Katalog der althochdeutschen und altsächsischen Glossenhandschriften (review)

The Katalog is a richly documented, multivolume treasure trove that contains material of interest and use to historical linguists, philologists, literary historians, folklorists, paleographers, and others. Anywhere from one half to two thirds of the attested Old High German textual evidence comes in the form of glosses (p. 58), and nearly a quarter of the now available gloss material is not considered in the grammars of Old High German, making the Katalog particularly necessary. The last comprehensive treatment of the glosses was Elias Steinmeyer and Eduard Sievers, Die althochdeutschen Glossen 1879–1922, 5 Volumes, Berlin, and its use is problematic because of outdated manuscript referencing and the increase in known gloss manuscripts (p. 61). This is particularly problematic since many other scholarly works that make use of glosses only refer to Steinmeyer and Sievers. That can make it difficult to track down gloss references in the literature to their actual attestation. Because of this, Bergmann and Stricker were not able to give a complete list of scholarly treatments of individual glosses, and on p. 61 they give examples of important works that make heavy use of glosses where they were not able to spend the time to sort out the manuscripts that were referred to.

The layout is simple and efficient, so that I was able to make use of the work with only minimal time spent "learning the ropes." Each volume has on the inside cover a short set of directions on how to negotiate entries. Pp. 57–125 offer a clearly written overview of glossation and work with glosses. The definition of gloss used is relatively broad and includes probatione pennae and marginalia (p. 64). Also included are terms that are discussed within a Latinate text, such as the Old High German wind directions and months in Einhard (pp. 103 ff.). Not included are legal terms in Latin law codes or terms in capitularia. Bergmann and Stricker arrive at a total of 1309 numbers covered in the Katalog (p. 84) and compare it to the some 751 numbers in Steinmeyer and Sievers. They discuss at length the ways these numbers are arrived at. This section is a good overview of the ways medieval books and manuscripts functioned as instruments of data storage and as physical objects, but the essence remains that many glosses have been found and made known since Steinmeyer and Sievers.

Starting on p. 127 are the gloss manuscripts in alphabetical order by location, from the Admont Stiftsbibliothek in the first volume to the Zwettl Stiftsbibliothek in the fourth. Each entry contains extensive information about the manuscript itself, its history and provenance, editions, and relevant discussions in the literature, a short summary of number and type of glosses, dating, dialect if possible, and literature pertaining to the actual glosses.

It would have been convenient to have in the header of each page not just the names of relevant libraries but also the numbers. The numbers contained in each volume are printed on the books' spines, but are unfortunately located in the lower area and are likely to be covered up by library catalog stickers when processed, a typical problem with multi-volume works and one that can be unofficially ameliorated when the librarians are not looking (think here about how and why glossing arises!).

Volume 5 contains sources and multiple indices. The bibliography is extensive, pp. 1979–2235. Its usability is slightly impaired by the listing of authors' names with first name first, which slows down the browser somewhat. Titles of books are italicized if they are the main entry, but otherwise there is no clear typographic distinction made for articles and monographs. Historische Sprachforschung is given as HSp instead of standard HS or older KZ. Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur (BGDSL) is kept as PBB. In references to works by Jochen Splett and others, multiple contributions to other volumes necessitate...