MS 183, the Royal Letter Book, is an English late medieval manuscript containing contemporary copies of 374 letters, most of which belong to the reigns of Edward III (1327-1377) and Richard II (1377-1397). The manuscript further contains a few copies of letters from the reign of Henry IV (1399-1413) and the copy of a single letter from the reign of Henry V (1413-1422), as well as several letters between other correspondents. The overall date range of the original letters appears to be between ca.1340 and ca.1412.

The copies themselves would have been created over a period of several years in the late 14th and early 15th centuries.

The manuscript consists of 128 vellum folios, almost all of which are closely written on both sides. The 128 folios are arranged in nineteen quires collated a⁶, b¹², c⁶, d² (wants 2), e⁸, f⁸, g⁶, h⁸, i⁸, j⁸, k⁸, k⁸, m⁸, n⁷ (wants 6), o⁵, p⁴, q⁶, r¹⁰, s². The binding is early-twentieth-century, cardboard with a leather covering, and the overall measurements are 28 x 19 x 4.5 cms.

The manuscript is made up of three clearly distinct sections, with the first section (ff.27-80) and the final section (ff.121-154) being similar to each other in appearance. Both these sections consist of quires of widely varying size (anything between 2 and 12 folios), and they seem to share the same dominant hand; however, both these sections also contain a considerable number of letter copies written in a variety of other hands, probably over a period of several years.

In contrast to the first and final sections of the manuscript, the middle section (ff.81-120) is quite distinct in appearance and seems to form a self-contained collection of its own. It consists of forty folios, which are arranged in five quires of eight folios each, with catch words linking the individual quires to each other, and the term ‘explicit’ having been inserted at the end of the final quire. This section of the manuscript has the appearance of having been written in one hand only, and this particular hand does not appear anywhere else within the manuscript.

As for the contents of the letters, this covers a very wide range of domestic and international affairs of state, and most of the original letters would have emanated from either the privy seal office or the signet office of either Edward III or Richard II, or they are addressed to one of these two kings. However, the collection also includes letters between other individuals.

Many of the copies do not expressly state the names of the correspondents, nor, in many cases, the place or date of writing, although a considerable number of letters show the day and month of the composition of the original, while omitting the year. In such cases, the missing information therefore has to be deduced from the contents of the letter concerned, and it would appear that the majority of the originals date from the late 1380s and the 1390s.

There is then the further question of when the copies of those originals might have been made. Except for the occasional short sequence, the copy letters are not arranged to represent the originals in their strict chronological order. This might indicate that the copies were not written at the same time as the originals. Instead, they appear to represent a subsequent selection.

In the case of the middle section, which contains copies of original letters of up to about 1391, the copying process may have started at around that time, or slightly earlier. These copies are written in a late medieval secretary hand. However, there is so far no evidence as to the exact nature or dating of this hand.

On the other hand, there is good evidence to suggest that the dominant hand of the first and final sections of the Royal Letter Book may be that of the royal scribe Robert Frye. Frye’s career in royal service is well-documented, spanning almost forty years, from about 1387 until his retirement in about 1425. It is likely that he not only copied many of the letters, but he may also have added most of the rubrics which appear in the margins of a substantial number of the copy letters throughout the manuscript, including those in the middle section, which are otherwise not in Frye’s hand.

NB: when a piece of information (such as a name, a date, etc.) is given in square brackets '[ ]', it means it has been deduced from the context.