The fading influence of the medieval ars dictaminis in England after 1400

The influence of dictaminal treatises in England was weak throughout the Mi ddle Ages and largely restricted to a limited number of royal clerks and a few academics. Most practitioners were royal chancery clerks who dealt with foreign and ecclesiastical powers. This article focuses chiefly on the use of dictaminal letters by middle class English citizens int he fifteenth an d earlier sixteenth centuries. These letters show little significant influe nce of continental or English dictaminal theory but are chiefly either spra wling news bulletins like the Paston letters or, more commonly, imitations of the royal missives from the Signet or Privy Seal offices. As the fifteen th century ended even these vestigial dictaminal forms were replaced among the middles classes by business formats, such as the letter of credit, alth ough they retained some use among the upper classes into the sixteenth cent ury and in some royal missives into the eighteenth century. The article con cludes with suggestions on ways contemporary genre theory might be usefully applied to analyze the rise and decline of the ars dictaminis.