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Collection

Middle English Dictionary records, 1925-2008

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

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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).

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Miscellaneous MED Materials

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Records in the MISCELLANEOUS MED MATERIALS subgroup are arranged primarily by topics (reading notes, lists of MED headwords and titles, bibliographical files, transcriptions and reproductions of texts, audio-visual materials, etc.) but also chronologically wherever possible. These boxes are a variety of sizes depending on the format of the materials within them. Series include: Editorial and Bibliographical Materials, 1930s-1940s; Moore's Reading Notes; Knott's Reading Notes; Science Bibliography; Headword File; Editorial and Bibliographic Materials, 1940-2008; Middle English Texts; Audio, Digital, and Visual Material, and Artifacts; Hand-Pulled Cross References; and Quotations. The first several series (boxes 21-38) date primarily from the Moore and Knott eras.

Folder

Audio, Digital, and Visual Materials, and Artifacts

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Audio, Digital, and Visual Material, and Artifacts (boxes 73-74) contains miscellaneous audio, digital, and visual materials, along with a few artifacts, from all editorial eras of the MED. These include: digital materials of Middle English texts, an hour-long Canadian Broadcasting Co.'s radio show on the MED and the Middle English Compendium and quotations for the supplement; cassettes of remarks on the MED and on one of its retiring editors; photographs of MED editors and staff; slides and transparencies of medieval manuscripts; printed maps; and artifacts such as IBM typewriter balls with Middle English letters used in the early camera-ready copy. (For other photographs, see the Retirements folders in Box 16.)

Additional visual materials are housed in Box 74, including four printed maps of England (all or part) used by the editors, and six examples of camera-ready pages for the MED, to illustrate the various stages the printed fascicles went through between 1952 and 2001. These are: E.1 e -- endelonges (1952), the first fascicle to be printed; the original Plan and Bibliography (1954); N.1 muche -- neigh (1978), a late example of typewriter-composited copy; Q q -- raiment (1984), the first word-processed fascicle; S.13 spranklinge -- steering (1990), a late example of the word-processed format used from Q through S; and T.1 t -- tasting (1993), the first fascicle with formatting changes to increase readability (boldfaced dates, italicized short titles for Middle English texts, etc.).

An MED Sorting Board is also part of the Audio, Digital, and Visual Material, and Artifacts series. Because of its size (26" high, 33" wide, and 11" deep at the bottom) it is housed separately. This particular sorting board was created by MED associate editor Oscar Johnson in the 1940s, and thereafter each editor had one like it at his or her desk for use in editing: usually, as the first step, for sorting the quotation slips for a word by date, with a slot for each century or part of a century; then, for separating senses or subsenses, with tentative definitions clipped to the backs of the slots into which the illustrative quotations were dropped; next, as the interpretation of senses was refined, for separating the contents of one slot into two or three, or for combining the contents of more than one slot into a single one; and, ultimately, for having the whole word in question arranged and labeled in final form by senses and subsenses along with the relevant quotations for each.