Dictionary of Old English Plant Names

Quite in contrast to earlier, negative assessments of Anglo-Saxon medicine, research of the past thirty years has shown that it was in fact by no means backward, but could be ranked even on a higher level as contemporary medieval medicine on the continent. However, a special characteristic of Anglo-Saxon medico-botanical literature is the fact that in England (as opposed to the primarily Latin literature on the continent) many texts were written in the vernacular, i.e. in Old English. Some of the texts include the Old English Herbarium Apuleii, the Laeceboc, Lacnunga and Peri Didaxeon, all of which were edited as early as 1864-6 by Oswald Cockayne in his monumental three volumes of Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England. The interest of the Anglo-Saxons in medico-botanical writings can also be seen from the enormous number of more than 6000 Latin-Old English plant- glosses. Apparently as a consequence of this earlier negative attitude, research into the botanical vocabulary of Old English was the most neglected area of English vocabulary until the 1970s when Bierbaumer published his three-volume study Der botanische Wortschatz des Altenglischen (1975-79), in which the relevant vocabulary of the texts and glosses mentioned above was completely documented and interpreted. Further, the situation has changed substantially over the last few years as a result of the studies by the Munich anglicist Hans Sauer, and thanks to the Anglo-Saxon Plant-Name Survey, founded by Carole Biggam, at the University of Glasgow. In the fwf-funded project "Digital and Printed Dictionary of Old English Plant-Names" the existing material of Bierbaumer`s research has been digitalised and research papers from 1980 until the present have been collected and added to the existing data. At the same time we developed a web application based on a relational database. This website presents a completely new approach towards an online dictionary and research platform. Due to the cooperation with Hans Sauer and his assistant Ulrike Krischke we could add a detailed discussion of etymological and morphological aspects of Old English plant-names. This follow-up-project is seen as a means to complete the unfinished work of the project described above. Moreover, it provides the possibility to include a lot of new aspects, which came up during the intensive work with our data and through constructive suggestions by fellow researchers. This not only means updating the web application and verifying data consistency but also adding new content (e.g. place name data, extended references). This work will again be conducted in cooperation with our Munich colleagues.

Quite in contrast to earlier, negative assessments of Anglo-Saxon medicine, research of the past thirty years has shown that it was in fact by no means backward, but could be ranked even on a higher level as contemporary medieval medicine on the continent. However, a special characteristic of Anglo-Saxon medico-botanical literature is the fact that in England (as opposed to the primarily Latin literature on the continent) many texts were written in the vernacular, i.e. in Old English. Some of the texts include the Old English Herbarium Apuleii, the Laeceboc, Lacnunga and Peri Didaxeon, all of which were edited as early as 1864-6 by Oswald Cockayne in his monumental three volumes of Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England. The interest of the Anglo-Saxons in medico-botanical writings can also be seen from the enormous number of more than 6000 Latin-Old English plant- glosses. Apparently as a consequence of this earlier negative attitude, research into the botanical vocabulary of Old English was the most neglected area of English vocabulary until the 1970s when Bierbaumer published his three-volume study Der botanische Wortschatz des Altenglischen (1975-79), in which the relevant vocabulary of the texts and glosses mentioned above was completely documented and interpreted. Further, the situation has changed substantially over the last few years as a result of the studies by the Munich anglicist Hans Sauer, and thanks to the Anglo-Saxon Plant-Name Survey, founded by Carole Biggam, at the University of Glasgow. In the fwf-funded project "Digital and Printed Dictionary of Old English Plant-Names" the existing material of Bierbaumer`s research has been digitalised and research papers from 1980 until the present have been collected and added to the existing data. At the same time we developed a web application based on a relational database. This website presents a completely new approach towards an online dictionary and research platform. Due to the cooperation with Hans Sauer and his assistant Ulrike Krischke we could add a detailed discussion of etymological and morphological aspects of Old English plant-names. This follow-up-project is seen as a means to complete the unfinished work of the project described above. Moreover, it provides the possibility to include a lot of new aspects, which came up during the intensive work with our data and through constructive suggestions by fellow researchers. This not only means updating the web application and verifying data consistency but also adding new content (e.g. place name data, extended references). This work will again be conducted in cooperation with our Munich colleagues.