GALFRIDUS GRAMMATICUS.

Promptuarium Parvulorum Clericorum: quod apud nos Medulla grammatice appellatur. Scholasticis quam maxime necessarium. Impressum Londiniis per Wynadu de Worde. [bound after:] Ortus vocabulorum alphabetico ordine fere omnia que in Catholicon, Breuiloquo, Cornucopia, Gemma vocabulorum, atque Medulla gra[m]matice ponuntur cum vernacule lingue Anglicane expositionem continens. Impressus Londiniis P[er] Wynadu de Worde.

      London, Wynkyn de Worde, 5. September 1516 and 22 October 1518. Two works bound in one volume, small 4to (192 x 130mm), ll. 70, A8.4-K4, L6, M4 (Promptorium); ll. 198, A8.4-2K8, 2L6 (Ortus); printer's device to both title-pages, decorated woodcut initials; six small spherical wormholes (up to 2 mm in diameter) at the beginning of the Promptorium reduced to four at the end, the Ortus with larger number of wormholes at the beginning, diminishing to six wormholes at the end; despite the wormholes there is only minimal loss to legibility throughout; the title-page of the Ortus is slightly browned and fragile, with holes in the lower margin; nineteenth-century full calf by Hatton of Manchester, sides with Macclesfield arms in gilt within double blind rules, gilt-lettered red morocco label to spine, marbled endpapers, red edges, extremities a little rubbed, and short split to upper joint; with extensive sixteenth century manuscript annotations in ink, chiefly to the Ortus. Rare early edition of the First English-Latin Dictionary, the Promptuarium Parvulorum, in effect the beginning of English lexicography, and the first Latin-English Dictionary bound together. The Promptuarium Parvulorum, or The Children's Storeroom or Repository was composed by Galfridus, or Geoffrey the Grammarian, an East Anglian monk, around 1440 and first printed by Richard Pynson in 1499. It is of the greatest importance. Here for the first time the primary object was the elucidation of English not of Latin, and thus this can be seen as the beginning of English lexicography. Some 12,000 words are listed, in alphabetical order, with nouns and other parts of speech listed first, followed by verbs. Each 'English' word is 'translated' by one or more Latin words. As is obvious from the list of sources cited, the work is based on extensive research. The Promptuarium is bound here together with the Ortus Vocabulorum, also printed by Wynkyn de Worde, for convenience of use. Even though the two works are sometimes found bound together they were issued separately. The Ortus Vocabulorum, the 'Garden of Words', a Latin-English dictionary, claims in its title to offer its readers 'almost all the things that are in the Catholicon, the Breviloquis, the Cornucopia, the Gemma Vocabulorum and the Medulla grammatice, together with an exposition in the vernacular English'. The Ortus Vocabulorum was first printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1500, and no earlier manuscript is known. 'Several editions of the Promptorium issued from the press of Wynkyn de Worde, in small quarto form; copies in fine condition are scarcely less rare than that printed by Pynson. ...Occasionally the Latin-English dictionary, Ortus Vocabulorum, printed by the same printer and the like form, is found bound up with the Promptorium for the convenience of students'. (Way III xliv-xlv). Born in Alsace, Wynkyn de Worde came to England around 1473 as Caxton's foreman and after Caxton's death in 1491 he took over his press and moved it to Fleet Street, founding the long association between printing and Fleet Street. I. STC 20438; McKerrow 19; II. STC 13834; McKerrow 23; I. all early editions are rare: 1511 (BL, Cambridge, University of Illinois), 1512: Huntington, Folger, and Cambridge; 1516 (this edition): BL, Cambridge, Oxford, John Rylands, Winchester College, Harvard and Huntington. II. numerous editions were published between 1500 and this 1516 edition, all of them are rare.