greatest cohesion and complexity when they evolve within a limited sociohistorical context." ⁹ For medieval women, the cohesiveness of formalized epistolary rules was determined by medieval patriarchy. In this "limited sociohistorical context," women constituted what anthropologists call a "muted group." Given asymmetrical power relations, women were at a disadvantage in formulating their ideas, concerns, and experiences, because rules for public and semi-public communication were controlled by the dominant group. ¹⁰ Therefore medieval women letter writers could either choose to break into the privileged epistolary precinct reserved for men as primary definers or opt to ignore it and create their own system. In the end, however, neither option allowed women to exert the same influence as cultural primary definers. We need to remind ourselves that medieval women always wrote at the margins of a realm staked out by male authors. Our thesis is that although such marginalization reflects women's subordination it also left us a testimony of women's tremendous strength to swim against the current, of their creativity, inventiveness, and intelligence. Although barred from the centers of cultural and economic power, women did not remain silent. Their epistolary legacy testifies to that.

Historians of medieval culture generally cite the ars dictaminis or ars dictandi, the rhetorical study and practise of epistolary compositions, as a "major achievement of medieval civilization." ¹¹ This field of rhetoric has its roots in Italy where the professional teacher of epistolography, the dictator, first appeared. The dictamenal manual of Alberic of Monte Cassino, the earliest handbook to survive, lists the five parts of the letter which became standard in medieval Europe: the salutatio or epistolary greeting, which carefully articulates the recipient's social position; the benevolentiae captatio, which usually consists of a proverb or quotation from scripture intended to secure the recipient's good will; the narratio or statement of particular purpose; the patitio in the form of an argument deduced from premises established earlier in the letter; and the conclusio. ¹² The format is derived from the divisions of classical oration, with the letter adding a formal salutation. Formularies or dictamina, books of sample letters, survive from all parts of medieval Europe, indicating the popularity of the ars dictaminis at cathedral schools and universities. By the thirteenth century treatises began to appear in Italian dialects, and by the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries they were found in many vernacular languages such as French, German, Czech, and Polish. Several of the women writers who appear in this volume modeled their letters on the conventions of the formularies. The Franco-Italian Christine de Pizan clearly knew the dictamenal tradition

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