Epistolae is a collection of letters to and from women in the Middle Ages, from the 4th to the 13th century. The letters, written in Latin, appear under the names of the women involved, with English translations and, where possible, biographical sketches of the women and some description of the subject matter or the historic context of the letter. Genealogies will be provided shortly.

The letters were originally collected and translated by Professor Joan Ferrante of Columbia University mainly from printed sources. The Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning collaborated with Professor Ferrante to develop a free, online repository of the collection with extensive search capabilites.

Epistolae is meant to be a cooperative project. It designed to allow for future additions and translations of letters, as well as corrections to the texts or to the information offered. Some scholars and presses have already contributed letters and translations, and their contributions are gratefully acknowledged in the text. Users are invited to participate by sending material or inquiries to jmf2@columbia.edu. Contributions, fully acknowledged, will be put online after review for accuracy by a small board of scholars.

For the time being, please send suggested corrections or additional information about the texts already online, but check with us before sending additional letters or translations since only some 450 letters of the roughly 1600 that have so far been collected are now available online. A list of the others will be provided and texts will be added continuously. If you have translations with accompanying material for other letters and wish to contribute them, or if you have knowledge of letters from archives and manuscripts and even from published chronicles that may not be know to us, please let us know.

A few notes for readers not familiar with medieval letters: it was common practice for those women and men who engaged in correspondence to dictate their letters to secretaries who not only copied them but sometimes\ edited them before sending them, and letters were copied and collected by recipients as well as by senders. One can not, therefore, assume that the words are precisely those of the sender, but in general, unless an intentional deception was involved, they represent the views or intentions of the senders.

Names can be spelled in various ways; we attempt to give the most common variations.

Biblical references may not correspond to the text the reader is familiar with. Usually they refer to the Vulgate, but some writers cite other versions, other writers give an approximation as if it were an exact quotation.

Latin texts may be taken from older editions because of copyrights, noting variations where they exist in the newer editions.

Advisory Board

Anne Clark, University of Vermont
Carmela Franklin, Columbia University
Alison Beach, William and Mary
Kimberly LoPrete, National University of Ireland