Letter writing was the major branch of rhetoric in the High Middle Ages (ars dictaminis) and Renaissance (ars epistolandi). As the primary source of discourse it played major roles in the history of education, the Latin language and literature, and its relation to grammar and oratory (ars arengandi). The letters are also a very rich source ranging from Church and State correspondence to social hierarchies and fiction. Several hundred authors, recognized as precursors of the Humanists, produced treatises, manuals, formularies and model letter collections found in a few thousand largely unstudied manuscripts. This is the third and final volume of the Medieval and Renaissance Letter Treatises and Form Letters, a singular reference work, a manuscript inventory of texts, most of which were examined in situ by Emil J. Polak in almost nine-hundred libraries and archives. The repertory is arranged alphabetically by country and city with standard details for each manuscript. Four indexes conclude the work.

Betr. Manuskripte der Universitätsbibliothek Basel, S. 193-215.

This work inventorises and describes over 1100 extant Latin manuscript manuals and treatises on letter-writing, formularies and model letter collections consulted in almost 200 libraries and archives in former Communist Eastern Europe. It includes indexes of manuscripts, incipits, authors and anonymous works.

Letter-writing was seen in the Middle Ages and Renaissance as a major branch of rhetoric, and its importance is testified to by the survival of numerous manuals, treatises, formularies and model letter collections. Polak's pioneering inventory is the first comprehensive and organized compilation of over 1100 extant Latin manuscript sources consulted in almost 200 libraries and archives in what was until recently Communist Eastern Europe. The survey is arranged alphabetically by country, city, library or archive, and collection, and gives standard details of folios, incipits, explicits, colophons and bibliography. Four indexes of manuscripts, incipits, medieval and renaissance authors and select anonymous works are also provided. N.B.: previously announced as Iter Epistolographicum.

Once nearly as ubiquitous as dictionaries and cookbooks are today, letter-writing manuals and their predecessors served to instruct individuals not only on the art of letter composition but also, in effect, on personal conduct. Poster and Mitchell contend that the study of letter-writing theory, which bridges rhetorical theory and grammatical studies, represents an emerging discipline in need of definition. In this volume, they gather the contributions of eleven experts to sketch the contours of epistolary theory and collect the historic and bibliographic materials - from Isocrates to email - that form the basis for its study.