Friedrich Lindenbrog’s Old English Glossaries Rediscovered

Abstract

Abstract This article presents the Old English lexicographical materials compiled by the humanist scholar Friedrich Lindenbrog (1573–1648), some of which were considered lost after World War II, but have been restored to the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg during the 1980 s and 1990 s. It traces the origins and provenances of the Old English glossaries contained in Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Codd. germ. 22 and philol. 263, and discusses a selection of notable glosses and spellings, some of which are uniquely preserved in these manuscripts. Lindenbrog’s lexicographical collections were considered useful in the eyes of other seventeenth- and eighteenth-century scholars from Germany, whose materials are referenced here as well.