Old English Newsletter

Dictionary of Old English: 2006 Progress Report

Joan Holland, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto

http://www.doe.utoronto.ca

Our 2007 report begins with the happy news that Eric Stanley, Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor Emeritus of the University of Oxford, and a thirty-year member of our International Advisory Committee, will be awarded an honorary degree from the University of Trinity College in the University of Toronto in May 2008 for his achievements in the field of English language and literature.

It is also with great joy that we announce the release, in December, of the Dictionary of Old English: A to G online; this represents a major milestone for the project, the first Web-based version of the first eight letters, acces¬sible to any operating system. The publication incorporates several technological innovations, perhaps the most exciting development being the link with the Oxford English Dictionary. Users of the DOE with access to the online OED can click on the OED link, if there is one, and see displayed the modern English derivatives of the Old English vocabulary. Other hotlinks allow the user access to the (revised and updated) bibliographic references to the short titles at the beginning of our citations, and to the (revised and updated) bibliographic information on the Latin sources to the Old English texts. The search engine for A to G not only supports individual searches on the fields of a DOE entry but also Boolean searches both within fields and across fields. For example, a medical researcher interested in the use of plants in Anglo-Saxon England can search on 'medical' and 'plant' in the definition field and discover an interesting range of plants used as ingredients in medical remedies, e.g. agrimony, cinquefoil, cockle, yarrow. The search engine was developed by our former systems analyst, Peter Mielke, coordinating work with our present systems analyst, Xin Xiang. The creation of the online DOE: A to G would not have been possible without infrastructure support from the Canada Foundation for Innovation for the Text Analysis Portal for Research (TAPoR). DOE: A to G online is distributed by the project by site license to both institutions and individuals. Information on subscriptions can be found on our web page (http://www.doe.utoronto.ca). In early 2008, we will publish the Dictionary of Old English: A to G on CD-ROM and then the letter G alone on microfiche. The CD-ROM and the microfiche will be distributed by the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto. We look forward to comments and suggestions on all three formats from users of the Dictionary. We can be contacted at support@doe.utoronto.ca. The editors are currently drafting entries for H, I, Y, L and M.

Technological Advances

In preparation for CD-ROM publication in a Windows environment, we have enhanced the capabilities of the search engine on the CD-ROM. Boolean searching as a stand-alone application has now been implemented. However, unlike the search engine for the online DOE, which supports many Boolean searches, Boolean searches on the CD-ROM are limited to three criteria. We have implemented two other major improvements in DOE: A to G on CD-ROM over A to F: drawing on our experience with the online DOE, we have bundled into the CD-ROM the short titles and bibliography of the Latin sources to the Old English texts; and we have enabled links to the Oxford English Dictionary for those users with access to the online OED. In 2008 we plan to issue an updated release of the Web Corpus, incorporating corrections found from our citation check for G. We can be contacted with inquiries about the Web Corpus at corpus@doe.utoronto.ca.

Grants and Gifts

We are happy to report that in the course of the year we have been awarded grants by the British Academy and by the Triangle Community Foundation, Raleigh, and a five-year grant by the St. George's Society, Toronto. These grants, along with gifts from the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists and from colleagues and friends, have enabled us to complete the match for our Challenge grant (2006-2011) from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, our fourth Mellon award. Without the generosity of all our funding agencies and individual donors, we could not continue the writing of the Dictionary. A list of gifts to the project for 2006 and 2007 which helped us to complete the Mellon Challenge is appended.

Dissemination and Outreach

We organized an Open House at the DOE offices for fellow-medievalists attending the 82nd annual meeting of the Medieval Academy of America in Toronto; about forty colleagues toured the project. The conference gave us the opportunity to see one of the members of our International Advisory Committee, Professor Roberta Frank of Yale University, who gave the Presidential address. Toni Healey, Joan Holland and Ian McDougall attended the conference. In May, Toni Healey attended the 42nd International Medieval Congress at Western Michigan University, participating in the annual board meeting of the Richard Rawlinson Center for Anglo-Saxon Studies and Manuscript Research. In June, she delivered a paper at the Second Anglo-Saxon Plant Names Symposium in Graz, Austria, a conference held in honour of Prof. Dr. Peter Bierbaumer, who has been a specialist reader of the botanical entries in the DOE for more than twenty years. In July, she and Joan Holland attended the conference of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists in London, where Toni Healey gave a report "Searching for Words" on the innovations of the online DOE: A to G. In December, she attended the MLA conference in Chicago and gave her annual project report to the Old English Executive Committee.

Finally, we are pleased to announce the publication, at the end of the year, of volume 7 of the Publications of the Dictionary of Old English: Making Sense: Constructing Meaning in Early English, edited by Toni Healey and Kevin Kiernan, which contains essays by our colleagues Roberta Frank, Joyce Hill, Allen J. Frantzen, Kevin Kiernan, and Malcolm Godden.

Staff

EDITOR: Antonette diPaolo Healey
REVISING EDITOR: Joan Holland
DRAFTING EDITORS: Dorothy Haines
David McDougall
Ian McDougall

EDITORIAL STAFF:

Catherine Monahan Picone
Xin Xiang (Systems Analyst)
Elaine Quanz

INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE:

Roberta Frank, Yale University
Helmut Gneuss, University of Munich
Simon Keynes, University of Cambridge
Andy Orchard, University of Toronto
Fred C. Robinson, Yale University
Eric Stanley, Pembroke College, Oxford

RESEARCH ASSISTANTS:

Emira Bouhafna
Michael Elliot
Rachel Kessler
Paul Langeslag
Hilary Wynne

STUDENT ASSISTANTS:

Karen Law
Noam Sienna (Mentorship Student)
Lauren Chan (Mentorship Student)

EDITOR, Toronto Old English Series: Andy Orchard

EDITOR, Publications of the DOE: Andy Orchard

Funding

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (formerly the Canada Council): Grants in Aid of Research, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975; Major Editorial Grants, 1976-81, 1981-86, 1986-91, 1991-96; Grants from the Federal Matching Funds Policy, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991; Special Presidential Grant, 1993; Consortium Support Programme 1996-98, 1998, 2000, 2000-2003, 2003-2005, 2005-
The British Academy
Canada Foundation for Innovation (for TAPoR [Text Analysis Portal for Research]), 2002-2007
Connaught Fund, University of Toronto, 1986-91
Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, 1998-99, 1999- 2000, 2000-2001, 2002-2003, 2004-2005
Early English Text Society
Marc Fitch Fund
Foundation for Education and Social Development, Boston
Jackman Foundation
Macdonald-Stewart Foundation
McLean Foundation, 1992, 1995, 1998, 2000
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 1985-90, 1994-99, 2000-05, 2006-
National Endowment for the Humanities, Research Tools Program, 1991-93, 1993-95, 1995-98, 1998-2000, 2000-02, 2002-04, 2004-06, 2006-
President's Committee, University of Toronto
Salamander Foundation, 1998-2001, 2001-04, 2004-06, 2006-
Salus Mundi Foundation, 2002, 2004
St. George's Society, Toronto, 2007-
Triangle Community Foundation
University of Toronto
Xerox Corporation University Grants Committee

Friends of the Dictionary of Old English in support of the Mellon Challenge Grant, 2006-2007

The publication of the Dictionary of Old English: A to G online would not have been possible without the financial support we have received from friends, colleagues, learned societies, and foundations, as well as our granting agencies.

It is with gratitude to each one of you that we report that we have successfully completed the five-year (2006-2011) Mellon Challenge of $500,000 US in aid of our research. We owe heartfelt thanks to Prof. Jane Toswell of the University of Western Ontario who organized a fundraising campaign among friends and colleagues in the field. The amount raised in this particular campaign amounted to just over $172,000 US (at today's rate of exchange). Among our gifts was an anonymous donation of over $40,000 which came into the project through the sale of stock. Thank you from all of us at the Dictionary of Old English for responding so generously to our need. We would like to acknowledge in a special way the strong commitments of the Salamander Foundation and the Triangle Community Foundation, as well as the exceptional gift from the Early English Text Society, all in response to the Mellon Challenge. We have also received generous donations from the St. George's Society, the Peter Munk Charitable Foundation, and the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists. The Mellon Challenge was met in two stages: $255,888 was released by the matching requirement of the National Endowment for the Humanities; by grants from the British Academy, the Early English Text Society, and the Salamander Foundation; and by individual gifts. The remaining $244,112 of the match was released by grants from the Salamander Foundation and the Triangle Community Foundation; by gifts from the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists; and by donations to the DOE Fundraising Campaign. Donors who supported our research in honour of or in memory of individuals are noted separately at the end of the list. We are particularly touched by the number of donations we received in memory of our beloved colleague, Nick Howe, who himself co-organized one of our previous fundraising campaigns. We would also like to mention the collective gifts we have received from the Anglo-Saxon Studies Colloquium, the Department of English, Louisiana State University, and the Interdepartmental Program in Linguistics, Louisiana State University. It seems to us extraordinary to have such loyal colleagues as are all of you. We hope to have included all who have so generously supported our work, but must apologize to any of our donors inadvertently left off this list of acknowledgements. This list encompasses gifts received up to December 12, 2007.

SUPPORTERS

Peter Baker
Helen G. Balfour
Janet Bately
British Academy
Wendy Cameron
Roger Carruthers
Wendy Cecil
Howell Chickering
Sarah Collins
George Connell
Maria Augusta Coppola
Daniel Donoghue
Early English Text Society
J.B. Ellis
Estate of Bill & Lucille Owen
Steven Foulds
Allen Frantzen
Thomas Hall
Antonette diPaolo Healey
John Hill
E.D. & M.P. Hirsch
Joan Holland
Jean Houston
International Society of Anglo Saxonists
Maruja Jackman
Deborah Karp
Allison Kingsmill
Lisa Kiser
Beatrice La Farge
Roy Liuzza
Philip & Mary Maude
Steven May
James McIlwain
June McLean
Bruce & Mollie Mitchell
Linda Munk
Peter Munk Charitable Foundation
Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe
Hiroshi Ogawa
Lisi Oliver
Young-Bae Park
Carol B. Pasternack
Carol E. Percy
Winifred Potter
Gordon Pratt
George & Jennifer Rigg
Fred Robinson
Harry & Medora Roe
Salamander Foundation, Toronto
Jürg Schwyter
St. George's Society, Toronto
Jane Toswell
Triangle Community Foundation
Rick Waldvogel
Anonymous (1)

DONORS

Mary-Jo Arn
Charlie Baggett
Dabney Bankert
P.A. Belanoff
Thomas Bestul
Carole Biggam
Virginia Blanton
Jim Bradway
R.H. Bremmer
Leger Brosnahan
Anna Burko
Robert Butler
Laurence & Anne Cameron
Donald Canada
David Carlson
Michael Cherniss
Kwang Soon Cho
George Clark
John Cleaveland
Elizabeth Coatsworth
Vi & John Colman
Patrick Conner
Helen Damico
Glenn M. Davis
Joan Dawson
Peter Dendle
Nicole Discenza
J.B. Ellis
Estate of Sharon Butler
Heide Estes
Lara Farina
Gillian Fellows-Jensen
Teresa Fiocco
Jacek Fisiak
Michael Fox
Roberta Frank
Milton McC. Gatch
Bruce Gilchrist
Helmut Gneuss & Mechthild Gretsch
R. James Goldstein
James Graham-Campbell
Eugene Green
Scott Gwara
Donald Hair
J.R. Hall
Joseph Harris
Stephen Harris
Jon Harstone
P.H. Hase
Valerie Heuchan
Constance Hieatt
F.R. Higgins
Joyce Hill
Richard & Ellen Hoffmann
Sylvia Horowitz
Brenda Hosington
Ann Hutchison
Tadahiro Ikegami
Colin Ireland
Peter Jackson
Gregory Jember
Emily Jensen
Christian Kay
Dwight Keister
Kevin Kiernan
Ralph Kilby
Ian Kirby
Anne Klinck
E.S. Kooper
W. Koopman
Lucia Kornexl
William Kretzschmar
David Lampe
Stuart D. Lee
Alexander Leggatt
Ursula Lenker
Mary Ann Luce
Charles Ludlum
Timothy Mark
Patricia Matl
Hartwig Mayer
Vincent McCarren
David McDougall
Ian McDougall
David Megginson
Brian & Pat Merrilees
Paule Mertens-Fonck
Inge Milfull
Hubert Morgan
Marie Nelson
John Niles
Dorothy Noyes
Karin Olsen
Shigeru Ono
E.M. Orsten
Gillian Overing
David Pelteret
Russell Perkin
Betty Phillips
Catherine Monahan Picone
Robert D. Pierce, Jr.
Paul & Fiona Remley
Alain Renoir
Robert C. Rice
Elizabeth Robinson
Jane Rosenthal
Jacqueline & Rick Russom
Lawrence Sasek
Hans Sauer
Helene Scheck
Richard Schoeck
Ute Schwab
Linda Simpkins
Krista Slade
Charles Smith
Helen Smith
Robin Smith
Scott Smith
E.G. Stanley
Louise Stephens & Richard Burgess
John & Suzanne Stone
Nancy Stork
Larry Syndergaard
Paul Szarmach
Julie Towell
Joseph B. Trahern, Jr.
Richard Unger
Linda Voigts
M.C. von Nolcken
Ruth Waterhouse
Robin Waugh
Gernot Wieland
Jonathan Wilcox
Karen Williams
Xin Xiang
Barbara Yorke
Cynthia Zollinger
Anonymous (3)
Anglo-Saxon Studies Colloquium:
Susan Crane
Patricia Dailey
Kathleen Davis
Robert Hanning
Yvette Kisor
Stacy Klein
Haruko Momma
Martha Dana Rust
Paul Strohm
E. Gordon Whatley
Department of English, Louisiana State University:
Kevin Cope
Bainard & Christine Cowan
Rebecca Crump
Mary Lou Cutrero
William Demastes
Ethan Guilgiardo
Katherine Henninger
Gerald Kennedy
Sarah Liggett
John Lowe
Robert McMahon
Elsie Michie
Susanna Monta
Lisa Moody
Anna Nardo
Debbie Normand
Lisi Oliver
Kim Orr
Malcolm Richardson
Sue Weinstein
James Wilcox
Interdepartmental Program in Linguistics, Louisiana State University:
Joseph Abraham
Lilian Bridwell-Bowles
Geoffrey Clayton
Michael Hegarty
Eleanor Howes
Ann Mulkern
Janna Oetting
Lisi Oliver
Mary Sirridge
IN MEMORY OF ST. CLAIR BALFOUR
Helen G. Balfour
IN MEMORY OF SHARON BUTLER
Brenda Hosington
Ann Hutchison
IN MEMORY OF ANGUS CAMERON
Jean Houston
Philip & Mary Maude
Brian & Pat Merrilees
Helen Smith
IN MEMORY OF ROWLAND L. COLLINS
Howell Chickering
Sarah Collins
Ann Hutchison
IN HONOUR OF THE STAFF OF THE
DICTIONARY OF OLD ENGLISH
Linda Munk
Helen Smith
IN MEMORY OF BILL EVANS
Interdepartmental Program in Linguistics, LSU:
Joseph Abraham
Lilian Bridwell-Bowles
Geoffrey Clayton
Michael Hegarty
Eleanor Howes
Ann Mulkern
Janna Oetting
Lisi Oliver
Mary Sirridge
IN HONOUR OF ALLEN FRANTZEN
Julie Towell
IN HONOUR OF ROBIN HEALEY
E.G. Stanley
IN HONOUR OF TONI HEALEY & JOAN HOLLAND
Bruce & Mollie Mitchell
IN MEMORY OF NICHOLAS HOWE
Peter Baker
Patrick Conner
Daniel Donoghue
Heide Estes
Roberta Frank
Antonette diPaolo Healey
Joyce Hill
Richard & Ellen Hoffmann
Lisa Kiser
Roy Liuzza
Dorothy Noyes
Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe
Hans Sauer
Joseph B. Trahern, Jr.
Jonathan Wilcox
Karen Williams
Cynthia Zollinger
Anglo-Saxon Studies Colloquium:
Susan Crane
Patricia Dailey
Kathleen Davis
Robert Hanning
Yvette Kisor
Stacy Klein
Haruko Momma
Martha Dana Rust
Paul Strohm
E. Gordon Whatley
IN MEMORY OF BERNARD F. HUPPé
Sylvia Horowitz
IN MEMORY OF EDWARD B. IRVING, JR.
Howell Chickering
John Hill
Jürg Schwyter
IN MEMORY OF FRANCISCUS JUNIUS
R.H. Bremmer
IN MEMORY OF ELSPETH M. KENNEDY, EMERITUS FELLOW, ST. HILDA'S COLLEGE, OXFORD
Louise Stephens & Richard Burgess
IN HONOUR OF WILLIAM GAULT KINGSMILL & ANGUS CAMERON
Allison Kingsmill
IN MEMORY OF HANS KURATH
Jacek Fisiak
IN MEMORY OF JOHN LEYERLE
Ann Hutchison
Alexander Leggatt
David Megginson
Brian & Pat Merrilees
George & Jennifer Rigg
Joseph B. Trahern, Jr.
IN MEMORY OF ANGUS MCINTOSH
J.B. Ellis
IN HONOUR OF BRUCE MITCHELL
Joan Holland
IN MEMORY OF JOHN C. POPE
Howell Chickering
E.D. & M.P. Hirsch
IN HONOUR OF ELAINE QUANZ
The Staff of the Dictionary of Old English
IN HONOUR OF FRED C. ROBINSON
Howell Chickering
IN HONOUR OF UTE SCHWAB
Paule Mertens-Fonck
IN MEMORY OF JOHN-CHRISTIAN SOLOMON
Bruce Gilchrist
IN HONOUR OF E.G. STANLEY
Haruko Momma
Anonymous (1)
IN MEMORY OF HER HUSBAND, LESLIE SUMMERS, 2/11/1919-6/8/2006
J.M. Summers (Prof. Janet Bately)
IN HONOUR OF PAUL SZARMACH
Virginia Blanton
Helene Scheck
IN MEMORY OF RAYMOND P. TRIPP, JR.
John Hill
Helen Smith
IN MEMORY OF W.R. VAN RIPER
Interdepartmental Program in Linguistics, LSU:
Joseph Abraham
Lilian Bridwell-Bowles
Geoffrey Clayton
Michael Hegarty
Eleanor Howes
Ann Mulkern
Janna Oetting
Lisi Oliver
Mary Sirridge
IN MEMORY OF NANCY JO NOONAN VIRSIS
Paul & Fiona Remley
IN MEMORY OF PATRICK WORMALD
Lisi Oliver
David Pelteret