Early modern manuscripts containing Old English dictionaries in England and northern Germany

Abstract

This paper retraces the early modern beginnings of systematic Old English studies in England and continental Europe. It shows that linguistic study was born out of research interests in the fields of theology, law, and local history to name but a few; and that scholars needed dictionaries as tools to understand this archaic form of English. In the 16th century, John Joscelyn and John Parker created a substantial dictionary of Old English, of which several Northern German copies exist today. This paper explores the production processes of Joscelyn/Parker’s dictionary as well as the Northern German copies, as can be gleaned from the similarities and, more importantly, the differences in layout, entry-count and -content, and marginal markings in the manuscripts.