Paston Letters

The Paston Letters are 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 important documents.

The letters are a noted primary source for information about life in England during the Wars of the Roses and the early Tudor period. They are also of interest to linguists and historians of the English language, being written during the Great Vowel Shift, and documenting the transition from Late Middle English to Early Modern English.

History of the collection

The large collection of letters and papers was acquired in 1735 from the executors of the estate of William Paston, 2nd Earl of Yarmouth, the last in the Paston line, by the antiquary Francis Blomefield. On Blomefield's death in 1752 they came into the possession of Thomas Martin of Palgrave, Suffolk. On his death in 1771 some letters passed into the hands of John Ives, while many others were purchased by John Worth, a chemist at Diss, whose executors sold them in 1774 to Sir John Fenn of East Dereham.

Published editions

Edited by John Fenn

In 1787 John Fenn published a selection of the letters in two volumes, bringing general interest to the collection. Fenn published two further volumes of letters in 1789. Before he died in 1794 he prepared a fifth volume for publication, which was posthumously published in 1823 by his nephew William Frere.