Middle English Dictionary records, 1925-2008

Start Over Collection Middle English Dictionary records, 1925-2008

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68 linear feet (in 98 boxes) — 1 item — 1.5 GB (online)

The Middle English Dictionary (MED) is a comprehensive dictionary of the English language as it was used between 1100 and 1500. The MED was in production at the University of Michigan from 1930 to 2001. The collection contains correspondence of the chief editors, administrative records, files on editorial matters, and miscellaneous files and production material.

In August of 2001 the administrative records and most of the materials pertaining to the history and making of the Middle English Dictionary (MED) from its beginnings at the University of Michigan in 1930 up to its completion in 2001 were deposited in the Bentley Historical Library by the project and by the administrative unit responsible for it, the Office of the Vice President for Research. These materials consist primarily of correspondence, administrative records (including budget), files on editorial matters, and miscellaneous files and notes on other matters. In February of 2010 the remainder of the MED materials was transferred to the Bentley Library from the Buhr Storage Facility, where they had been kept since the fall of 2001, along with the books from the former MED library (now dispersed), under the supervision of the Special Collections Library. All of these materials form a collection separate from the citation slips used in the printed MED (along with the supplementary slips), which are now catalogued as Middle English Dictionary Citation Slips. The total number of boxes in the present collection is 98 (of various sizes), amounting to 68 linear feet.

The Middle English Dictionary records are organized in three major subgroups, RECORDS BY EDITORIAL ERA, MISCELLANEOUS MED MATERIALS, and NON-MED MATERIALS.

In the first 20 boxes (21 linear feet) the materials are in standard-size boxes in 8 1/2" x 14" folders and are arranged strictly chronologically by the editorial eras of the chief editors: Samuel Moore (1930-1934), Thomas A. Knott (1935-1945), Hans Kurath (1946-1961), Sherman M. Kuhn (1961-1983), and Robert E. Lewis (1982-2001), except that the Moore and Knott eras have been combined because of the difficulty of separating the files, other than correspondence, in those two eras. In the later MED boxes (21 through 78), the materials are stored in a mixture of formats (8 1/2" x 14" folders, 6 1/2" x 9" cards, 3" x 5" cards and slips, etc.), and the organization is topical, though still generally chronological. Non- MED materials (specifically, the Early Modern English Dictionary (EMED) materials) appear at the end (in boxes 79 through 98).

Records by Editorial Era

The subgroup RECORDS BY EDITORIAL ERA is organized in series reflecting the tenures of each of the chief MED editors. The series are: Moore-Knott Era, 1930-1945, Kurath Era, 1945-1961, Kuhn Era, 1961-1983, and Lewis Era, 1982-2001 (and later). Each of the series includes subseries relating to content: correspondence, administration and history, editorial matters. Additional subseries pertain to specific matters under particular editors such as the reading program, bibliography, production matters, and non-MED matters.

Effort was made to retain the arrangement and the order of the original materials insofar as that was possible, but inevitably for the sake of consistency from one editorial era to another we had to adapt the arrangement to the emphases in each era. Correspondence, alphabetically arranged, always appears as the first category for all eras. This includes the chief editor's MED and professional, scholarly, and academic correspondence (including intra-university correspondence), both to and from him, with notes on the main correspondents, the subjects of the letters, and who else besides the chief editor was involved in answering letters. Each correspondent's letters are arranged chronologically, from earliest to latest. The only exception to this arrangement is in the Moore and Knott correspondence, where some letters were pasted together for filing in reverse chronological order, as was the custom in the 1930s and 1940s, and these have been kept as they were originally, with the latest on top.

The correspondence is always followed by administrative records and historical files, alphabetically arranged, which contain information on budget requests and staff salaries by year, the minutes of the various committees either overseeing or participating in the work of the MED (chiefly the Committee on Dictionaries from 1930 to 1977, the MED Council and various internal committees thereafter), reports (both annual and miscellaneous), external financial support and grant applications, hiring of editors, ordering of books for the MED library, equipment inventories, statements of account, and the like.

Then follow files and records on editorial matters, also alphabetically arranged: these include such topics as bibliography, dialects, editing progress, editors' guides and style books, papers and articles on various subjects pertaining to the MED, and reviews after publishing began.

Following these fixed categories appear, where appropriate according to the principal activities of each era, some separate categories: for example, for the reading program (which was an especially important activity in Moore's era, to a lesser extent in Knott's), for the bibliography (which was in the process of being established in Kurath's era), and for production matters (which were particularly extensive in the changeover from typewriters to computers in Lewis's era).

Finally, for all but one of the editorial eras, there is a category called non- MED materials, which contains files on the EMED (these are particularly extensive during the Moore and Knott eras), correspondence other than that pertaining to the MED if it is extensive, research and editorial matters not directly related to work on the MED, and occasional files on graduate and undergraduate class matters and civic affairs.

Moore-Knott Era, 1930-1945

Moore and Knott eras (1930-1945). The correspondence from the Moore and Knott eras (1930-1934 and 1935-1945) is extensive (2.6 linear feet), reflecting the historical fact that the project was in its infancy at the University of Michigan and many decisions had to be made, not least those about financial matters at a time of severe economic depression and those having to do with the samples produced during the Knott era.

Moore-Era Correspondence, 1930-1934

Moore's correspondence was primarily with well known and influential Middle English scholars of the time, containing extensive exchanges between Moore and Albert C. Baugh (Pennsylvania; also a member of the Modern Language Association [MLA] Advisory Committee on the MED), Carleton Brown (MLA), W. F. Bryan (Northwestern), Thomas A. Knott (frequently about their joint publication, Elements of Old English), Percy Long (MLA), Lorenz Morsbach (Göttingen), Clark Northup (editor of the dictionary when it was housed at Cornell), Henry L. Savage (Princeton), Mary S. Serjeantson (London), James F. Willard (Colorado), R. M. Wilson (Leeds), and many of the volunteer readers of Middle English texts. In addition to Moore, C. C. Fries, Editor of the EMED, frequently answered letters, as did MED editors Sanford Meech and James Rettger and sometimes administrative staff members Helen Snyder and Eleanore Stuhlmann.

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