The Cely Letters are a collection of family correspondence written in the 15th century, which describe the lives and business activities of a family of London wool merchants. Key members were Richard Cely and his wife Agnes and their sons Robert, Richard, and George. This collection is one of the few surviving letter collections from the 15th century, along with the

Paston Letters The ''Paston Letters'' is a collection of correspondence between members of the Paston family of Norfolk gentry and others connected with them in England between the years 1422 and 1509. The collection also includes state papers and other impor ...

and the

Stonor Letters The Stonor Letters are one of the significant collections of 15th century correspondence that have survived. These series of documents, though not the earliest private letters known in English, has more number and variety in terms of interest, alon ...

. While the ''Paston Letters'' cover a period spanning over 3/4 of a century, the ''Cely Letters'' cover a much shorter period of time between 1472 and 1488. The Cely letters were preserved only because they were used as evidence in a lawsuit. The ''Cely Letters'' are primary sources of information about the English economy and English society at the end of the

Wars of the Roses The Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), known at the time and for more than a century after as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the English throne in the mid-to-late fifteenth century. These wars were fought bet ...

. Only one thing that was known about the wives from the letters is that they would take care of the house and land the husbands own since they would be away

Notes

Bibliography

* Hanham, Alison. "A fifteenth-century merchant family." ''History Today'' (Dec 1963) 13#12 pp 821–829 * * * Wars of the Roses Medieval letter collections 15th century in England Medieval historical texts 15th-century documents {{middleages-stub

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