For the experts, glossaries are of extreme importance, especially those from the early Middle Ages. They reveal much about a specific culture, its language, mentality, educational levels within a society, and relationship with other cultures. Any efforts by intellectuals to come to terms with their own language and another one at the same time reveals much about the cultural conditions of peoples, social groups, institutions, or organizations at a certain time.

Hence, engaging with that genre at large from the entire Middle Ages and a little beyond (here in in the last, the fourth section) facilitates a deep dive into literary and linguistic settings, tasks, and strategies. To equate glossaries with modern-day dictionaries might be problematic because the former were more concerned with correlating the own culture and its words with another world, such as in the famous Etymologiae by Isidore of Seville (early seventh century; here discussed by Carmen Cardelle de Hartmann) or the anonymous Hermeneumata Pseudo-Dositheana (third century, offering explanations of Greek works for Latin speakers; introduced by Lucia Degiovanni). Some glossaries such as the Abrogans (eighth century, Old High German and Latin), resembled more the type of modern dictionaries, but Isidore's intentions were more turned toward a fully developed explanation of each word in its wider historical and literary context. In fact, it might be more appropriate here to talk about an encyclopedia predicated on the linguistic analysis, as fanciful as it often seems to be.

The introduction to this 'handbook' of glossaries, composed by the three editors of this hefty volume, can be well used as such since it covers a wide range of topics relevant for this genre and its historical exploration (e.g., glossaries and lists, contextualized glossaries, glossaries versus dictionaries, medieval designation of glossaries, word families, headings of glossaries, and key editions of medieval glossaries). As they point out, the need for such a handbook is considerable because researchers in the various languages have developed separate categories or concepts for their respective glossaries, and if we want to progress in this field, we need to have a more foundational understanding of this genre across medieval Europe.

The volume is hence conceived of as a kind of handbook, covering four major topics: 1. cultural, intellectual, and textual contexts; 2. glossaries from Britain and Ireland; 3. continental Germanic and Scandinavian glossaries; and 4. glossaries in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. There is a clearly defined limitation here, with the focus resting on western and northern Europe. The character of a handbook, however, facilitates an easy identification of specific topics. Plus, there is a comprehensive and extensive bibliography, a general index, and, truly impressive, an index of all the manuscripts consulted here.

Whether the result of artificial strategies (Hildegard of Bingen) or of efforts to help the reader understand Latin at large, glossaries served many significant purposes throughout times, and so also in the early modern and modern period. Another handbook should pick up the baton and cover the vast corpus of glossaries in other parts of Europe and then perhaps also extend the perspectives to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Curiously, vernacular dictionaries for Italian or French produced for German learners/speakers and vice versa are not really addressed and are at least not listed in the index or the table of contents.

The reader will find a large number of specialized studies on individual glossaries, which thus become fully discussed in light of the latest research. Chiara Benati deserves particular acknowledgment because she has provided a large number of entries on Middle Low German and Scandinavian glossaries. Recently deceased Hans Sauer (May 31, 2022) was in charge of Old English glossaries and herbal glossaries. But beyond that, the editors deserve full credit for having attracted many other contributors to this well-researched and comprehensive handbook. It would have been a nice feature if the book had also included a list of brief biographies of the individual contributors. A few hints at least about the three editors are provided on the back cover.

I find it particularly helpful that each of the four sections is introduced by a general overview, such by Claudia Wich-Reif for the cultural, intellectual, and textual contexts, by Hans Sauer for glossaries in Britain and Ireland, by Stefanie Stricker for Continental Germanic and Scandinavian glossaries, and by John Considine for medieval glossaries and Renaissance lexicography. There are thirty b/w and color images, all well reproduced and clearly legible, even when the manuscript presented consists of small script, such as the image of the Mondsee Bible Glossary (416). There is only one small technical problem: The pagination begins with Roman numerals and then, on p. 16, suddenly switches to Arabic numerals. Overall, this is an excellent and highly useful reference work.

Albrecht Classen