CESA Discussion Paper No. 45

9/5/2022

Scribite Scientes . . . Write, Ye Learned Men!

The Worshipful Company of Scriveners

Submitted by Peter Forster
Reproduced from CESA Report "73," Volume 1, Number 12, Pages 26 - 28

Introduction
The early records of the City of London reveal little about the “good men of the mistery of writers of court letter”. These writers or scriveners (a form of spelling dating from Butler 1680) were professionals – bound by a code of ethics and of standards of performance, although they practised from “shoppes” in the City of London and elsewhere, “…I did resort ‘to a scriveners shoppe’ to have a letter written to my wife’s mother” (1602).

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