Privacy of Letters

Last week, Emily posed an interesting question about the expectation of privacy in letter writing in the middle ages/renaissance period.

I suggest that letter writing in the past did not have the same expectation of privacy that we use today.  Hans Erich Bodecker, in his final chapter titled "Letters as historical sources - some concluding reflections" (1), tells us that "a letter written and mailed immediately becomes public.  For instance, the particular letter in the communicatrive system of early modern Europe could be partially or totally read to others and it could even be given to others for reading (sic) copying."  He suggests that the "concept of intimacy or subjectivity should be reconsidered".

I concur, and welcome your throughts.

(1) EUI Working Paper HEC No, 2004/2. Reading, Interpreting and Historical Sources., Edited by Regina Schulte and Xenia Von Tippelskirch. European University Institute, Badia Fiesolana, San Domenico (FI). http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/2600/HEC04-02.pdf?sequence=1 <accessed 18 October 2010>.