Features of layout in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Scottish letters

Anneli Meurman-Solin

Research Unit for Variation, Contacts and Change in English (VARIENG), University of Helsinki

Abstract

The study illustrates some features of layout in the letters of the Corpus of Scottish Correspondence (CSC), which comprises royal, offical, and family letters dating from 1500–1715 written by informants representing the various areas of Scotland. The focus is on such material features of letters as size, ranging from a short note to multi-page reports or narratives, and the general layout, for example, the width of margins. Somewhat more extensively, the study discusses the positioning of the conventionalised components of epistolary prose, such as terms of address, time and place of writing, and greetings to other members of the addressee’s family or other networks. Since the CSC is based on diplomatically transcribed original manuscripts of letters, it also provides valid data for studying one of the most intriguing visually observable features, the use of spacing in various functions. Even though there is a lot of information about the textual and social significance of spacing, frequently also referred to in contemporary letter-writing manuals, the CSC data shows that further study is required to fully understand the complex interplay between the use of socially motivated signs of politeness and deference and the evolution and establishment of a particular register of writing.

1. Introduction

This study discusses features of layout in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century manuscripts of royal, official, and family letters by writers originating from the various areas of Scotland. The letters are available in the Corpus of Scottish Correspondence (CSC), 1500–1715.

Layout features of Scottish letters reflect the fact that letter-writing has a long tradition. European practices diffused widely by means of manuals, so that conventions of various kinds are salient in both layout and language use (see Nevala 2004: 33–53). The aim of the present study is to provide illustrations of what the letters in the CSC look like and point out layout features which may be relevant for the corpus user to know in analysing the texts linguistically. Thus, in this context, the focus is on drawing the corpus user’s attention to particular features rather than presenting a statistically valid account. Even though a preliminary annotation of layout features has been experimented with in the present version of the CSC, a quantitative approach is not possible because software for retrieving this information has not yet been developed.

The system applied to the CSC annotates a number of layout features as part of a somewhat wider range of features of visual prosody (see Meurman-Solin 2013, in this volume):

physical condition (e.g., torn margin or damage by damp)

number of folio

line-break

position of text (in margin, before or after the body of the letter)

change of hand

script type

idiosyncratic features of a particular hand

insertion; cancellation; correction

punctuation

spacing

marked character shape

paragraph structure

As will be shown below, all of these features are related to layout either directly or indirectly. The illustrations concentrate on the following layout features:

size and number of folios (section 2);

position of the body of the text, letter-closing formulae, and the signature (section 3);

position of terms of address (section 4.1), time and place of writing (section 4.2);

position of insertions, such as greetings to family members (section 5);

division into paragraphs (section 6).

This set of features can be illustrated by a particularly elegant layout in a letter by Margaret Scott, Countess of Winton, dating from the first half of the seventeenth century.

The text is positioned to allow a wide and very neatly produced left margin and a lot of empty space both before and after the body of the text. The spacing between lines is regular. The term of address is integrated into the body of the text, with no punctuation separating it from the succeeding narrative. There is no division into paragraphs in the letter, but the main structure has been highlighted by quite a systematic use of initial capitals. Capitalisation chiefly occurs in utterance-initial text-structuring connectives (And, Bot, As for, and So) and in the formula Praisit be god) (see Meurman-Solin 2013 in this volume; for further information on connectives, see also Meurman-Solin 2011 and Meurman-Solin 2012). As regards other text-structuring devices, punctuation is very sparsely used (a comma and a full stop in this year, qlk bothe is and hes bene exceiding colde and \ Tempestuous.). The positioning of the place and date of writing, the assurance of the author’s love and loyalty, and the signature are positioned at the end. The text inserted under the place and date of writing, to the left of the signature, typically contains greetings from a family member, but there is also another piece of news there, related to somebody referred to as Mrs Murray.

For examples of general layout features, see also letters by George Seton (10), Anna Hay (16), and the 1st Earl of Loudoun (25) in Meurman-Solin 2013.

Because of a large degree of heterogeneity between informants, no claim is made about the conditioning of region, social rank, or gender. However, the effect of the variable of time is reflected in all the sections (see the letters by the Earls of Mar in section 6, for example).

Some of the digital images of manuscripts may have catalogue numbers or comments added later by archivists or historians. These can be easily interpreted as not part of the original by checking the CSC transcript, in which they are of course always excluded.

2. The size and number of folios

In the CSC, the main alternatives in the use of writing material are the following:

The letter is written on a single sheet, folded in a way which permits the writing of the address on the same folio;

The letter is written on a single sheet but the text is in two columns; the address is either on the same page or on the reverse side;

The letter is written on a single sheet but it continues on the reverse side of the folio, the address being positioned either on the front page or the reverse side;

More than one folio is used.

The letter by Jean Drummond, dating from 1632, is written in a very clear and neat hand, following the model of positioning the initial term of address on a separate line, the letter-closing formula and the signature on the right side and the place and time of writing on the left at the bottom. We find the addressee (Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstoun) on the top of the folded letter, the folds being clearly visible in the digital image.

A considerably larger hand requires the whole page in the Earl of Eglinton’s letter from the second decade of the seventeenth century:

A very similar general layout characterises the letter written by the Earl of Eglinton’s wife Anna Livingston, who, having been one of the maids of honour to Queen Anne, perhaps received training in her writing skills at the royal court (Meurman-Solin 2001).

In the Countess’s letter, insufficient space is available for the signature and the place and time of writing, the latter being positioned in the left margin.

In example (5), the reverse side of the folio has also been used, the address being positioned to the left of the front page:

As regards the position of the address, see also Robert Montgomery in example (10) and Elizabeth Gordon in example (21).

Many letters continue over several pages, like the one by the Earl of Sutherland, dating from 1615:

The text is very densely written, allowing space for a relatively wide left margin and the text continuing to the very end of the line on the right.

3. Position of the body of the text, the letter-closing formulae, and the signature

As an indication of respect, the letter-closing formula and the signature are often positioned at the very bottom of the folio, in particular in sixteenth-century letters.

In examples (7) and (9), the body of the text may only fill the first half of the page (as in (8) and (9)), the term of address and the place and date of writing being part of the body of the text. The signature-introducing polite formula, such as be zour graice maist hummill & obeisand \ seruitour in (9), and the signature are positioned at the very bottom of the page, leaving a long distance between the text and the signature. There is a very narrow margin on the left, a number of words being written leaving no margin on the right.

The examples have been chosen to show that this layout pattern is typical of early and mid-sixteenth-century letters. However, we still find the practice of leaving a wide space between the body of the text and the polite formula and signature in the latter half of the seventeenth century:

Margins, especially the left ones, are frequently used either to continue the body of the letter there, changing the direction of writing, or to add an insertion.

In (11) and (12), the letters continue in the margin; in addition to the letter-closing formulae, the signatures, and the place and time of writing, there is also an inserted wish in margin in (11) (I houp your Lo/ [lordship] will \ heast [hasten] this gentlemans patent).

In (13), the body of the text continues first in the left margin and then on the reverse side:

Lack of space at the bottom may mean that only the signature and the place and time of writing are positioned in the left margin, the signature-introducing formula remaining at the bottom:

In Anna Lindsay’s letter, the letter-closing formula, the signature, and an additional message are all in the left margin:

There are very densely packed letters in which the text is written on both sides of a folio, including the left margins. The quality of the digital image resembles that of the original, the thin material reflecting the text on the reverse side.

4. Position of terms of address, time and place of writing

4.1. Terms of address

In the CSC letters, the earliest practice positions both the initial term of address and the place and time of writing as part of the body of the text, as in the letter by Thomas Stewart of Grandtully, written in 1603:

The function of the initial term of address Ryt Honorabil loving Syster sonne is highlighted by the use of capitalisation (for information on marked character shapes in terms of address, see Meurman-Solin 2013, section 4.4), but, as we will notice, such a term of address will later be put in a separate line. Similarly, the place and time of writing is attached to the end of the body of the letter: ffrom grantully ye 8 off Sep\tember 1603, followed by Be \\ zour awin assurit to powar \\ Thomas Stewartt \ off granttullye.

See also example (1).

The other practice, which becomes more frequent over time, is to position the term of address not only in a separate line but, in letters by experienced writers, to leave a wide space between the term of address and the body of the letter as well. See examples (11), (15), (21), (24), (26), (27), (31), and (32).

In addition to the initial term of address, there may also be another Madame, separated by space, before the letter-closing formula and the signature, and a third at the beginning of text inserted after the signature:

Both the initial and the letter-closing term of address may be separated from the body of the letter by a wide space, as in example (10).

It is noteworthy that there are letters containing text in two script types, the body of the text being in secretary hand and the initial term of address and the letter-closing formula and the signature in italic. In general, the secretary hand in these letters is assumed to be non-autograph, the parts in italic being by the person presumably first dictating and then signing the letter. See example (6).

4.2 Place and time of writing

In the positioning of place and time of writing, the change over time is from the end of the letter to the beginning, and from being integrated into the body of the text to having a fixed space on the right at the top. Variation in the position has not been investigated systematically, but the change in the practice seems to have taken place sometime in the mid-seventeenth century. Robert Gordon’s letter dates from 1683:

This position at the top is virtually the rule in the early eighteenth-century letters:

This information is also at the top in Elizabeth Gordon’s letters from 1685 and 1686:

Sometimes the place and time of writing are positioned in the margin, as in Alexander Gordon’s letter together with an insertion which adds a request:

The practice of positioning the place and time of writing at the beginning remains variable until the end of the CSC material. For example, in a letter dating from as late as 1695 by Anna Mackenzie, Countess of Argyll, this information is still positioned at the end to the left of the signature.

It is noteworthy that positioning this information at the end is still preferred by the Earl of Mar as late as 1715 (example (33)).

For examples of the position at the end, see (2), (3), (6), (7), (8), (9), (11), (12), (13), (17), (25), (29), (30), (31), (32), and (33); (4), (14), (16), and (25) are at the end in the margin. Only four of these instances, three mid-sixteenth-century letters (7), (8), and (9) and a letter dating from 1603 (17), are integrated into the body of the text.

For examples of the position at the top, see (5), (10), (15), (18), (19), (20), (21), (22), (26), and (28). In all of these, the position is on the right at the top.

In the CSC, the position of the place and time of writing to the left of the signature has been annotated {adjacent}. Otherwise, both the position of the term of address and the place and time of writing is indicated by the linear (=line by line) order of the items, a line-break being marked by a backward slash.

5. Insertions of text outside the body of the letter

Text inserted outside the body of the letter is usually positioned after the signature. Firstly, a convention of positioning polite greetings of various kinds has been attested in the CSC data. In example (5), dating from 1671, the text inserted after the signature functions as an assurance of affection and loyalty on behalf of the writer’s family members:

My Lord is yr la/ [ladyship’s] & yr lords humbl \ sarvant as I & my childrin I hope shall \ ever be

The 13th Earl of Sutherland sends his assurance of willingness to serve to the addressee’s spouse in an insertion succeeding his signature:

In example (24), the insertion conveys good wishes:

I hop my Lady yr \ mother is well, and teken \ well wt the waters and hir \ treuels. Im Glad to hear yr suit \ Children ar so uill God blis ym

See also the polite gesture in the form of an insertion at the end of example (10) (Madam \ j cannott omitt \ my deutie to present \ my most humble service \ to your lord althought his \ losp [lordship] beeing within sex myles of u?s {<or vs} \ in his goeing and coming to and from \ hamilton did not allow my wife and me \ the honneur of his countenance); (13) (Let this remember me to my Sister), and (18) (Madame \ My wife presents hir service and \ best respects to your la/ [ladyship], and I make \ bold by those to present myne to \ your la/ [ladyship’s] noble lord and husband), and (21) (I must beg the \ favour of your Lop [lordship] \ to returne my humble service to my lady’ and (22) (giue me leaue to \ returne my humble \ seruice to my lady).

The insertion may contain both polite greetings and additional information:

The inserted text reads as follows:

I present my Blissinge - \ to your hopfull children - \ and if I had been able, should - \ haue written wth my owin hand. \ I vse all ordinar means and \ his [has] sent for doctouris to attend \ mee.

Secondly, the text inserted after the signature may present another request, as in the long letter by the 12th Earl of Sutherland (6). See also the insertion in (23):

desyir your man Ion gray to send my buitts wt the first \ suir bearar / or els to giwe them to dawid murray to be \ brocht in his crear.

In the Marquis of Argyll’s short letter, the inserted text is almost as long as the letter itself:

The letter begins with the directive ze sall cause get all the meall …. The insertion after the signature is also a direct request:

ze most mak vse of ye laird of ffentrie his - \ tennentis yairabout for transporting ye samen or - \ any wtheres your neighbouris qch I know they - \ will alove [allow]

Thirdly, the inserted text may add information about a detail, perhaps forgotten in writing the body of the letter, or mention a piece of news.

The insertion after the signature here provides information to the addressee about another person’s actions, and a wish or request is presented on her behalf. This is material that could have been included in the body of the text but is added as if forgotten in writing the letter or as an afterthought:

my Leady hes writ to Ion?? Rowin \ for to bay hir ane zoy yolle for \ fishing hear and shoe desyres \ that ye may se yt it be good

See also the latter part of the insertion in example (1).

In the CSC, the insertions have been annotated by putting them between {ins} and {ins}.

6. Division into paragraphs

Meurman-Solin 2013 (in this volume) discusses some features of visual prosody that reflect syntactic, discourse, and text structure. In fact, these features play a much more important role in the CSC data than division into paragraphs. Beside spacing (Meurman-Solin 2013, section 4.3) and marked character shapes (Meurman-Solin 2013, section 4.4), there are punctuation features (Meurman-Solin 2013, section 4.2) which may mark chunks of discourse, for example, or particular structural and syntactic characteristics (e.g., Meurman-Solin 2013, example (26)). In addition to a single slash, Lord Methven uses a double slash, which could be interpreted to suggest that there is a hierarchy between them:

See example (9):



The CSC transcript:

Madem~ Eftir all hummill and obedient seruice / \ pleis zour graice / sen zour grace departit of pertht ye erll of huntlie spak \ wyt ye lord Ruthven” ffor gud dress of yis slattir committit laitle on" \ an" seruand of ye lard tulibardin // ye ruthven" schew his Innocence / and \ yat he had promittit vnto zour grace to do yarin” as zour grace pleissit com\mand him / ye erll of huntle send for” me & caussit ye erllis of \ arroll & athoill & me to pass to tulibardin / quhar we commonit \ at lync?ht {<or t} wyt ye lord & his vyeris freyndis / quhaj on" his part Inlyk \ wyss sayis he will do ye ordinance of zour graice / madem" \ sen" zour graice has evir vssit perseverand lawbouris for ye common" \ weill of yis realm~ / now reconsaill~ yis causs // And now presentlie at \ ye cummyng of ye erll of huntle & argaill zour graice & my lord” gouer

our to dissyr yam~ to speik wyt ye lord ruthven" & ye lord tulibardin \ & wyt yar freyndis & yar efter zour graice & my lord gouernour to mak fineill \ concord quhilk suld perseveyr constantlie & of luf in tym" to cum // yis \ beand yaj wyt yar kyn~ freyndis & seruandis ma ye bettir serve ye \ auctorite // and gif It pass ony lang tym~ not reconsallit / ma \ cum to greit inconvenyentis quhilkis salbe Impediment to ye seruice \ yarof / Madem~ as ane~ of zour graice humill seruitouris I thot best to \ to aduertice zour grace herof beseking ye eterneill god to consarve \ zour graice evir of methven~ yis xxiiij day of octobeir \\ be zour graice maist hummill & obeisan?d? \ seruitour \\ henry lord methven~

Both the single and the double slash occur at utterance boundaries:

/ sen zour grace departit of pertht ye erll of huntlie spak \ wyt ye lord ruthven’; ‘// ye {ins} lord {ins} ruthven schew his Innocence / and …

However, a double slash is sometimes positioned where it may signal that the immediately following word or words function as macro-organizers in discourse:

// yis \ beand yaj wyt yar kyn freyndis & seruandis ma ye bettir serue ye \ auctorite // and gif It pass ony lang tym not reconsallit / ma \ cum to greit inconvenyentis …

In Marie Ogilvy’s letter, both left and right indenture is used to structure the short letter.

However, indenture is not used here to indicate paragraph structure but rather to mark the beginning of a new utterance. In addition to punctuation (see also Meurman-Solin 2013, section 4.2, in this volume), lexical bundles of the type bot now, and yit, bot I kno, and bot I beseech yow occur at utterance boundaries (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 988–993). Commas in the letter have been marked in red in the CSC transcript.

The CSC transcript:

honorabill sone \ [ left indenture ] it is trew that \\ ther is ane man of youris holdin \ prisoner heir , I protest he was \ tuantie four houris in prisone \ befor I kne?u ather of his taking \ or the reasone for it , {space} \\ [ right indenture ] bot now I find that his aun \ speichis makis him giltie of \ knawleadg of thes personis \ quho reased the last goodis \ out of this ground , and yit ho \ will not reweill the parties , tho \ himself be ( yit ) acused for nothing \ saue knawleadg of them {space} \\ [ right indenture ] I us not to medill in matteris con\serning prisoneris , bot I kno tho \ it war ane greter matter , yow \ might easilie preweall with \ him quho heath the absolut \ power of all such busines and \ of \ your louing \ mother \ Marie ogiluy \ {adjacent>} rothes \ the i2 , \ of Iune \ 1646 \ {ins} {in margin>} I allwayis knew the men of arquhart to be knauis \ and houpis er long to mak them sufer for it , bot \ I beseich yow to haue caer of the houss till \ yow ather meit with me or kno my farder Intention {ins}

See also example (11), in which the second part of an appositive structure, a grammatically distinct unit realised by a nominal that-clause, forms a separate paragraph:

Extracted from the CSC transcript:

thir conditions [ left indenture ]

that I should furnisch him iiixx men and himself \

the other fortie upon that sam rait as your Lo/ \

and Lauers agr{ins}i{ins}eed and your Lo/ to heaue the \

placeing of all the officers [ left indenture ]

Evolution over time can be illustrated by examining letters by a succession of eldest sons inheriting the title in a particular noble family. Examples (30)–(33) have been written by four Earls of Mar in the period 1627–1715.

The comparison of the four letters shows that only the early eighteenth-century letter is structured into paragraphs. The main pattern of change in the letters can be seen in the tendency to provide more space for the initial and final formulae the later the letter. In (30), the initial term of address is integrated into the body of the text, whereas in (31) it forms an entity of its own in the layout, with most words in it being capitalised. In (32), the term of address is given even more prominence, with markedly larger, flourished characters; in both (31) and (32), there is a space between the term of address and the body of the letter. The position of the place and time of writing is still at the end in all four letters; the trend is to separate this information more clearly from both the signature-introducing formula and signature and the body of the text (cf. (30) and (32), for example).

The division into paragraphs in (33) reflects the discourse structure, the last three short paragraphs performing the conventionalised communicative functions focusing on the topic of other news, the bearer of the letter, and the polite formulae (I’ll trouble you no more, but God grant us a mirry meeting & soon, and I am wt all truth…). The first paragraph typically reports on earlier correspondence between the author and the addressee, this time an apology being offered (therfore I hope you will pardon yr not hearing \ from me eer now), whereas the second starts with past narrative.

For other examples of paragraph structure, see Meurman-Solin 2013, example (23). While the digital images in Meurman-Solin 2013 in this volume contain further examples of the other layout features discussed here, there is only this single example of division into paragraphs in that material.

7. Concluding remarks

The present study provides the users of the Corpus of Scottish Correspondence with an opportunity to get acquainted with a number of the original manuscripts, seeing it has not been possible to make the digital images of all the letters available online as part of the database (cf. Salem Witch Trials). The illustrations have been selected to draw attention to layout features, the aim being to ask the corpus users to consider whether, in their view, these features affect the linguistic analysis of the data in a relevant way.

In analysing inventories of linguistic features presented in the form of a concordance, it is easy to marginalise information about differences in the wider co-text or context of the individual items. In using diachronic corpora, scholars active in the field of historical linguistics only very rarely take layout features into consideration because information about them may be only partly annotated (see Claridge, Sairio & Nevala, and Walker & Kytö in this volume). The claim in the present study is that it is important to know, for example, whether an item occurs in a text inserted after the signature, as such inserted texts are often conventionalised in both form and content. The tools for indicating syntactic, discourse, and text structure developed from a rather sparse use of punctuation marks into a consistently applied and transparently hierarchical system, and from the use of spacing and marked character shapes to regularised practices in capitalisation (see Meurman-Solin 2013a, in this volume).

A particularly intriguing question is how the practice of dividing a text into paragraphs evolved in letters. However, the present version of the CSC corpus provides insufficient evidence for studying the introduction of paragraphs, there being very little evidence before the early eighteenth century. The topic can be studied in more detail when the extension of the CSC, containing numerous eighteenth-century letters, is available.

Sources

CSC = Corpus of Scottish Correspondence 1500–1715. 2007. Second edition. Compiled by Anneli Meurman-Solin. Helsinki: VARIENG.

Meurman-Solin, Anneli. 2007. Manual to the Corpus of Scottish Correspondence (CSC). With auxiliary databases containing information about the letters and their writers and addressees. Helsinki: VARIENG. http://www.eng.helsinki.fi/varieng/csc/manual

CSC on CoRD: http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/CoRD/corpora/CSC/index.html

Salem Witch Trials: http://etext.virginia.edu/salem/witchcraft/home.html

ECSC = Meurman-Solin, Anneli, (comp.) Forthcoming. The Corpus of Scottish Correspondence Extension. University of Helsinki: VARIENG.

References

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Meurman-Solin, Anneli. 2001. “Women as informants in the reconstruction of geographically and socioculturally conditioned language variation and change in 16th and 17th century Scots”. Scottish Language 20: 20–46.

Meurman-Solin, Anneli. 2011. “Utterance-initial connective elements in early Scottish epistolary prose”. Connectives in synchrony and diachrony in European languages (Studies in Variation, Contacts and Change in English 8), ed. by Anneli Meurman-Solin & Ursula Lenker. Helsinki: Research Unit for Variation, Contacts, and Change in English. http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/series/volumes/08/meurman-solin/

Meurman-Solin, Anneli. 2012. “The connectives and, for, but, and only as clause and discourse type indicators in 16th- and 17th-century epistolary prose”. Information Structure and Syntactic Change in the History of English (Oxford Studies in the History of English 2), ed. by Anneli Meurman-Solin, María José López-Couso & Bettelou Los, 164–196. New York: Oxford University Press.

Meurman-Solin, Anneli. 2013. “Visual prosody in manuscript letters in the study of syntax and discourse”. Principles and Practices for the Digital Editing and Annotation of Diachronic Data (Studies in Variation, Contacts and Change in English 14), ed. by Anneli Meurman-Solin & Jukka Tyrkkö. Helsinki: Research Unit for Variation, Contacts, and Change in English. http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/journal/volumes/08/meurman-solin_a/

Nevala, Minna. 2004. Address in Early English Correspondence. Its Forms and Socio-Pragmatic Functions. (Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki LXIV). Helsinki: Société Néophilologique.