JWB on 27 Jun 2007  •  Link

"SIR HENRY SPELMAN (c. 1564-1641), English antiquary,..."

http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/S…

Clement on 28 Jun 2007  •  Link

Quoting JWB's link, perhaps the diary entry of 27 June 1664 refers to, "Spelman's most important work, 'Concilia, decreta, leges, constitutiones in re ecclesiarum orbis britannici', is an attempt to place English church history on a basis of genuine documents. The first volume, which occupied him seven years, came down to 1066 and was published in 1636. A second volume was edited by Sir William Dugdale in 1664."

Clement on 29 Jun 2007  •  Link

Diary annotation from Terry F:

Based on the holdings of The Pepysian Library, Magdalene College, L&M identify this as the much-awaited 2nd ed. of 'Glossarium Archaiologicum,' which will be licensed 2 July, so can only be "bespoken" today.

Pepys has said he wanted to study English law. An essential tool is:

Glossarium Archaiologicum: Continens Latino-Barbara, Peregrina, Obsoleta, & Novatoe Significationis Vocabula; Quoe Post Labefactatas a Gothis, Vandalisque Res Europoeas, in Ecclesiasticis, Profanisque Scriptoribus; Variarum Item Gentium Legivus...
by Spelman, Sir Henry

published posthumously, largely through the efforts of Sir William Dugdale. Although Dugdale has in the past been credited with much of the work in volume two, a handwritten manuscript of Spelman himself confirms that the work is that of Spelman alone. It is the first known Anglo-Saxon dictionary. Wing S4926. Cordell 158. http://www.alibris.com/search/det…

http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

Oliver Mundy on 14 Sep 2016  •  Link

Spelman's 'Glossarium' had originally been published incomplete in 1626 under the title 'Archaeologus'. It is essentially a dictionary of Latin legal, ecclesiastical and other specialised terms; the Anglo-Saxon element comes in because Spelman includes many expressions from ancient English law which appear in Latin charters and chronicles, often illustrating them with quotations in Old English. The range of the work is surprisingly wide, including for example an article on the word 'Admiral' which embodies a list of everyone who bore that title from the age of Alfred to that of Charles I - a possible source of Pepys's interest.

According to the Latin bio-bibliographical sketch by 'J.A.' (John Aubrey?) added to the 1687 edition, Spelman had struggled to get the book published, at one time offering it to the royal printer John Bill and asking nothing more in return than a few pounds' worth of books. This may have been partly because of the state of the manuscript; even the later editions are notable for duplications, articles in which Spelman offers two or three mutually contradictory definitions of a single word, gaps where he has intended to fill in a reference but has never got round to it, or admissions of defeat such as 'Tu tibi Oedipus esto' (meaning 'Be your own Oedipus', or in other words 'Your guess is as good as mine'). Nonetheless, modern legal historians still refer to the work with respect, partly for its acute observations on the early history of Parliament and the jury system.

Terry Foreman on 22 Apr 2017  •  Link

Glossarium archaiologicum: continens latinobarbara, peregrina, obsoleta, & novatae significationis vocabula ...Henry Spelman
Excudebat Tho. Braddyll, & prostant apud Georg. Pawlett, & Guil. Freeman, 1687 - 576 pages https://books.google.com/books?id…

Bill on 25 Apr 2017  •  Link

SPELMAN, SIR HENRY (1564?-1641), historian and antiquary; studied at Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A., 1583), and Lincoln's Inn; M.P., Castle Rising, 1597; commissioner on unsettled Irish lands, 1617; settled in London for study, 1612, and (1613) printed his 'De non temerandis Ecclesiis,' material for his much more elaborate work, the 'History of Sacrilege' (published, 1698); his 'Glossary' of obsolete Latin and old English terms published, 2 vols., 1626, 1664; subsequently published compilations on 'Councils of the Church,' the 'Tenures, by Knight Service'; founded a short-lived Anglo-Saxon readership at Cambridge, 1635.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.