The Bodley Glossaries

Between the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth centuries, scribes at the Cistercian abbey of Buildwas in the West Midlands copied four glossaries at the end of a manuscript containing the De institutis coenobiorum and Conlationes by John Cassian. These glossaries, preserved in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 730, offer precious evidence of the continuity of the Old English glossarial tradition well into the Middle English period. At the same time, in their Latin (and sometimes Greek) entries followed by Latin, Anglo-Norman, and English glosses, they bear witness to the multilingual environment of their time and place.

This volume presents the first full edition and comprehensive study of the Bodley Glossaries that adequately sets them in the history of medieval English lexicography. An introduction that analyzes the structure of the glossaries, their sources and analogues, their language, and their context, prefaces the edition. A complete textual apparatus and explanatory notes offering fresh interpretations, parallels to, and commentary on each entry succeed each glossary. Detailed indexes conclude the book.