Eleanor A. Congdon
(Youngstown State University)

Abstract of Paper
presented at the 61st International Congress on Medieval Studies
(Kalamazoo, 2026)

2026 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Program

Session on
“Moving the Mail: Letters, Couriers, and Post Offices in the Medieval World“

Sponsored by

• Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
• Postal History at Kalamazoo

Organized by

David W. Sorenson (Allen Berman, Numismatist)
Mildred Budny (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)

Paper Title:

“How Fifteenth Century Italian Merchants Shared Information”

Abstract:

What can different types of sources tell us about how Italian merchants sent and received information in the
fifteenth century? In the archive of Francesco di Marco Datini da Prato, there are many examples of letters where
the author included the name of who would carry the letter to the recipient. Sometimes these were travelling
agents, sometimes the captains of a ship, and sometimes a person on the ship for business reasons, but not
necessarily with direct links to the Datini organizations. Other times, the letter would said to be present on a ship
or land-route, but no specific person was named. And in still other situations, a professional courier would be
hired to carry the letter. In comparison, the merchants working in the Levant late in the century rarely named the
carrier of letters, possibly to make it more difficult for the Mamluk authorities to trace or disrupt the flow of
information.

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