To read and write

Could medieval kings read and write? It seems likely they could read, but writing was for clerks.

For instance in July 1282 Eleanor of Provence, the queen dowager, asked her son Edward I to listen to a draft message to the king of France and amend it if he wished. The relevant part of her message read:

“Nos avoms fet feire une letre depar vos la quele nous vo envoions et voz prioms, que vos la vuillez oir, si ele vos plest, facez la seler, et si non, voillez commander, que ele soit amendee a vestre plesir.”

(‘We have had a letter made on your behalf which we send to you, and we pray that you should wish to hear it. If it please you, have it sealed; and if not, may you wish to command that it be amended to your satisfaction’)

From this it appears that the king would listen to a letter - presumably read out by a clerk - and then order the content to be amended, if he thought it appropriate. It has been argued that kings had basic literacy, but the process of letter-writing was generally beneath them. God’s representative on earth did not lick his own postage stamps.

The earliest known example of the handwriting of a medieval English king is a code written by Edward III - ‘pater sancte’ - on letters sent to the pope in 1330 (above).