Certaine things to be considered & corrected in Will. Dugdale Saxon-Lexicon

A particular place in the Old English lexicographic tradition is held by Sir William Dugdale and his Dictionarium Saxonico-Anglicum. Composed in 1644 and never published, it reaches us in the form of the MS. Dugdale 29, Oxford, Bodleian Library. Its importance lies in the way it marks a decisive step towards the publishing of the first Anglo-Saxon dictionary in 1659, known as William Somner’s Dictionarium Saxonico-Latino-Anglicum. This paper focuses on some particular folios of the foresaid manuscript, which go to show the level of constant collaboration and interdependency among seventeenth-century antiquarians intent on compiling Anglo-Saxon dictionaries. The compilation of letter B stops at f.31v. ff. 32r-33v follow regularly, though they are smaller in size and carry a different watermark. Written on each side, they contain a list of additions and corrections, just as the heading itself indicates: Certaine things to be considered & corrected in Will.Dugdales Saxon-Lexicon. The entries are sorted in alphabetical order in two columns and are written by a clearly different hand, which not only corrects errors but often explains adjustments. The compiler of this Errata Corrige is unknown, but there are some clues leading us to infer that the ‘anonymous corrector’ was William Somner. For example, in the concluding assertion at the end of the compilation, where the ‘corrector’ writes that he resorted to Sir Simond D’Ewes’ dictionary, a careful analysis of mss. Harley 8 and Harley 9, shows the hand responsible for the corrections also wrote the letter from William Somner to Sir Simond D’Ewes in April 1650.