The Monson Catholicon Anglicum, a dictionary of Middle English to Latin and occasional Greek, decorated manuscript on paper [England (probably East Ridings, Yorkshire, perhaps Rotherham), 1483]

Estimate

20,000 - 30,000 GBP

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Description

Paper

191 leaves (last 8 leaves blank and 4 of these uncut), 223mm. by 53mm., complete, collation: i-xv¹², xvi¹¹ (wanting vii, a blank leaf perhaps once loose in the volume), catchwords and quire signatures, modern pencil pagination, single column, c.25 lines in light brown ink in a professional anglicana hand, paragraph marks in red, capitals touched in red, Middle English words in red, space left for initial on fol.1r, some small spots and stains, small hole and rust marks from clasp to outer edge of first 3 leaves, else excellent condition, endleaves and pastedowns from two other English manuscripts: (i) a fourteenth-century religious commentary, and (ii) an extensively glossed Bible of the early twelfth century, spine strengtheners in between and at end of gatherings from other manuscripts (one of twelfth century between pp.108-09), contemporary binding of tooled brown leather over bevelled wooden boards, some scuffs, small tears and spine rebacked, remains of a single clasp

Provenance

This is the long-lost Monson ‘Catholicon Anglicum’, a Middle English-Latin dictionary used as the basis of the edition of 1881, and unseen and unrecorded since then

provenance

(1) Written in England in 1483: inscription at end, “Explicit Ca^con lingua materna / A^odni 1483”. Herrtage concluded that this manuscript is in a northern dialect, probably that of Yorkshire (p.xx), and later assessments have extended this argument to connect the text with a school of grammar at Rotherham which was flourishing in 1498 (S.O. Addy, Glossary of Words used in the Neighbourhood of Sheffield, 1888, pp.xxxiv-xliii).

(2) Thomas Flower, sub-chanter in St. Mary’s, Lincoln: his ex libris, dated 1520, at end of volume, “Liber Thome Fflowre Succentor ecclesie Cathedralis beate ^Marie Lincolnensis. Anno domini M^o ccccc^o .xx^o”. He was most probably the fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, admitted in 1519, who served as Senior Proctor of the University in 1520, and had retired as Vicar of Salford Priors, Warks., by January 1521 (Emden, Biographical Register … 1501-1540, 1974, p.207).

(3) William John Monson, 7th Baron Monson (1829-98; his MS.CLXVIII), and loaned by him to S.J.H. Herrtage (one of the first editors of the Oxford English Dictionary whose services were dispensed with due to his kleptomania) to use as the base for his edition of the text. Most probably acquired by William John Monson, 6th Baron Monson (1796-1862), and by descent.

Literature

literature

A. Way, Promptorium Parvulorum sive Clericorum, 1843, p.x.

S.J.H. Herrtage, Catholicon Anglicum, an English-Latin Wordbook, dated 1483, 1881.

Catalogue Note

text

Dictionaries and Grammars are among the most important surviving records of any medieval language, as they form the linguistic guide for our exploration of all other written sources. The present text has been one of the most important and often-cited resources for the study of Middle English since the late nineteenth-century, but this crucial manuscript has not been seen since the 1880s.

The text of the Catholicon Anglicum represents a crucial milestone in the evolution of the English dictionary, and this is the only complete manuscript witness to survive. Only one other manuscript of this text is recorded: the fragmentary British Library, Addit. MS.15562. The present witness is substantially larger than earlier Middle English glossaries, and is near-contemporary with the only other Middle English work of its kind: the Promptorium Parvulorum sive Clericorum (a word-list only without translations).

The orientation of this dictionary (with the English coming first in alphabetical order) ensures that this could not be used to translate difficult Latin terms whilst reading. Instead it has been suggested that its function was that of a vast glossary, used by English speakers when composing in Latin (see G. Stein, ‘The Catholicum Anglicum (1483): a reconsideration’, in Worlds of Worlds, 2004, pp.109-24). However, there is no clear preference for any individual type of terminology, such as legal, medical or literary, and if anything, the words here point towards educated speech and general human experience. It may be a grander compilation, a dictionary put together to collect and codify the English language, in the wake of its heyday with the compositions of Chaucer (c.1343-1400), Lydgate (c.1370-c.1451) and Gower (c.1330-1408).

The present manuscript offers approximately 8000 Middle English words followed by brief descriptions of their meaning in Latin, and on occasion Greek. They range from mundane things such as “Belte maker: zonarius” (p.23), “Milke: gala, grece hoc lac, & lacteus” (p.213), “Brewer: hic pandaxator” (p.37) and “Swarme of bees: hoc examen” (p.336), to artistic topics such as music: “Bagpype: hic panduca” (p.14) and “to Fidille: vidulare, viellare” (p.110), and emotions such as love: “Lufe: hic affecio, hic affectus, & amacio, amamen, hic amor in bono & malo” (p.198), as well as medical conditions such as migraine: “þe Mygrane: ubi emigrane” (p.212) or “an Hardnes of handis or fete: hic callus” (p.149). There are words here more familiar to the scribe and librarian, such as “Boke: hic carta, cartula, hic codex, & hic codicillus, hic liber, hic libellus, hoc volumen, hic pagina, hic pagella, hic sceda” and “Boke bynder or seller: hoc bibliappa & hic bibliator” (p.32), and some rare words which do not survive in Modern English: “Bygirdylle: hoc marsupium, hoc renale” (p.28, meaning a purse, and also used in Old English Matthew 10:9 and in Piers Plowman).