The Address Leaf of the Early Modern Letter | Folger Shakespeare Library
The length of an address varied most widely along several axes:
- Social Status: Lower status writers used plentious honorifics to address higher status recipients. The length grew shorter as the status of the writer became equal to or higher than the recipient, or when the relationship between the two grew closer.
- The Recipient’s Position in Society: Any appointment(s) in government, the military, the Church, or other social institution was generally listed in the address, as were titles of nobility. As William Fullwood put it, one should place “… therwith the name of his dignitie, Lordship, Office, Nobilitie, Science, or Parentage.”