Editing Epistle (section)

==Medieval epistles==
During the [[Middle Ages]], the art of letter writing was taught in numerous manuals, and the [[ars dictaminis]] became an important genre of instructional discourse. The necessity for letter writing was in large part due to the general deterioration of civil life and the decay of the [[Roman roads|Roman road]] system in the early [[Middle Ages]], factors that obliged literate people with business to transact to send letters instead of travel themselves.<ref>{{cite book |last=Richardson |first=Malcolm |editor-first1=Carol |editor-last1 =Poster | editor-first2=Linda C. |editor-last2=Mitchell | title= Letter-Writing Manuals and Instruction from Antiquity to the Present: Historical and Bibliographic Studies |publisher=University of South Carolina Press |location= Columbia, SC |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=zGhKNwuFvlwC |date= 2007 |pages= 52–66 |chapter= The ''Art dictaminis'', the Formulary, and Medieval Epistolary Practice |isbn=978-1570036514 }}</ref> A vast number of letters and letter-writing manuals were written in the period's ''lingua franca'', [[Latin]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Poster |first1=Carol |last2=Utz |first2=Richard |editor-first1=Carol |editor-last1 =Poster | editor-first2=Linda C. |editor-last2=Mitchell | title= Letter-Writing Manuals and Instruction from Antiquity to the Present: Historical and Bibliographic Studies |publisher=University of South Carolina Press |location= Columbia, SC |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=zGhKNwuFvlwC |date= 2007 |pages= 285–300 |chapter= Appendix&nbsp;B: A Bibliography of Medieval Latin ''Dictamen'' |isbn=978-1570036514 }}</ref>