Renowned medieval scribe’s innovative glossary reveals evolution of languages

LAWRENCE — The term “glossary” comes from the ancient Greek “glossa,” meaning a “word needing explanation.” But who actually wrote and compiled such key historical glossaries is the focus of a new book.

“I’m striving to understand the evolution of language and the way people conceptualize learning and knowledge,” said Misty Schieberle, professor of English at the University of Kansas.

Her focus has resulted in a new book titled “Thomas Hoccleve’s Trilingual Glossary: A Critical Edition from London, British Library, Manuscript Harley 219.” This late medieval glossary uniquely combines a variety of sources in innovative ways and demonstrates Hoccleve’s approaches to glossary organization and second-language reference materials. It’s published by the Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature.

Hoccleve (c. 1367–1426) was a significant figure in 15th-century English literature, well known for his prolific scribal activity. He served as a clerk in the Royal Office of the Privy Seal for 40 years, and for about 25 of those years he wrote original poetry. Hoccleve was also renowned for his efforts to promote the work of Geoffrey Chaucer and for his “Series,” which includes the earliest autobiographical description of mental illness in English.

“He’s a hard figure to grapple with because he straddles the line between religious writing and more secular-leaning literature since he was trained to be a priest but never got a position as one,” Schieberle said.

“In certain ways, there’s a sense of some dissatisfaction with his inability to get promoted to a higher position. But at the same time, he’s energetically engaging with medieval literature in Latin, French and English.”

This latest book proved a deeply personal project for Schieberle because she made the discovery that connected the manuscript containing the glossary to Hoccleve.

“I’d looked at the manuscript as far back as 2012, and I had a digital copy of it made so I could use it here in Kansas,” she said. “At the time, I had some suspicions it wasn’t just any normal Joe who was copying this because it contained the copy of Christine de Pizan’s ‘Epistre Othea’ that was dedicated to King Henry the Fourth himself. It was really conversations with colleagues that encouraged me to dig deeper and wade into paleography, which can be a very contentious field.”

She realized how unusual it was to find a glossary using all three languages.

“What’s interesting about this is it shows us how multilingual Hoccleve expected his colleagues who might use it to be,” she said.

While some medieval glossaries were often narrow in scope and others could be used to teach younger people the ins and outs of language, neither characteristic was evident in this case. It seems to have been used for general reference only.

“Also of interest is the section where Hoccleve’s glossary includes not just words you might mishear, but the ones you might miss-see or might misread because they have certain abbreviations,” she said.

“There are abbreviations that were standard in Latin, French and English so scribes didn’t always have to write out ‘per’ or ‘par’ or ‘pro.’ You could sometimes misread what one of those abbreviations meant. Hoccleve’s glossary attends to that visual element.”

That wasn’t the only innovative approach Schieberle found in the tome.

“It shows Hoccleve trying out an alphabetical organizational system. But when you don’t have a spreadsheet to alphabetize things for you — and you have to do it all by hand — that’s incredibly challenging,” she said. 

“Most of the glossaries from this time period would be organized thematically. Like, ‘Here are words you might use if you want to talk about the rooms in your house. Here are kitchen words. Here are hallway words.’ Hoccleve retains some of that structure, but in the early pages he loosely has something like an alphabetical organization, which is quite uncommon.”

 A KU professor since 2008, Schieberle is the author of “Christine de Pizan’s Advice for Princes in Middle English Translation: Stephen Scrope’s ‘The Epistle of Othea’ and the Anonymous ‘Lytle Bibell of Knyghthod’” (Medieval Institute Publications, 2020), and a special issue of “Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching” (2024), co-edited with Elon Lang, that is the first collection of pedagogical essays on teaching Hoccleve’s works. The Texas native’s focus is on literature of the 14th and 15th centuries, and she said she’s drawn to “the ways it can challenge our ideas of gender and authority and who should be writing texts.”

Schieberle said, “The writers I’m most interested in are people like Christine de Pizan, who is writing as a woman and therefore must justify her intervention in literature. And to a lesser extent, the same is true of men like Hoccleve, who’s writing from outside the traditional university or church center of authority. I’m really fascinated by unique figures who are trying to carve out a space for themselves in the literary tradition.”