HICKES, George, Runólfur JÓNSSON, and Edward BERNARD.
Institutiones grammaticae Anglo-Saxonicae et Moeso-Gothicae … Grammatica Islandica Runolphi Jonae, Catalogus librorum septentrionalium, accedit Eduardi Bernardi Etymologicon Britannicum.
Oxford, ‘e theatro Sheldoniano … typis Junianis’, 1689 [– 1688].
Four parts in one vol., 4to, pp. [xxviii], 114, [2 (blank)], [4], 182, [2 (errata, blank)], [34], [2 (blank)]; part-title to Institutiones grammaticae (bound before general title) with copper-engraved Sheldonian device, part-title to Grammatica Islandica (dated 1688) with woodcut Sheldonian device, printed in Roman, italic, blackletter, Old English, and Gothic types; the occasional light spot, but a very good copy; bound in contemporary calf, stained dark brown, spine blind-ruled in compartments, edges speckled red; superficial cracks to joins, corners a little bumped; twentieth-century gilt black wax seal with initials ‘L J’ to front pastedown.
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Institutiones grammaticae Anglo-Saxonicae et Moeso-Gothicae … Grammatica Islandica Runolphi Jonae, Catalogus librorum septentrionalium, accedit Eduardi Bernardi Etymologicon Britannicum.
First edition of a foundational work in the modern study of ancient Germanic languages and in the field of comparative linguistics, comprising the first appearances of Hickes’s monumental grammar of Old English and Gothic and of Bernard’s etymological dictionary, accompanied by a survey of Old English manuscripts and by Jónsson’s Icelandic grammar.
The work is a product of the revived interest in Old English language and literature following the redistribution and reappraisal of Old English manuscripts following their dispersal in the dissolution of the monasteries in England, which spurred also the study of related languages including Gothic and Old Norse. Preceded by William Somner’s Old English dictionary of 1659, the Institutiones are the first work on the subject by the philologist and divine George Hickes (1642–1715) who, as a fellow of Lincoln College Oxford, met the preeminent Anglo-Saxonists of the day including Thomas Marshall (1621–1685, Rector of Lincoln from 1672), Edward Bernard (1638–1696), and Franciscus Junius (1591–1677).
Following Hickes’s grammar is a catalogue of books in ancient Germanic languages, containing both a bibliography of printed texts in Old English and a survey of known manuscripts (including Junius’s collection, bequeathed to the Bodleian), as well as catalogues of Gothic, Frankish, Frisian, Islandic, and Runic books and manuscripts. It is accompanied by Runólfur Jónsson’s Icelandic grammar and dictionary, first published in Copenhagen in 1651, and by the first appearance of Bernard’s etymological dictionary, which compares English words with their cognates not only in Old English and Gothic but also Latin, Greek, a wide range of Romance and Slavic languages, Hungarian, Armenian, Turkish, Arabic, and Persian.
The work uses a variety of typefaces to represent the different languages, including the ‘Junian type’, commissioned by Junius to imitate Carolingian minuscule with the addition of English characters. Junius bequeathed the type to the Sheldonian Theatre in 1677 along with sets of Gothic, Runic, Danish, and Icelandic type.
ESTC R8123.
