Jane Roberts

School of Advanced Study, University of London, Institute of English Studies, Emerita

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Jane Roberts, educated at the universities of Dublin and Oxford, has held teaching positions in Glasgow University, University College Dublin and King’s College London. She is currently Emeritus Professor, and Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Institute of English Studies, at the University of London. She is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of English Language of the University of Glasgow, a Visiting Research Fellow of CRMS, the Centre for Renaissance and Medieval Studies, Trinity College Dublin, and an Honorary Fellow of St Hugh’s College Oxford. Her main research interest is in the history of the English language, especially lexical semantics and medieval vernacular manuscripts. She is co-author of A Thesaurus of Old English with Christian Kay (1995

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Notes and Queries, Dec 1, 1966

Some Thoughts on the Representation of Early Middle English in the Historical Thesaurus of English

Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America, 2002

Te are met here in Ann Arbor to celebrate the completion of the Middle English Dictionary (MED), ... more Te are met here in Ann Arbor to celebrate the completion of the Middle English Dictionary (MED), and I should like to add the congratulations of the Glasgow Historical Thesaurus project and thanks to Bob Lewis and his colleagues, not just for all of the printed volumes, but for the exhilarating pleasures of exploring die newer electronic files. We celebrate both the culmination of a great period dictionary of English and its appearance at the heart of the Middle English Compendium. It seems fitting, therefore, in this paper from the Glasgow Historical Thesaurus project (HTE),1 to suggest how, once the HTE is complete, the riches of the MED can fuel new exploration of its data. It must be stressed that die materials cited from the HTE here are provisional.2 We cannot, after all, think of any part of a thesaurus as complete until the whole is complete. A notional thesaurus does not have the luxury of the MED clarion call, "On to Z" (be it zed or zee) of the dictionary maker.3 It

13.10.18, Brown & Bussell, eds., Barking Abbey and Medieval Literary Culture

The Medieval Review, Oct 1, 2013

Conference Report: Guthlac of Crowland: Celebrating 1300 Years

Networks and Neighbours, Aug 1, 2014

Jane Roberts' report on the conference: 'Guthlac of Crowland: Celebrating 1300 Years'... more

Richard Hogg, An introduction to Old English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002, ix + 163. ISBN 0-7486-1328-5 (paperback) Richard Marsden, The Cambridge Old English reader. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, xxxiv + 532. ISBN 0-521-45612-6 (paperback) £18.99 (US$32.99), ISBN 0...

English Language and Linguistics, 2006

Gale R. Owen-Crocker, ed., Working with Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts. (Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies.) Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2009. Paper. Pp. xvi, 320; many black-and-white and color figures and tables. $50. Distributed in North America by the University of Chicago Press

Speculum, 2011

Middle English Word Studies. A Word and Author Index

Notes and Queries, 2003

Middle English Word Studies A Word and Author Index The focus of this bibliography is on studies ... more

A Thesaurus of Old English

Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik, 2021

The Thesaurus of Old English (TOE), first published in 1995, had its origins in a body of slips d... more The Thesaurus of Old English (TOE), first published in 1995, had its origins in a body of slips derived from standard dictionaries, principally the Clark Hall and Merritt Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary and the Bosworth-Toller volumes. These slips were made to supply the Glasgow Historical Thesaurus (HT) project (1965–2009) with a firmer idea of the range and totality of Old English vocabulary than available in the OED. In 1976 the decision was taken to deploy the Old English materials as a pilot thesaurus for the HT. With compilation of the slips completed in 1982, researchers were able to begin sorting the slips into groupings based on meaning and to see areas of the HT classification take shape in miniature. The TOE data, absorbed into the larger structure of its parent project, allow us to view English words that disappeared by 1150 alongside those that continued in use.

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Blunder, Error, Mistake, Pitfall: Trawling the OED with the Help of the Historical Thesaurus

Altre Modernità, 2017

The paper considers the lexis of error and examines its use across time in relation to the writin... more The paper considers the lexis of error and examines its use across time in relation to the writing and spelling of English, to grammar and pronunciation. Discussion focuses first on the earliest records of notions of correctness in English language usage, from AElfric forwards to the emergence of standard English, from the sixteenth century’s growing worries about copiousness and purity of diction to eighteenth-century concerns to prescribe and rule the language. The historical overview is complemented by consideration of the data drawn together by the Glasgow Historical Thesaurus project, its evidence taken from the Oxford English Dictionary and the Dictionary of Old English Corpus. For earlier centuries, there are by far fewer relevant citations, often buried within words wide in reference. With the help of the Historical Thesaurus we drill down to view how views of language mistakes and errors have changed over the centuries of the recorded history of English.

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St Bertellin of Stafford

The Downside Review, 1968

THE early lives of medieval saints often contain much that is incredible, though it is generally ... more THE early lives of medieval saints often contain much that is incredible, though it is generally accepted that in most legends there is a kernel of historical fact. Most of our evidence for saints of the early Anglo-Saxon period comes from Bede who appears to have had little time for the recitation of the improbable or the over-miraculous, and the few other English hagiographical writings of his age are similarly restrained. However, in the Norman period it became fashionable for large collections of legends to be drawn up and many old lives were refurbished or completely rewritten to appeal to audiences with a greater penchant for the marvellous. The extant legends of some Anglo-Saxon saints seem to have been composed first in Norman England and it is to one such that this paper is devoted. St Bertellin of Stafford is, to judge from standard works of reference, to be numbered among the most obscure saints of the Anglo-Saxon period. Recently, in the course of editing some early lives of Guthlac, the Lincolnshire saint (c. 637-714), it proved necessary to examine the sources for the legend of St Bertellin, and the results of this investigation seem to justify some brief consideration of the available materials. The evidence to be examined, it must be stated at the outset, is difficult and confusing, and this examination begins therefore with the recitation of two incontrovertible facts. First, there was a church of St Bertellin at Stafford, for, although it no longer exists, it is mentioned in documents from the thirteenth century to the sixteenth, surviving the Reformation long enough to become the home of one of King Edward VI's grammar schools: the form of the patron saint's name shows considerable

HAMLET, III. ii. 146

The Review of English Studies, 1967

... which &amp;amp;#x27;miching mallecho&amp;amp;#x27;7 and &amp;amp;#x27;minching ma... more ... which &amp;amp;#x27;miching mallecho&amp;amp;#x27;7 and &amp;amp;#x27;minching malicho&amp;amp;#x27;8 appear to have held for many, and it need not look to Spanish9 or GaelicIo or Romany I ... 2 It should be pointed out that new strictly delimited material is to be found in H. Jenkins, &amp;amp;#x27;Playhouse Interpolations in the Folio Text of ...

Brown & Bussell, eds., Barking Abbey and Medieval Literary Culture (Jane Roberts)

Some Thoughts on the Expression of 'crippled' in Old English

Leeds Studies in English, 2006

Christine Elsweiler. Laȝamon’s Brut Between Old English Heroic Poetry and Middle English Romance: A Study of the Lexical Fields ‘Hero’, ‘Warrior’ and ‘Knight’

Anglia - Zeitschrift für englische Philologie, 2012

and mourning born in the wake of ad ark political power that seeks to violently sever Christian p... more and mourning born in the wake of ad ark political power that seeks to violently sever Christian persons from their 'beautiful' lives, and the seven spiritual heroes of this tale are not so much martyrs or confessors as they are the grief-and memory-bearers of aw ay of spiritual life under attack" (85). This is shrewd, but Joy's final interpretation of the sleepers' dual relationship to the city of Ephesus, which changed appreciably throughout their slumber, is more difficult to follow and accept: "But the only thing that can knit the two Ephesuses together is Malchus himself, and his six companions, who, in their reawakened persons-in both body and soul-and also in their textual figuration, mark the place of an historical excess that opens the dimension of the more, of the unincorporable infinite enclosed within the singular self who has touched reality and become real, and whose understanding of the world is indispensable to that world'sc ompleteness" (91). Robin Norris, who edited Anonymous Interpolations and wrote its thoughtful introduction (1-12), is the author of the final essay, "Reversal of Fortune, Response, and Reward in the Old English Passion of St. Eustace" (97-117). Before the martyrdom that takes place in the last seventy-five lines of the story, the events of the Passion of St. Eustace resemble those of as ecular romance, and this has led scholars to question its generic integrity. Norris argues persuasively that the Passion is ac oherently constructed saint'sl ife, and that the theme holding it together is tristitia,t he sin of excessive sorrow in response to worldly suffering. After demonstrating the prevalent place of this sin in Old English homiletic literature, she provides considerable evidence that the translator altered the Latin exemplar to deemphasize the sorrow of Eustace and his family: "Such alterations in the midst of an otherwise faithful translation indicate that the Old English translator shares the Anglo-Saxon homilists' concern with the capital sin of excessive sorrow […]. These homiletic themes, including humility as an appropriate response to adversity and the heavenly reward such an attitude can earn, also permeate the passion'sc onclusion, unifying the text as aw hole" (111). Norris'sa rticle is praiseworthyf or its lucidity and substance. Before moving on, please look again at the price of this anthology and understand that it is not at ypographical error. Since 1978, thirty-five useful books have been published as "Subsidia" to the Old English Newsletter,a nd most of them are still available for less than the cost of am odest lunch. The series has been aw elcome anomaly throughout an era of increasingly expensive scholarly materials, and the slim book under review is certainly worth what is asked for it.

$The second chapter of Part II, on compounds, opens with a reminder of the repeated attention given to their “significantly Anglo-Saxon character” (145) and an account of earlier scholarship. Overall the compounds of the Caligula version were thought to “convey an Anglo-Saxon aura”, even though their total numbers are proportionately “a mere fraction” (146) when compared with the use of com- pounds in Beowulf. Moreover, of the 268 nominal compounds identified in the Brut, fewer derive from Old English than are recorded first from Middle English forwards (< OE x 129; ME- x 139). Elsweiler’s presentation of the compounds of the ‘warrior’ field is ordered as in the previous chapter. The Otho redaction more than halves the numbers of compound words that must have been in his exemplar: Caligula has two compounds “exclusive to the poetic register in Old English” (149): leod-king (also in Otho) and driht-folk. Otherwise the nominal compounds from Old English were mostly in both prose and poetry. Noteworthy is the number$

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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Reference Guide

The Modern Language Review, 1987

Donald Scragg, A Conspectus of Scribal Hands Writing English, 960–1100. (Publications of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies 11.) Cambridge, UK: D. S. Brewer, 2012. Pp. xxii, 94; 5 black-and-white plates and 1 map. $130. ISBN: 9781843842866

Speculum, 2013

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On Multi-Using Materials from The Dictionary of Old English Project, with Particular Reference to the hapax legomena in the Old English Translation of Felix's Vita Guthlaci

Florilegium, 2009

preface to F (2004) reports that Moriyama, now at Waseda University, did preliminary work on the ... more preface to F (2004) reports that Moriyama, now at Waseda University, did preliminary work on the feorm word-family, and Ishiguro, now at Meiji University, wrote a preliminary draft of forsacan. Some of their dissertations and other publications resulting from their work on this project are listed in the bibliography below. Lynne Grundy held research appointments in the Department of English at King's (1989-1993), working with Christian Kay and me on the TOE alongside teaching Old English in Queen Mary College and Royal Holloway College. From 1993 to her early death in 1997, she worked in the Centre for Computing in the Humanities at King's. My thanks go to Janet Bately, then as now, for years of collaboration and illuminating discussion. 4 Frank and Cameron, eds., A Plan for the Dictionary of Old English (1973). Venezky and Healey, A Microfiche Concordance to Old English (1980). The machine-friendly Cameron numbers follow the short titles in the DOE Corpus but are omitted in the edited materials in DOE: A to G online. On the development of the Cameron numbers and short titles,

format_quoteHapax legomena in Vespasian life provide insights into translation origins and textual transmission, enhancing understanding of Old English textual dynamics.format_quote

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Blunder, Error, Mistake, Pitfall: Trawling the OED with the Help of the Historical Thesaurus

by Jane Roberts and Louise Sylvester

Altre Modernità, 2017

format_quoteDr. Johnson asserted eloquence is linked to adherence to written language, reflecting on his own verbose reputation.format_quote

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Anglo-Saxons and the north : essays reflecting the theme of the 10th Meeting of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists in Helsinki, August 2001

by Matti Kilpiö, Jane Roberts, and Leena Kahlas-tarkka

ALASTAIR MINNIS and JANE ROBERTS (eds). Text, Image, Interpretation: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature and its Insular Context in Honour of Eamonn O Carragain

Review of English Studies, 2007

... The question of audience is also central to Elaine Treharne's contribution in Part II, w... more ... The question of audience is also central to Elaine Treharne's contribution in Part II, which argues that the Vercelli Book may have ... In contrast to the journey motif, Eric Stanley and Richard North consider, in different ways, notions of fixity and home; Stanley examining contexts for ...

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