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| Glossarium Mediae Latinitatis | |
|---|---|
| Name | Glossarium Mediae Latinitatis |
| Author | Charles du Cange |
| Country | France |
| Language | Latin |
| Subject | Medieval Latin lexicography |
| Publisher | Various |
| Pub date | 1678 |
Glossarium Mediae Latinitatis is a landmark medieval Latin dictionary first compiled in the 17th century and long used by scholars of Middle Ages philology, legal history, and ecclesiastical studies. It established a comprehensive register of medieval vocabulary drawn from manuscripts, charters, chronicles, and liturgical texts, informing research in fields such as palaeography, diplomatics, and historiography. The work influenced later lexicographers, archivists, and editors engaged with sources from the Carolingian Renaissance through the Renaissance and into the Early Modern Period.
The project originated with Charles du Cange in the context of 17th‑century scholarship associated with institutions like the Académie française and scholarly figures such as Henri Arnauld and Jean Mabillon. Du Cange compiled entries from documentary traditions preserved in repositories such as the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Vatican Library, and the archives of the Monastery of Saint Gall. Successive expansions and revisions involved editors and printers working in centres including Paris, Leipzig, and Rome, with contributions from antiquaries tied to networks exemplified by Antoine Augustin Calmet, Dom Edmond Martène, and Dom Jean-Baptiste de La Curne de Sainte-Palaye. The Glossarium’s evolution intersected with comparable enterprises by scholars like Ludwig Traube, Theodor Mommsen, and Karl Lachmann, and it became a reference for compilers of editions such as the Monumenta Germaniae Historica and the editors of the Patrologia Latina.
The dictionary covers medieval usages, archaisms, and neologisms found in texts associated with courts, monasteries, and municipal centres across regions like Kingdom of France, Holy Roman Empire, Papacy of Rome, and the Crown of Aragon. Its entries document terms from legal sources such as capitularies, cartularies, and charters, and from literary works by authors connected to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Gerard of Cremona, and William of Tyre. The Glossarium records lexical items appearing in chronicles like the Annales Regni Francorum, Gesta Francorum, and Chronicon Mundi, and in administrative records tied to figures such as William the Conqueror, Philip II of France, and Frederick I Barbarossa. It includes vocabulary from councils and decretals promulgated under Pope Gregory VII and Pope Innocent III, and from legal codices such as the Liber Iudiciorum and the Corpus Juris Canonici.
Du Cange and later editors employed comparative philology techniques developed alongside scholars such as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Johann Georg Leibniz? and the textual criticism practiced by Richard Bentley and Jacques-Auguste de Thou. Their methodology combined manuscript collation in holdings like the Escorial Library, the Bodleian Library, and the Biblioteca Ambrosiana with citation practices modeled on editions by Étienne Baluze and Antoine-Léonard Thomas. Lexical entries provided glosses, etymologies referencing classical authorities such as Varro, Isidore of Seville, and Priscian, and contextual exempla culled from chronicles, charters, and liturgical books associated with Benedict of Nursia, Hildegard of Bingen, and Peter Abelard. The editors also engaged with palaeographic conventions advanced by Edward Maunde Thompson and diplomatic principles articulated by Ludwig von Ranke.
First printed in Paris under du Cange’s supervision, the Glossarium saw numerous reissues and augmented editions produced in printing centres including Amsterdam, Leipzig, and Naples. Notable editions involved scholars linked to the Société des Antiquaires de France, the Royal Society of London, and editorial projects associated with Julius von Pflug and Johannes Buxtorf. 19th‑ and 20th‑century reprints and scholarly impressions were undertaken by publishers connected to the École des Chartes, the Berlin Academy, and university presses at Oxford University and Harvard University. Supplements and compendia were prepared by later lexicographers influenced by projects such as the Oxford English Dictionary and the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae.
The Glossarium shaped medieval studies in institutions including the University of Paris, the University of Bologna, University of Oxford, and the University of Vienna, and it informed the work of historians like Edward Gibbon, Jules Michelet, and Francis Oakley. Medievalists engaged in source editing for series such as the Patrologia Latina, the Acta Sanctorum, and the Monumenta Germaniae Historica relied on du Cange’s entries to interpret obscure usages found in documents tied to Charlemagne, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Richard I of England. Critics and reformers of lexicography such as Ernst Robert Curtius, Rudolf Thurneysen, and Friedrich Diez debated its philological premises, while archivists at the National Archives (United Kingdom) and the Archivio di Stato di Firenze used it in cataloguing medieval codices.
Modern access streams include digitizations housed in institutions like the Gallica digital library, the Vatican Apostolic Library’s digitization initiatives, and collections curated by Europeana and the HathiTrust Digital Library. Computational philology projects at universities such as Stanford University, Université de Paris, and Leipzig University integrate the Glossarium into corpora alongside the Prosopography of the Byzantine World and the Digital Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Tools for searching and annotating entries draw on standards established by the Text Encoding Initiative, linked data frameworks used by the International Council on Archives, and repositories coordinated with the WorldCat union catalogue.
Category:Latin dictionaries Category:Medieval studies