Cave tabellarium – Beware of the mailman

Epistolophobia. A popular online dictionary defines it as ‘an abnormal or irrational fear of correspondence, especially the receiving or writing of letters or messages’.[1] The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (d. 1913) is said to have suffered from it, as part of a more general tendency towards debilitating procrastination.[2] A handful of modern testimonials can be found on the unusual internet forums. It is not, however, a well-documented condition. I was unable to find any research into its prevalence. The most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) does not identify a fear of letters in its section on phobias.[3]

We might turn to early medieval hagiography for guidance, specifically the life of the seventh-century saint Gall. A disillusioned missionary who spent most of his life in the Alpine wilderness south of lake Constance, Gall had a hermit’s wariness of the world. His desire not to be found led him to hide from messengers, ignore urgent epistolary pleas, and lay false trails for those who would seek him out. In Gall’s case, such behaviour was not deemed a shortcoming, but an essential part of his sainthood.

Image: A letter delivered to a hermit in London, BL Royal 10 E IV 136r. Date: ca. 1340. Source: British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts.

Some context is in order. The core hagiographical corpus on saint Gall consists of  three vitae.[4] The earliest life is late Merovingian and survives only in fragments.[5] The second life was composed by Wetti (d. 824) for the monks of St Gallen, using an idiosyncratic Latin that baffled his commissioners, who soon requested a redo.[6] This third life, by Walafrid Strabo, became one of the most popular hagiographies of the Middle Ages.[7]

Despite stylistic differences, the hagiographers follow the same overall story-line. They agree that Gall’s innate desire for solitude was amplified by an incident early in life, when he worked as a missionary under the Irish saint Columbanus. When the group was set to move from  Alemannia to Italy, Gall fell ill. Columbanus gave his pupil leave to stay, but forbade him from celebrating Mass until the day of Columbanus’ own passing.[8] This effectively barred Gall from a clerical career. His would be a different path: to found the hermitage that would later grow into the monastic powerhouse of St Gallen.

Columbanus’ ban provides the vitae with a clear narrative set-up: penance and providence push Gall towards a life of seclusion lived in the company of a few like-minded followers, but letters and envoys keep arriving to pull him back into the world. The tension is harnessed beautifully in a storyline involving the local duke Gunzo and his daughter Fridiburga. The latter is engaged to the Frankish king Sigibert II, but suffers from demonic possession. Desperate for a cure, her father dispatches a letter to Arbon, where the priest Willimar is hosting Gall for a few days.[9] The duke means business: Willimar and Gall are to present themselves at his palace in Überlingen, at the other side of lake Constance, in twelve days’ time. Feigning compliance, Gall tells his friend to go ahead, as he first needs to settle a few things at his hermitage. This turns out to be the first of several ruses. Having arrived at his hermitage, Gall forbids his brothers to tell anyone about his whereabouts. If someone does come calling, they are to say he has received an urgent letter from Columbanus summoning him to Italy. He then flees into the mountains accompanied by two brothers. They find hospitality in a mountain village by pretending they are travelers from afar.

This first segment of the story reveals much about early medieval travel and wayfinding. In the absence of phones and address books, the way to locate someone was by asking around.[10] When duke Gunzo wants to summon Gall, he starts by sending a letter to a town that the holy man is known to visit and which is easily reached by boat. Gall for his part anticipates that if he does not meet the twelve-day deadline, ducal messengers will come looking for him at his cell, where they will pressure his brothers for information. He thus invents a letter from Italy, the medieval equivalent of a ‘family emergency’.  To cover his tracks even further, he feigns a false identity at his actual hiding place.

The story picks up again at the ducal palace. Having learnt of his intended wife’s possession, King Sigibert sends two bishops to cure her. This embassy does not go well. In full control of Fridiburga’s body, the demon smashes the royal gifts presented by the bishops and starts publicly proclaiming their adulterous exploits. He then prophesies that only the ministrations of Gall can save the girl he is possessing. Thinking they are being taken for fools – gallus means ‘chicken’ in Latin – one of the bishops slaps the girl in the face.[11] After three days, they travel back to Sigibert to report on their failure.

The scene, which survives in both Wetti’s and Walafrid’s version, is a clever and multi-layered piece of story-telling. Its slapstick portrayal of episcopal impotence fits a broader narrative agenda: showcasing Gall’s superiority to, and independence from, the bishops of his time.[12] For the ninth-century monks who commissioned the vitae, this served to buttress their present claim of independence: like their saintly founder, the community of St Gallen suffered no interference from the nearby bishops of Konstanz.

Those familiar with Merovingian hagiography will recognize another narrative topos: that of the demon volunteering the identity of the person who can drive them from their host. Interestingly, such proclamations are often a prompt for epistolary communication. In the sixth-century Life of the Jura Fathers, a possessed girl is covered by letters of would-be exorcists, which her desperate neighbours keep hanging around her neck, before the demon reveals only the words of Saint Eugendus will prove effective.[13] Eugendus obliges with typical calm, writing a brief note to the demon ordering him out. The letter has not even passed the town gates when the demon flees in agony.

Gall is less easy to track down. His friend Willimar sets out to look for him and eventually finds him in a cave in the mountains. He manages to convince the saint to return to Arbon, where a ducal messenger is waiting in despair. Gallus crosses lake Constance by boat, presents himself at the ducal palace, and cures Fridiburga with a simple gesture, succeeding where the bishops had failed.[14] Elated, duke Gunzo offers Gall the episcopate of Konstanz. This prompts another evasion from the saint. Citing Columbanus’ ban, Gall explains he will first have to send a letter to Italy to obtain permission.[15] In reality, Gall has no intention of sending this letter. Instead, he writes to the deacon Johannis, who previously hosted him in the mountains, inviting him to his cell for training. When sometime later the see of Konstanz falls vacant once more, Gall convinces the duke and people of Alemannia to elevate his student Johannis to the episcopal dignity.

The Lives of Saint Gall are a treasure trove for those interested in the pragmatics of early medieval communication. As letters are being dispatched across lake Constance and over the Alps, we learn about modes of transportation (boats, donkeys), the challenges of wayfinding and getting somewhere on time, the fear of travelling alone, and the rules of hospitality. The norms of epistolary communication come into focus most sharply when they are being ignored, hijacked, or trampled on by the saint. This is something to keep in mind. Gall’s hagiographers had a functional interest in letters. They wrote extensively about epistolary communication because it provided a set-up for a central narrative theme: Gall’ ongoing struggle to stay out of the world. We cannot always expect our sources to be so forthcoming. That said, Saint Gall was not the only holy man or woman with pronounced epistolary habits.  Many early medieval hagiographers turned to letters and scenes of communication to showcase their protagonists’ saintly credentials. The Lettercraft blog will cover several such stories. So keep reading…

[1] See https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/epistolophobia [accessed 21-May-2025)

[2] Whitney on Language. Selected Writings of William Dwight Whitney, ed. Michael Silverstein (Cambridge, Mass, 1971), p. xxviii.

[3] American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, (DSM-5-TR), Fifth Edition (US, 2013); Donald Black and Jon Grant, DSM-5 Guidebook: The Essential Companion to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (Washington, DC, 2013), pp. 123-145.

[4] W. Berschin, Biographie und Epochenstil im lateinischen Mittelalter. 3: Karolingische Biographie. 750-920 n. Chr., Quellen und Untersuchungen zur lateinischen Philologie des Mittelalters 10 (Stuttgart, 1991), pp. 286-303. See more recently, R. Schwitter, ‘Zur Entstehungszeit der ältesten Teile der “Vita s. Galli”, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 46 (2011), pp. 185-200, with a response by W. Berschin, ‘Zur Entstehungszeit der ältesten Teile der “Vita s. Galli”’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 47 (2012), pp. 1-4.

[5] See the recent new edition: Vita Sancti Galli vetustissima. Die älteste Lebensbeschreibung des Heiligen Gallus, ed. C. Müller (St. Gallen, 2012), pp. 36-50.

[6] Wetti, Vita s. Galli, ed. B. Krusch, MGH SS rer. Merov. 4 (Hanover, 1902), pp. 256-280.

[7] Walafrid Strabo, Vita s. Galli confessoris, ed. Krusch, MGH SS rer. Merov. 4, pp. 280-337.

[8] Wetti, c. 9, p. 261-262; Walafrid, c. 9, p. 291.

[9] Wetti, c. 15, p. 264: Post haec die septima missa est praefato sacerdoti epistola, in qua continebatur, adesse eum cum viro Dei super duodecim noctes ad Cunzonem ducem in villa nuncupata Iburninga; Walafrid, c. 15, p. 295: Septima post haec die Gunzonis ducis epistola venit ad presbyterum, praecipientis illi, ut die duodecimo ad Iburningas villam veniret et virum Dei secum adduceret.

[10] See the remarks on the Later Middle Ages by Ruth Evans, ‘Getting There: Wayfinding in the Middle Ages’, in Roadworks: Medieval Britain, Medieval Roads, ed. V. Allen and R. Evans (Manchester, 2016), pp. 127-156.

[11] Wetti, c. 16, p. 265: Qui audiens Gallum nominari, autumabat de pullo dici; Walafrid, c. 16, p. 297: Putavit enim, eum de gallinatio dicere gallo.

[12] See also the comments by Albrecht Diem, ‘Die “Regula Columbani” und die “Regula Sancti Galli”. Überlegungen zu den Gallusviten in ihrem karolingischen Kontext’, in Gallus und seine Zeit: Leben, Wirken, Nachleben, ed. F. Schnoor et al. (St Gallen, 2015), pp. 65-98, here 77-81.

[13] Vita patrum Iurensium Romani, Lupicini, Eugendi, ed. B. Krusch, MGH SS rer. Merov. 3 (Hanover 1896), c. 11, p. 158: Cumque sanitatis causa a multis, ut solet, exorcismorum scripta nexae cervicibus necterentur […]

[14] Wetti, cc. 17-18, p. 266; Walafrid, cc. 17-18, pp. 297-298.

[15] Wetti, c. 19, p. 266: Si ergo me vis ad hoc sublevare, sine apices meos praeceptori meo venire; Walafrid, c. 19, p. 298: Quod si hoc indubitanter fieri cupis, sustine interim, donec mittam epistolam ad abbatem meum ad insinuandam illi voluntatem tuam.