestic administration.

Margaret's next letter follows a four-year gap (letter 128 discussed on pp. 54f.) and, as we have seen, is almost entirely concerned with matters of estate business. In her husband's absence she had met with Lady Morley, to whom the relief on Sparham manor was owed. (26) Despite Margaret's pleas that no action be taken against John in his absence, Lady Morley maintained that she had given John ample warning that the money should have been paid and seems determined to sue John for what is due--Margaret 'kwd not getyn no grawnth of here to sesyn' (128.26). Since the property in question had been acquired as part of Margaret's dower it is perhaps not surprising that she was aware of the finer points of its transfer and she may even have felt responsible for ensuring that the process was trouble free. Her use of the correct terms--relief, grant, and seisin--however, and the fact that she was willing to enter into negotiations herself, suggest that she was confident of her understanding of the legal procedure.

Nor was that quite all the trouble at Sparham. Money owed against property continued, as we learn in the same letter, to cause Margaret concern, although this time in her role as lady of the manor. The rather unstable Jon of Sparham was, apparently, determined to sell or mortgage his belongings in order to pay a debt, and Margaret had taken it upon herself to dissuade him. She reported that 'I entretyd hym so patt I sopose he wyl noper sellyn nere sett to morgage noper catel nere oper gode of hese' (128.63f.). It is possible that by reversing the common legal phrase 'goods and chattels' (one that, since it was used in a letter to her only about two years later, (27) was clearly in common parlance at the time and, indeed, also featured in her own will) (28) Margaret was making an accurate distinction between the two categories of belongings, applying them respectively to 'sellyn' and 'morgage' since at this time chattels implied moveable property that might be s old, while goods (or indeed good, since the terra could also be used in the singular) could still be taken to mean land, which might therefore be mortgaged as Margaret fears--another example of her understanding of the minutiae of property-related transactions, and her precise use of the correct technical vocabulary.

Even before these relatively minor matters at Sparham, Margaret's experience of the legalities of property ownership had entered a more serious phase, one in which her role went beyond the secretarial to embrace the more complicated activities of distress and counter-distress of goods. The Pastons had been expelled from their manor of Gresham (29) in February 1448 by Lord Moleyns, and in May Margaret reported to John that 'The Lord Moleyns man gaderyth up pe rent at Gresham a gret pace' (129.46). The Pastons subsequently returned to take up residence on the estate (though not in the manor house itself), but in January 1449 Margaret was personally driven out once again. (30) Writing from John Damme's home at nearby Sustead in February she recounts how the tenants were being pressured by Moleyns's men. It seems probable to her that should they not comply with his wishes Moleyns would 'distreyn for pe mersymentys er pe nexst hundred' (131.14f.). Indeed Herry Goneld has already been 'dystreynyd ... for rent and ferm, and he must pay it to-morn ... or ell lesyn his dystresse' (131.16-18). Margaret's efforts were not confined to encouraging the Gresham tenants, however. Once again she undertook negotiations on her husband's behalf, this time with John Barrow, Lord Moleyns's agent at Gresham. Although this was the first time that Margaret had dealt personally with such a situation she appears to have been familiar with its legal ramifications, and the vocabulary she uses in describing the encounter is, typically, specific and appropriate. She points out that the Pastons had been 'dissesyd of her lyvelode', and that Moleyns had 'no tytyl of r[??]t ... to pe maner of Gressam' (131.69 and 79). (31)

By the time the Duke of Suffolk began to assert a claim over the manors of Drayton and Hellesdon some sixteen years later Margaret had become even more self-assured and businesslike in dealing with the distress and counter-distress of goods. Perusing the sequence of letters of 1465 in which the struggle to retain command of these manors is recounted, it is clear that she was very well informed of every move that was made and perfectly at home not only with the correct legal terminology bur also with the procedures necessary in attempting to make use of the proper judicial channels.

Only three months later we find another example of the way Margaret's understanding of the finer points of property law went deeper than just the correct use of the technical vocabulary to include an appreciation of the possibility of using the available legal procedures to compensate for the problems of judicial bias caused by local political manoeuvring. Her handling of the situation shows not just confidence in her own ability bur also the extent to which her social status, position of responsibility, and technical understanding are accepted and allow her to speak with her own voice to those outside the domestic circle. The high sheriff's officials had failed to serve a replevin in respect of sheep distrained on Paston land by Yelverton, having been told by his men that their master had a claim to the manor in question. Since the sheriff had accepted this reason unquestioningly Margaret sent him word advising him that unless Yelverton was present on the manor in person he could not claim it and suggesting that the sheriff 'be ware what retorne he made pat he were not hurte by it' (189.72f.), or in other words, that it would reflect badly on him if his report showed him to be ignorant of the law. There is no indication that Margaret is acting on advice received rather than on her own initiative based on prior knowledge. Indeed, when she is advised that it would be best to serve an alias and pluries on Yelverton, so that the sheriff would then be obliged to make a report justifying his actions, (32) she is quick to point out that such a course was what 'councell thynketh' (189.75), although she does not name the individual in question, and does not claim the idea as her own. The high sheriff subsequently seemed well disposed towards Margaret when she complained to him about the anti-Paston bias shown by the under sheriff. She reported that 'he hat wretyn to hym that he choulde be indeferent for both partyes acordyng to the lawe ...' (192.14f.).

Crimes and misdemeanours

The other major category of Margaret Paston's legal vocabulary is that related to crimes and misdemeanours. The twenty-two relevant legal terms in her lexicon may be divided into those words that are general or descriptive, those signifying harm done to an individual, and terms indicating crimes involving property. Although property was of such pressing concern to the Paston family only five expressions are specifically relevant to this area. One of these, extortion (167.27), was used in a general sense by Margaret in reporting to her husband the gist of a speech given by Yelverton at the quarter sessions. Her use of the term robber (and robbery) (196.40 and 41), though, was only too relevant to her own experience, and appeared in a letter to John I describing the devastation at Hellesdon after it had been sacked by Suffolk's men in October 1465. She used the term in its correct sense, which implied the use of force or violence. When, however, she had used the word thief (129.60) seventeen years earlier, a term which implied the use of stealth rather than force in the illegal taking of goods, it was this furtive element of its meaning that Margaret intended the word to convey, rather than the act of stealing:

   I wot wel he wyl not set vp-on [??]w manly, but I be-leve he wyl
   styrt vp-on [??]w or on sum of [??]wr men leke a thef. (PL 129,
   lines 59f., Margaret to John I)

In this context the word has more in common with expressions describing an act of violence against the person, and indeed two of the three words from Margaret's lexicon of expressions associated with crimes and misdemeanours that do fall into this category--assault and bodily harm (129.33 and 129.53)--also appear for the first time in this same letter, one largely concerned with an attack upon James Gloys by John Wyndham and his henchmen. Given the subject matter, that the word affray (129.22) should also appear here in conjunction with assault is perhaps to be expected. The other two words associated with public unrest, insurrection and riots/riotous, together with manslaughter, occurred for the first time in letters written in 1461 and 1462 respectively (162.16 and 168.12 and 34).

As a logical extension to the theme of words related to wrongdoing, those describing the ensuing retribution are also well represented, from the initial arrest and the idea of correction to the sentence meted out (128.57; 180.66, and 200.55). Within Margaret's personal experience can be found use of the stocks and the concept of prison, although in the sense that Margaret uses the term it pertains to wrongful detention and subsequent release, rather than to a just punishment (161.11 and 169.2). It seems, though, that to be outlawed was a familiar enough occurrence for the loss of the Paston shepherd in this manner to be reported as a minor inconvenience merely necessitating the finding of a new one (128.71-4).

On other occasions, though, Margaret's choice of words could be seen as calculated to be more emotive, perhaps to lend colour to her writing or to influence the recipient, her husband, to take action. Thus, it is interesting to note that the most dire punishment, that of hanging, is referred to in a way calculated to emphasize the seriousness of the situations under discussion, and is used to convey a sense of threat, rather than report an actual occurrence. In connection with local unrest the emotive phrase hanged at their own doors makes the story all the more immediate:

   The pepyll seyth her pat they had leuyr go vp hole to the Kyng and
   compleyne of siche fals schrewys as they haue be wrongyd by a-for
   than they schold be compleynyd of wyth-owt cause and be hangyd at
   ther owne dorys. (PL 168, lines 15-18, Margaret to John I)

When the term cropped up again more than three and a half years later it was in connection with a direct threat by the mayor against a man he had arrested, seemingly for no greater crime than being associated with the Pastons. On this occasion the legal formula hanged by the neck is used (194.18f.). Although it is possible that Margaret was reporting the threat as it was conveyed to her, it is particularly evocative of the judicial setting. As in the previous instance, Margaret is discussing a matter she feels strongly about and her mode of expression, repeating the legal form of words used in sentencing until the middle of the twentieth century, may have been intended to convey a sense of the seriousness of the situation and of an imminent miscarriage of justice. As such, her choice of words could be seen as those most likely to appeal to her husband's professional sensibilities and spur him to act swiftly to obtain a writ for the man's release.

In conclusion, then, it is not remarkable that Margaret Paston, living in such a litigious society, was aware of the laws that were a fundamental part of her world of property ownership and administration, as well as those concerning family matters, an area in which gentry and noblewomen were active as both wives and widows. Nor is it surprising that during such troubled times the administrative duties for which women were responsible required an understanding of many areas of the law, not just jointure agreements and testamentary bequests, bur the judicial mechanics of seizing and holding disputed property. The ability to express such legalities in precise and specific language was and is fundamental to the efficient use of the courts, and in view of the fact that Margaret's education was probably typical of that customarily available to young women of her station (and that her involvement in legal matters may have been chiefly remarkable because detailed evidence of her activities, expressed in her own words, has survived) it is not unreasonable to conclude that her acumen is representative of that of many late medieval women. (33) Furthermore, both her knowledge and her legal vocabulary almost undoubtedly far exceeded that which the evidence of her surviving letters and papers permits us to state, with certainty, was hers.

Finally, although their involvement in the legal side of domestic administration was not unusual, married women's invisibility in the written record has generally made their activities as estate managers and their relationship with the law hard to quantify. Close reading of Margaret Paston's correspondence and that of women like her, a resource which offers a privileged view of the extent of women's administrative activities and the depth of their legal understanding, in parallel with analysis of the technical legal language she used, affords an insight into late medieval women's education, literate practice, relationship with the law, and position in society that goes beyond the anecdotal.

ALISON SPEDDING 

Birmingham

NOTES

Research for this article was made possible by the AHRC. I should like to thank Wendy Scase for her invaluable support and encouragement. Any errors and infelicities remain my own.

(1) 'I shalle send word in writyng of suche tydingys as we have here on Monday in hast.' PL 172, lines 34f., Margaret Paston to John Paston I, 1463, probably 19 January. Throughout this study all references to the published collection of the letters of the Paston family refer to Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, ed. Norman Davis, 2 vols, EETS, ss 20 and 21 (Oxford, 2004), and Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, ed. Richard Beadle and Colin Richmond, EETS, ss 22 (Oxford, 2005). All quotations are taken from these volumes and dating also follows Davis's format. All italicized expansions have been regularized but punctuation retained.

(2) Norman Davis, 'The language of the Pastons', Proceedings of the British Academy, 40 (1954), 120-44 (p. 120).

(3) For the purposes of this article, Margaret's 'legal vocabulary' constitutes every word she used or was exposed to that had a legal definition or application. For a fuller explanation see pp. 56f. Margaret's complete legal lexicon is given in Table 3.

(4) For an appraisal of the gradual changes in the oral and written linguistic orientation of the judiciary towards the use of the vernacular, and how a legal vocabulary developed from this realignment, see David Mellinkoff, The Language of the Law (Boston, Mass., 1963), pp. 36-70. John H. Fisher, Malcolm Richardson, and Jane L. Fisher, introduction, in An Anthology of Chancery English (Knoxville, Tenn., 1984), pp. xi-xvii (p. xiii). For a comprehensive assessment of the introduction of French into administrative affairs, and its influence on legal expression, see George E. Woodbine, 'The language of English law', Speculum, 18/4 (October 1943), 395-436. See also W. M. Ormrod, 'The use of English: language, law, and political culture in fourteenth-century England', Speculum, 78/3 (July 2003), 750-87, on the limited effect of the Statute of Pleading of 1362.

(5) Further reading: since the first volume of the letters, edited by John Fenn, appeared in 1797, there have been numerous studies of the Pastons, their letters, and the social and historical context of the period. Recent studies include Helen Castor, Blood and Roses: The Paston Family and the Wars of the Roses (London, 2005); Frances and Joseph Gies, A Medieval Family: The Pastons of Fifteenth-Century England (New York, 2001); Richard Barber, The Pastons: A Family in the Wars of the Roses (Woodbridge, 1999); Colin Richmond, The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century, I: The First Phase (Cambridge, 1990); Colin Richmond, The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century, II: Fastolf's Will (Cambridge, 1996); Colin Richmond, The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century, III: Endings (Manchester, 2000). This third volume contains a chapter specifically devoted to Margaret Paston. She also features prominently in publications focusing on medieval women's writing, including (in addition to those referred to specifically in this article) Laurie A. Finke, Women's Writing in English: Medieval England (London, 1999); Rebecca Krug, Reading Families: Women's Literate Practice in Late Medieval England (Ithaca, NY, 2000); and Diane Watt, Medieval Women's Writing: Works by and for Women in England, 1100-1500 (Cambridge, 2007).

(6) See Diane Watt, '"No writing for writing's sake": the language of service and household rhetoric in the letters of the Paston women', in Dear Sister: Medieval Women and the Epistolary Genre, ed. Karen Cherewatuk and Ulrike Wiethaus (Philadelphia, Pa, 1993), PP. 122-38. See also Joel T. Rosenthal, 'The lady and the letters', in Telling Tales: Sources and Narration in Late Medieval England (University Park, Pa, 2003), p. 113, in which he concurs with Norman Davis's opinion that Margaret's letters are the product of the signatory rather than the scribe. Roger Dalrymple also draws attention to the oral quality of the Paston women's letters: Roger Dalrymple, 'Reaction, consolation and redress in the letters of the Paston women', in Early Modern Women's Letter Writing, 1450-1700, ed. James Daybell (Basingstoke, 2001), pp. 16-27. On letter writing more generally, see Jennifer C. Ward, 'Letter-writing by English noblewomen in the early fifteenth century', in Early Modern Women's Letter-Writing, ed. Daybell, pp. 29-41.

(7) Watt, '"No writing ... "', p. 131.

(8) PL 179, line 9 and PL 154, lines 37 and 40, respectively. On women's administration of the family holdings, see Rowena E. Archer, '"How ladies ... who live on their manors ought to manage their households and estates": women as landholders and administrators in the later Middle Ages', in Woman is a Worthy Wight: Women in English Society c.1100-1500,, ed. P. J. R Goldberg (Stroud, 1992), pp. 149-81.

(9) See also The Paston Letters, ed. Davis, p. 113 n. 1.

(10) I would suggest, however, that there may be one exception to this apparent pattern of using scribes fairly indiscriminately as they were available. Edmond Paston, having previously only collaborated with James Gloys on a single letter for his mother, was employed by her as the sole scribal hand of letter 203, a relatively long epistle (over eighty lines in Davis's edition) informing John II of the details of his sister's episcopal examination pursuant to her clandestine marriage to Richard Calle. While it is perfectly possible that only Edmond was available at the time, and there is no reason to believe that Margaret, any more than her contemporaries, was reluctant to speak of confidential matters in front of the estate servants, this particular letter is arguably the most sensitive in terms of family news that Margaret composed, and both the subject matter and the outcome are likely to have caused her some embarrassment. That she might have chosen her son specifically to write such a letter is possible under the circumstances.

(11) Of Margaret Paston's 104 surviving letters, the 62 most extensive of them, as distinct from short notes consisting of family news, constitute what for the purposes of this article I have designated from time to time as 'business letters'.

(12) I am indebted to John A. Alford, Piers Plowman: A Glossary of Legal Diction (Cambridge, 1988), p. xi for a definition of the distinguishing features of legal usage that has guided my own.

(13) This bears out the findings of Emma Hawkes, whose research examines the way in which women, particularly northern gentlewomen, interacted with the law and made informed decisions about which court to use: Emma Hawkes, '"[S]he will ... protect and defend her rights boldly by law and reason ...": women's knowledge of the common law', in Medieval Women and the Law, ed. Noel James Menuge (Woodbridge, 2000), pp. 145-61.

(14) For an explanation of the use of writs of trespass in such cases see W. S. Holdsworth, A History of English Law, 9 vols, 4th edn (1903; London, 1935), III, 27 and 285.

(15) See PL 203, lines 7, 20, 42, and 50.

(16) According to Daarcy's custumal, 'all the goods and chattels of the dead man, after his debts are paid, should be divided into three parts, of which one part rests with the dead man and should be distributed for his soul, another part shall be for his wife and the third part to his children ...' Cited in Caroline Barron, 'The "golden age" of women in medieval London', Reading Medieval Studies, 15 (1989), 35-58 (p. 42). Under the widower's right of courtesy, should a deceased wife have borne a child within the marriage the widower was given a life interest in her lands. See Ann J. Kettle, '"My wife shall have it": marriage and property in the wills and testaments of later mediaeval England', in Marriage and Property, ed. Elizabeth M. Craik (Aberdeen, 1984), pp. 89-103 (p. 90).

(17) Kettle, '"My wife shall have it"', p. 89.

(18) Probate was granted on 18 December 1484, and a copy of record registered at the Consistory Court of Norwich, designated Reg. A. Caston fols 224b-228a. There are some orthographical difference between this version and Add. Charter 17253 held at the British Library, which constitutes item 230 in Davis's edition of the letters. This appears to have been the version John Paston III worked from when carrying out his executorial duties since it has marginalia in his hand. Although other executors are named, including a 'Thomas Drentall, clerk', the scribal hand has not been identified. Davis dates Margaret's will as 'Nominally 1482, 4 February'. It is not signed and no seal survives.

(19) The intestacy of John Paston I led to a protracted administrative tangle and financial hardship for the family. Some years later, on hearing of her cousin Bernay's sickness, Margaret advised, somewhat imperatively, 'for Godsake advise hym to doo make hys will, yeue it be not doo, and to doo well to my cosyn his wiff, and els it were pete' (PL 220, lines 34-6.)

(20) 'He cownseld me pat she shuld ... have a letter of ministracion; and so I told hyr' (PL 160, lines 15-18).

(21) There is a difference between a 'will' and a 'testament', although very often the two terms were used synonymously. Specifically, under common law land could not be bequeathed, but passed automatically to the heir. Towards the end of the medieval period, however, a system developed by which legal ownership of land could be assigned while its 'use' remained with the former owner. On death the land was conveyed according to the former owner's 'will'. The 'testament', on the other hand, was concerned with bequests of goods and chattels--moveable property.

(22) '... to accomplissh my wille' (PL 230, line 141).

(23) For a discussion of the contradictory positions of the civil and canon law on married women's testamentary freedom, see Richard H. Helmholz, 'Married women's wills in later medieval England', in Wife and Widow in Medieval England, ed. Sue Sheridan Walker (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1993), 165-82.

(24) My research-in-progress into formulaic conventions and legal usage in the vernacular testaments of fifteenth-century women and the degree to which they were personally involved in their making explores this topic in detail.

(25) See Norman Davis's introductory comments to letter 127.

(26) Margaret had inherited Sparham on the death of her Mautby grandmother, Eleanor, two years before. For an exhaustive analysis of the Mautby holdings and their division, see Richmond, The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century, I, 121-30.

(27) See PL 709, line 3.

(28) See PL 23% line 217.

(29) Gresham had been bought by John in 1427. When Robert Hungerford married he took his wife's name of Moleyns and with the help of John Paston's enemy John Heydon (a follower of Suffolk) was seeking to revive a spurious claim to Gresham made on the grounds that the manor had once been in the possession of his wife's family.

(30) See letter 56 for John Paston I's narrative of the episode in his 'Petition to Henry VI' and Norman Davis's introductory comments on the sequence of events.

(31) Margaret's recounting of the conversation can be found at tines 64-92.

(32) Such neglect of duty seems not to have been unusual. See Christine Carpenter, 'Law, justice and landowners in late medieval England', Law and History Review, I (1985), 205-37, where it is remarked that '[o]verworked, understaffed and inexperienced sheriffs often found it easier not to return writs at all' (p. 213).

(33) Applying the same principles used to isolate the legal vocabulary of Margaret Paston's letters to other comparable epistolary evidence supports this contention, although there is not room to describe it here in detail. In short, investigation of the writings of the other Paston women (Agnes, Elizabeth Poynings, Margery, and Elisabeth Clere, whose correspondence is also preserved in the corpus) together with those of Elizabeth Stonor, Agnes Plumpton, and Elizabeth, Lady Zouche, reveals a tally of between 2.2 and 6 legal words per business letter (the latter figure attesting to the formidable business acumen of Elisabeth Clere), a score generally in excess of Margaret's 2.3 new words per business letter, with a similar emphasis on procedural and administrative topics. For the other letter collections, see Kingsford's Stonor Letters and Papers 1290-1483, ed. Christine Carpenter (Cambridge, 1996); The Plumpton Letters and Papers, ed. Joan Kirby, Camden Fifth Series 8 (Cambridge, 1996); and Paddy Payne and Caroline Barron, 'The letters and life of Elizabeth Despenser, Lady Zouche (d. 1408)', Nottingham Medieval Studies, 41 (1997), 126-56.

Table 1 Average number of first appearances of legal terms per scribe

Scribe (in order       Number of   Number of      Average number
of appearance)         texts as    terms first    of first
                       principal   appearing in   appearances of
                       hand        this hand      legal terms per
                                                  letter

Hand of Letter 128        20           51              2.6
James Gresham              2            6              3.0
James Gloys               19           23              1.2
John Paston III           11           28              2.5
John Daubeney              9           14              1.6
Richard Calle              4           11              2.7
Prior John Mowth           1            1              2.0
John Paston II             3            5              1.7
John Wykes                10           26              2.6
Hand of Letter 66          1            2              2.0
Edmond Paston              5            5              1.0
John Pampyng (a)           1            0
Hand of Letter 221 (a)     3            0
Hand of Letter 226 (a)     3            1
Unidentified              12            8
  individuals (b)
Total                    104          182

(a) These seven letters come towards the end of Margaret's
output, cover few legal topics, or reuse old vocabulary.

(b) Letters occur singly at various dates.

Table 2 Average number of legal words first used by Margaret per
business letter per year

Year   Number of legal   Number of          Average number of
       words used for    business letters   legal words first
       the first time    written            used per business
                                            letter per year
1441          2                 1                  2.0
1444          1                 1                  1.0
1448         22                 2                 11.0
1449         21                 6                  3.5
1451          9                 6                  1.5
1452          3                 1                  3.0
1453          5                 3                  1.7
1454          1                 1                  1.0
1459          2                 1                  2.0
1460         11                 4                  2.8
1461         22                 6                  3.7
1462          7                 1                  7.0
1463          4                 2                  2.0
1464          4                 1                  4.0
1465         43                13                  3.3
1466          1                 1                  1.0
1469         12                 5                  2.4
1470          3                 1                  3.0
1471          2                 1                  2.0
1472          4                 3                  1.3
1478          1                 1                  1.0
1480          2                 1                  2.0
Total       182                62

Table 3 Margaret Paston's legal vocabulary

Acquit
Act of Parliament
Action
Administration
Admiral's Court
Advocate
Affirm
Affray
Aldermen
Alias
Amercement
Appeal
Appointments
Appurtenance
Arrest
Assault
Assent
Assigned
Assize
Attachment
Attorney
Authority
Avow/disavow
Award
Bailiff
Bequest
Bill
Bill of complaint
Bodily harm
Bond
Bondman
Bond tenantry
Bound
Bribes/bribery
Capias
Certify
Chancellor
Chancery
Chattels
Chevisance
Citation
Claim
Commission (of the peace)
Committed
Common Pleas
Common/commune
Complaint
Constable
Continuance
Conventicle
Coroner
Correction
Counsel
Court (manor)
Covenant
Curse
Deed
Default
Degree
Delivered
Diem clausit extremum
Diocese
Discharged
Dispensation
Disposition
Disprove
Disseise
Distrain
Distress
Divorce
Duty
Earnest (in)
Endorsed
Enfranchised
Engross
Enquiry
Ensurance
Entail
Entered (into)
Escheat
Evidence
Examination
Exchequer
Executing
Executor
Executrix
Extortion
Fee
Fee simple
Felony
Fieri facias
Foeffees
Forged
Good(s)
Grace (in)
Grant
Guilty
Habeas corpus
Hanged (by the neck)
Heir
Hundred
Indenture
Indicted
Indifferent
Inheritance
Inquest
Inquisition
Instrument
Insurrection
Issue
Jointure
Judges
Jurors
Justice of the peace
Knight fee
Law
Leet
Ler
Letter of administration
Letter of attorney
Levy
License
Maintaining
Malice
Manor
Manslaughter
Matrimony
Mayor
Mortgage
Moveable goods
Negligence
Nonage
Notary
Oath
Obligation
Occupy
Ordinary
Outlawed
Oyer and terminer
Pardon (bill of)
Patent
Performed
Plea
Pledges
Pluries
Possession
Prison
Privy seals
Process
Proctor
Proved
Purveyance
Quethe-word
Quittance
Ratify
Recompense
Register(ed)
Release
Relief
Remedy
Reparation
Replevin
Restitution
Return
Riot/riotous
Robber/robbery
Roll
Seal (seal of arms)
Search
Seisin
Seized
Sentence
Serve/served
Sessions (peace/quarter)
Sheriff (and forms)
Shire court
Slanderous
Stocks
Stolen
Subpoena
Sue
Supersedias
Supplicavit
Surety
Sworn
Temporal court
Tenants
Terra (legal session)
Testament
Testimonial
Thief
Title
Traitors
Treason
Treaty
Trespass (also writ of)
Wardship
Warrant
Win
Witness
Writ