SCRISORI PRIVATE DIN TRANSILVANIA MEDIEVALĂ ÎN CONTEXT LOCAL ȘI EUROPEAN

Abstract:

Following recent suggestions and initiatives, the present paper intends to continue with the investigation of correspondence in late medieval Transylvania, focusing for the first time on private letters. In this context, the discussion revolves around some letters discovered recently in rather unusual circumstances, namely letters and fragments of letters found in manuscripts or printed books from Sibiu (within the Library of the Brukenthal National Museum) that were already circulating within the same region in the Late Middle Ages. The unusual circumstances regarding their finding, the fragmentary state of some of the letters, and also the particular difficulties associated with the analysis of every written text produced during the Middle Ages in very informal circumstances, require a complex methodological approach, which combines palaeography, prosopography and institutional history at a local level. Also, the importance of the recycling and reusing of writing materials should not be forgotten, an aspect that is frequently discussed nowadays in the field of medieval studies. The investigation of these private letters (and additional similar examples) from Transylvania relies upon the superior experience in international research to deal critically with such sources situated between cultural history and the history of everyday life.

Keywords:

Medieval Transylvania, epistolography, letter-exchange, private life, ego- history, literacy, fragmentology.