They’ve arrived! The proofs of ‘Military Households of Roman Auxiliary Officers’ have arrived from the publisher and I’ve got a week to go through them and send any corrections I need to make before the printing presses will roll (if that what they still do?). Maybe a bit of to-ing and fro-ing but very soon my words will be fixed on that page and after reading to check them, I will quite literally authorise them. It’s both exciting, and little unnerving to see my words turning into a physical book.

One of the things that I write about in the book is the process that the letter writers – including women – at the first century Roman fort of Vindolanda go through to produce letters. This involves using a scribe, and then either reading the letter over themselves, or having it read to them, and writing at least their name and in the case of the officers wives, somewhat longer post-scripts. One of the reasons they do this, is to authorise the text and show that the words written down by the scribe are their own. In that sense, it’s not that dissimilar to what I’m doing right now.

Being able to read it themselves, as at least some of these women could – given they could write short phrases competently – is a decided advantage over having to rely on someone to read it out to them. In ancient Rome, enslaved women and men acted as readers to wealthy owners, who whether or not they could read and write themselves (and they generally could), preferred to have someone to read their correspondence for them. We know about some of these reading women from a handful of epitaphs at Rome, such as Derceto, who was reader to the Vestal Virgin Aurelia, and died aged not quite 20. Or a servant, probably called Sulpicia Petale, who was also commemorated at Rome who may be a former (or still) slave. Derceto herself having only a single name was likely to be enslaved, and next to her commemoration on the plaque is one for a 16 year old freedwoman, Sabina Helena. It’s difficult to know if the two inscriptions were carved at the same time or if they are unconnected but some of the letter forms do look similar and perhaps they were commemorated at a similar time. Some tablets found at Vindolanda look suspiciously like reading and writing exercises for children. These are often assumed to be the officers’ sons, but are as likely to be enslaved boys, and perhaps girls, being educated for roles as secretaries and readers.

Whether women could read and write (including using a scribe) is always an important question in social history because women who can read and write can have some power – they get to use their own words. Being able to read gave you some power whether or not you could use a pen yourself. Books and materials intended for girls’ educations were important. Much later than the letters at Vindolanda are the books and letters in the British Library’s Medieval Women’s exhibition but these are equally fascinating for the glimpse they give us of women reading and using writing (even through a scribe) for all sorts of reasons. I loved this primer, which came probably from Bruges around 1445 and shows a woman teaching two girls to read, with two alphabets on the facing page. The woman holds a paddle – corporal punishment is threatened!

This book would have been an expensive object for wealthy young girls to use – as can be seen in the picture also. It is also exquisite and if not a story book for children (it also contained Latin prayers the children were expected to learn) then it is a very beautiful thing to use. I started to wonder whether the letters were there to be copied, if the children were expected to be able to read the Latin prayers, the alphabet seemed a little simple. Or maybe it was used in some other way, there will almost certainly be research into this if I have time to go down that rabbit hole.

Almost at the same time as this book was probably being used to teach young girls how to behave properly and read their prayers, Margaret Paston was writing to her husband. The Pastons were Norfolk gentry with many letters sent in the 15th to 17th century still surviving. When Margaret writes, enemies had seized their manor house, and while her husband John was in London pursuing this through the courts, Margaret takes practical action. “Send me crossbows, arrows, poleaxes, and armour for the servants” she instructed her scribe to write to her husband before requesting he send fancy goods such as almonds and sugar, and cloth for clothing for herself and her children – presumably better quality fabric than she could have had made locally.

The letters of the Pastons show that they don’t use their own handwriting – the women were probably mostly unable to write – unlike the ladies at Vindolanda. Even so, the ability to read and dictate to a scribe, was fundamentally important to them and to the households they ran. Their writing gave them an authority they otherwise simply could not have had. The exhibition traces the link between writing and women’s power, and lets their words speak for themselves – as mine must also once my book is published.