Question 7

Angel Day and The English Secretary

The English Secretary and Sixteenth Century English Dictamen
 

English speakers in the sixteenth century, especially middle class men and women, sought aids for writing that offered a variety of benefits: instruction, entertainment, practical assistance in social and economic affairs, and a path to higher literate culture. Interest in writing focused generally on letter composition.  Letters not only provided obvious economic and communicative functions, but they had long been important in (Latin) education and prestige culture through the teaching and practice of the Humanists.  English letter-writing aids grew in number and significance with the expansion of the English book trade after mid-century, although imported foreign books as well as manuscript materials probably remained the most available resources for writers into the seventeenth century.[1]  

When The English Secretary first appeared in 1586[2], it had been preceded by several books based more or less on Continental works (Green).  The first and most successful, William Fulwood’s The Enemy of Idleness, Teaching the Manner and Style How to Endite, Compose, and Write All Sorts of Epistles and Letters,[3] was printed in London in 1568. 

Angel Day’s The English Secretary built on the model of Fulwood’s manual by including not only much of the “Latin” letter theory common in schools, but also a large number of practical, middle-class exemplars that were original inventions.  Day was careful to note in the first edition that “almost all” of his letters “before set down were now suddenly by the author ordered and invented to their several examples” ([preliminary quire] **4v). This claim--important in the light of the totally derivative nature of previous manuals--has been verified by scholars over the past 70 years (Hornbeak 24; Robertson 18-19). 

As these same scholars have also noted, Day relied heavily on Latin precedents and “formularies.”  Such observations are usually made with a pejorative sense, as though it were a fault in the concept of Fulwood’s or Day’s books that they relied on accepted epistolographical and rhetorical theory.  It seems unlikely, however, that readers of these manuals would have thought this traditional approach a hindrance to their learning how to compose letters. Quite the contrary is the case; the high- culture cachet of Latin literacy, with all the accoutrements of the rhetorical tradition, would have been a major attraction to sixteenth century vernacular readers.  . . .   All this is not to say that the original exemplars Day provides were not important to the book’s success; clearly they connected middle-class readers with important themes in their lives as well as giving some practical help in certain commercial areas.  But Day’s reliance on tradition was not a weakness of the book; rather it provided a foundation or “platform” that allowed him to experiment with the letters themselves.

. . .

Thus Day’s Secretary and similar works are framed in this complex Latin epistolary background merging Humanist and dictaminal elements.  It comprises one facet of tension in the late sixteenth-century English “culture of literacy” that Lawrence Green describes as “more Latin than English, more Continental than native, more oriented toward manuscript than toward print, and heavily reliant upon imported imprints.”  These aspects of literate culture have rendered the Elizabethan landscape foreign and at times bizarre to students familiar with the fully print-based textual practices of recent centuries; . . .

The English Secretary and “Writing Instruction”

. . .  Erasmus’ De conscribendi epistolis provided Day with his main antecedent/source for letter-writing theory.  . . .

Just how deep is Day’s debt to Erasmus’ De conscribendis and ensuing works can be seen in several echoes and close parallels. The early chapters of Secretary’s Book I cover fairly compendiously the main points of the Humanist tradition.  A letter is "the messenger or familiar speech of the absent," and

The diversities of epistles are manifold, as whereof ensueth a platform to every motion (being in truth so infinite as are the imaginations of each one’s fantasy), seeing the declaration of every letter is no more than what the mind willeth in all occasions to be performed and, according to such instigations wherewith at that instant men are fed when they write, taketh his formal substance, whether it be to require, counsel, exhort, command, inform, commend, entreat, advertise, gratulate, or whatsoever other purpose therein pretended as cause and matter may fall out to be required[4] (I:1) [PDF 3]

In the spirit of Erasmus, but condensing his concerns substantially, Day declares that although anyone who can write can write letters ("pregnant wit ensuing by nature"), they are "beautified, adorned, and . . . transmuted" by art (I:2).[PDF 4]  Chief considerations in letter composition are "Aptness of words and sentences,"  "Brevity of speech," and "Comeliness in deliverance, concerning the person and cause"; "comeliness," as Day later explains, refers to the ancient rhetorical concept of decorum, suitability of style and matter to time, place, and audience (I:2-5). [4-5] These concerns all reflect broadly but accurately those touched on by Erasmus in the first chapters of De conscribendis (12-22).  Attempting to exemplify this doctrine, Day decides that it is more noteworthy in the breach than the observance: he offers two negative examples (much as Thomas Wilson lampooned “inkhorn terms” in The Art of Rhetoric (1552; 1560)) of letters written in "a ridiculous manner," flouting the three aspects of style he has just described (I:5-8). [6-9]

Certain more direct parallels to De conscribendis suggest that Day was not only bathed in the spirit of Humanist epistolography, but probably composed with a copy of Erasmus open on the table.

. . .

Throughout the initial portion of Secretary, Day reaffirms the congruence of letter-writing theory with the Ciceronian rhetorical tradition. 

But in the midst of this Humanist-inspired discussion, Day has carefully integrated elements of letter-writing theory prominent in the tradition of the ars dictaminis. Chapter 4, treating "Of certain contents generally incident to all manner of Epistles," gives a short introduction to salutations, farewells, addresses, and signatures as "continually incident" to proper letter writing (I:12). Dictamen manuals usually provided formulae which writers could copy, and Day does the same in chapters 5 and 6, [17, 22] offering literally scores of usable superscriptions (salutations written above the letter proper), farewells (valedictions), subscriptions, and directions. . . .

 A few samples will suffice to give their flavor.

Superscriptions--in order of rank, highest to lowest, excepting the sovereign; assuming the writer to be middle class, or an apprentice (I:20-21):[23]

. . .

Farewell greetings (I:14-16): [17-18]

. . .

Subscriptions--which should appear on the page in a place corresponding to the relative difference in station between the writer and a social superior:  the more the difference, the lower the subscription should be placed, even to "the very lowest margent of paper" (I:16):[19]

And in letters reprehensory, or otherwise unfriendly (I:17):: [20]

. . .

These formulae continue to acknowledge the social relationships emphasized in letters since the middle ages.  . . .

A recurring theme in epistolographical teaching is the grouping of particular letter types under broad headings carried over from rhetorical teaching. Chapter 7 (I:21-24) [27] delineates the division of letters into four types, reflecting Erasmus' addition in the De conscribendis epistolis of a category inspired by Cicero in the Aristotelian scheme: demonstrative, deliberative, judicial, and familiar.  Under these broad “traditional-plus-one” headings, Day then lays out the commonly recognized types of letters, defined by major purpose, in almost exactly the same terms used by Erasmus:

These particular “titles” of letters seem to originate in the dictaminal tradition, and were continued by Erasmus and other writers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.  . . .

Day continues on to stress how the so-called demonstrative types really offer a strategy of representation that is necessary to achieve rhetorical ends in the forms and occasions of persuasion in written communication, as they occur under the traditional heads of deliberative and judicial letters.  It is not accurate, however, to think of them or teach types as entirely separate, as the rules would imply.  “By all which it appeareth,” he concludes, “that howbeit these several titles thus divided yet are the matters thereof diversly wrapped together, and the precepts serving to the one by a like conveyance be drawn into the other” (I:24). [29] But finally remaining a traditionalist, Day continues to affirm the usefulness of the categories for conceptualization in teaching:  . . . Such an approach is in harmony with the spirit of humane pedagogy seen in Erasmus; and many of Day’s successors in 21^st century composition teaching would find this an acceptable stance, indeed the only pragmatic one: theory is useful to a certain extent, but must be animated and superseded in the actual practice of discourse. 

Writing from models

Thus the first seven chapters deal with epistolographical theory as the hybrid it had become. The English Secretary remains strongly Erasmian and Humanistic, while incorporating useful parts of the older tradition that would help Day’s fellow bourgeois in need of an appropriate superscription or farewell phrase for the nonce.  But Secretary’s chief center of interest is probably not in formulas for copying or in letter-writing theory, but in the example or model letters Day supplies in the remainder of Book I and in Book II. Learning oral and written expression through the inspiration and imitation of models was ingrained into literacy practices both in formal education and in the manuals that preceded Day’s book.  And particularly, as did imported books such as The Enemy of Idleness, Day offered a literary experience in the guise of practicality.  Model letters are a genre of fiction that offers glances into imagined lives and vivid characters, and indeed has been considered to be a precursor to the genre of the novel.[5] Day may not be in the class of his famous contemporaries--Lily, Greene, and eventually Breton--but his model compositions attracted readers; his success can very probably be attributed to a mixture of fictive interest and familiar themes in exemplars that reflect the temper of the times and the daily situations middle class English people recognized as their own.

Day himself seems to have composed nearly all of his model letters

. . .

One such, an example of a letter petitory or letter of request or entreaty, models the appeal of a prodigal son for permission to return home; Hornbeak calls this the earliest English model based on the familiar parable (26).  After passionate and painful abasing of himself before his father, the son writes:

I do beseech you sir, etc.  [54]

Another model concerns an example of a reprehensory or rebuking letter "wherein a man of wealth sufficient" is taken to task by his friend "for marriage of his daughter to the riches of an old wealthy Miser" (I:144).  (Its inclusion here as a typical occasion for rebuke suggests that this practice was indeed common and recognized as an abuse. 

How unequally do you deal herein, etc. [72]

The final section of Book I presents "epistles amatory" (I:150).  Here, a male suitor sings praises to his love in formal, Euphuistic phrases.  She in turn responds cautiously but encourages his interest.  There is nothing very racy in this part, but the rhetorical stances of the eager lover and the reluctant but interested lass illustrate the kind of courting relationship, mediated by writing, that middle-class Elizabethans looked to as an ideal social norm.  [72]

Judicial and Familiar letters make up most of Book II. . . . Judicial models …accusatory…excusatory … purgatory examples portray a situation such as might easily occur in mercantile circles. . . .  Other letters of this class fall under the headings of "Defensorie," "Expostulatorie," "Invective," "Comminatorie" (threatening), and "Deprecatorie." 

Examples of Familiar letters include types of letters most likely to have been employed by a significant proportion of readers. . . . "keeping in touch" (letters "Nunciatorie"); letters giving news of events and transactions (letters "Narratorie" and letters of advertisement); thank-you letters (letters "Remunatorie"); and letters of instruction (letters "Mandatorie"). 

The last category contains an interesting sample letter from a merchant to his wife (II2R). [72

. . .

These letters among others reveal traditional concerns of Elizabethan middle and upper class life: the pursuit of learning, the development of virtue, proper consideration for family relationships, and proper conduct of courtship and love.  They also demonstrate more mundane interests of a commercial and commonplace nature: care for business and personal relationships, wariness against threats to wealth and security, a concern with the accurate transmittal of information, and a sense of the whole family being involved in important business undertakings.  These, I suggest, are the usual concerns of the middle class, especially the mercantile class, who undoubtedly made up a large proportion of The English Secretary's readers.

“The grain of the discourse”

Recent scholarship has, moreover, been focusing on letters and letter handbooks as means of extending our understanding of Elizabethan society and social relations beyond simply identifying classes and types of readers.  Here, Day’s Secretary has emerged as a seminal text . . .

One such study by Lynne Magnusson incorporates work on letters generally and Day in particular into an examination of how subtle but important patterns of Early Modern English social relations can be identified in Day’s model letters.  Magnusson sees The English Secretary as a practical guide to Elizabethan social interactions, suggesting that it offers a “map of lived relations” (76) that can be used as “a tool for ‘making places’ in the social order” (Whigham, Ambition and Privilege 5; qtd in Magnusson 75).[6]  

. . .

What she finds is that Day’s models eminently display the extraordinarily complex discourse patterns of sixteenth century personal representation and social negotiation, identifiable in three basic vectors of letter exchanges: the writer to an equal, to a superior, and to an inferior.  His teaching and examples in chapters 16 and 17, on requesting (petitory) and recommending (commendatory) letters, most fully demonstrate these dynamics of social discourse 

An Elizabethan writing to a social equal will often phrase a request and response in the terms of mutual “pleasuring” and “use,” verbal constructions that now carry sexual connotations but in the sixteenth century meant more generally “doing a favor for” or “relying on” someone in the larger framework of close personal ties of mutual regard and obligation (Magnusson 82).  . . .

Letters from inferiors to their superiors demand a different strategy, one of “negative politeness” (Magnusson 24).  This rhetorical stance grows out of the awareness that speech, and especially speech that makes a request directed to a social superior, carries risk of rejection and loss of face and status since it is an imposition of an inferior into the superior’s consciousness.  The requestor, then, must minimize his apparent impudence and separate himself from the superior addressee just as he  submits his petition.  Day exemplifies this type of interaction in a series of letters requesting the “preferment of a third party,” which was “standard business fare in Elizabethan court circles” (Magnusson 84):

It may please your good lordship, this gentleman, the bearer hereof, with whom a long time I have been acquainted and of his qualities and good behavior have had sound and large experiment, having been a good time a suitor unto me to move his preferment unto your lordship, I have now at the last condescended unto [...] And thus much by your pardon and allowance dare I assure unto you, that if it may please you in credit of my simple knowledge and opinion to employ him, you shall find that besides he is by parentage descended from such as of whom I know your lordship will very well accompt of [...] Pleaseth your lordship, the rather for the great good will I bear him and humble duty I owe unto you, to accept, employ, and accompt of him (I:104) [61]  [emphasis added]

The rhetoric of “pleasing,” here, stresses the unequal relationship between speaker and listener; the will of the addressed superior is constantly identified and deferred to, the voice and persona of the inferior writer subjected and muted.  Yet, in spite of the conscious distancing of the two ends of the letter equation, this very important type of social interaction nonetheless achieves its aim by connecting the “supply” of available labor with the “demand” of those who control resources and make decisions. 

The address of a superior to a relatively less powerful person necessitates a different discourse pattern, that of “supposal and assurance” (I:102) [64]  “recommendations” made by social superiors should not be understood as true petitions, since the superior may suppose that his instruction or command will be hearkened to because of its social discourse positioning.  [the example writer] completely bypasses any consideration of the maintenance and repair of relationships with the main force of the superior’s “supposal and assurance”: 

Where I am given to understand that you are in election and it is also very likely you shall be pricked by Her Majesty high sheriff for this year [...] and that this gentleman the bearer hereof is one whom for many respects I do greatly favor, and for his learning, skill, and honest usage have long time used and reputed of, I have thought good by these my letters [...] to recommend his allowance also to be admitted your under sheriff [...] and hereby also most instantly to pray you that the rather for my sake, and for the especial choice and reckoning I have ever made of him, you will now beforehand make certain acceptance of his skill by refusal of whatsoever other that may be recommended unto you for the exercise of the same office (I:107) [64] [emphasis added]

What may have been typical in Early Modern letters of recommendation we would consider arrogant today. The recommender focuses on his own thoughts and desires quite apart from any need to take others’ into account; he goes so far as to insist that his request have precedence over everyone else’s; and he assumes his recipient will acquiesce in the process.  In a society of relative social equals such as that imagined by Erasmian Humanism, such a letter would be intolerable.  But within the late Elizabethan discourse world of The English Secretary, it assumed a recognized position as one of the kinds of discourse its readers would have to deal with, most likely on the receiving end. 

Day’s model letters, then, comprise dramatic spaces within which we can see many of the vignettes of late sixteenth-century English social life play out in scripted social discourse.   We see merchants negotiating their trade with relatives and servants; we see husbands, wives, children, and lovers in postures typical of a period of hierarchical relationships and gendered expectations.  But looking more intently, we can see a finer grain of linguistic interactions in the pattern of requests and recommendations that comprised a large part of Elizabethan “business as usual.”  As well as yielding a general understanding of the intricacies of that social milieu, this line of inquiry has helped to establish a perspective on the literary productions of Shakespeare, Jonson, and others who extensively and intensively replicated the life of the society they found around them.  These writers fashioned the interpersonal discourse of characters from the raw material available to them through experience and through representative forms and scripts found in discourse models.  Because of its intentional survey of significant discourse problems and its provision of strategies and solutions, Day’s Secretary provides an ideal site for research into this fundamental dimension of Elizabethan literary invention.