John Cowell, The Interpreter: or Book Containing the Signification of Words (1607)
Date
1607
Author
John
Cowell
Note: 30/09/2005
Book title
The Interpreter: or Booke Containing the Signification of Words: Wherein is set foorth the true meaning of all, or the most part of such Words and Termes, as are mentioned in the Lawe Writers, or Statutes of this victorious and renowned Kingdome, requiring any Exposition or Interpretation
Publication place
Cambridge
Publisher
John Legate
Transcription source
Da Capo facsimile (King's College Cambridge)
Text type
printed book
Genre
Hard-word, term-of-art, and dialect dictionaries, glossaries, and definitions
Subject area
- Latin
- law
Summary
Law lexicon, suppressed by royal proclamation in 1610. See British Library Add. MS 513(6), fol. 81: proceedings against Cowell for writing this book, and the king's proclamation against it; and British Library Add. MS 12,515(v): the king's proclamation of March 25, 1609.
Language
headwords: English
explanations: English
explanations: English
explanations: English
explanations: English
Extent
582
Word-group
type: alphabetical
Word-entry
type: headword
sample: Shire, (Comitatus, Shira) is a Saxon word, signifying Satrapian , of the verbe (scyran. 1. partiri.) Lamb. in his explication of Saxon words. verbo Centuria. The word is in vse so rife, that euery child vnderstandeth it. Who first thus diuided this land into shires, appeareth by M. Camdens Britan. pa. 10 2. in these words. Nec dum tamen florente Heptarchia, Anglia ita in Comitatus diuisa, ( sic enim vulgò vocant ) sed postea, cum solus Aluredus rerum potiretur. Vt enim Germani maiores nostri, teste Tacito, iura per pagos vicosque reddebant, & centeni ex plebe comites ad rem administrandam adiungebantur: sic ille ( vt Ingulfi Croulandensis verbis vtar ) primus Angliam in Comitatus diuisit, quod indigenæ rapinas committerent exemplo & colore Danorum. Comitatus porrò in Centurias. i.Hundreds, & Decimas. i. Tythings, distribui fecit: præcepitque vt omnis indigena in aliqua esset Centuria, & Decima. Præfectos etiam prouinciarum, qui antea Vicedomini vocabantur, in duo officia diuisit, viz I udices, nunc I usticiarios: & Vicecomites, qui adhuc idem nomen retinent. See the rest. (pp. 487-88)
sample: Shire, (Comitatus, Shira) is a Saxon word, signifying Satrapian , of the verbe (scyran. 1. partiri.) Lamb. in his explication of Saxon words. verbo Centuria. The word is in vse so rife, that euery child vnderstandeth it. Who first thus diuided this land into shires, appeareth by M. Camdens Britan. pa. 10 2. in these words. Nec dum tamen florente Heptarchia, Anglia ita in Comitatus diuisa, ( sic enim vulgò vocant ) sed postea, cum solus Aluredus rerum potiretur. Vt enim Germani maiores nostri, teste Tacito, iura per pagos vicosque reddebant, & centeni ex plebe comites ad rem administrandam adiungebantur: sic ille ( vt Ingulfi Croulandensis verbis vtar ) primus Angliam in Comitatus diuisit, quod indigenæ rapinas committerent exemplo & colore Danorum. Comitatus porrò in Centurias. i.Hundreds, & Decimas. i. Tythings, distribui fecit: præcepitque vt omnis indigena in aliqua esset Centuria, & Decima. Præfectos etiam prouinciarum, qui antea Vicedomini vocabantur, in duo officia diuisit, viz I udices, nunc I usticiarios: & Vicecomites, qui adhuc idem nomen retinent. See the rest. (pp. 487-88)
Alston
XVIII.II.38
Schafer
1607 C
STC
5900
Catalog
Cambridge University Library. A Catalogue of the Manuscripts Preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge. 5 vols. and Index. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1856-67.
GV: 577.
(CUL Add. MSS 116, no. 3888; Cowell's MSS notes as transcribed by Richard Smith, who obtained Cowell's copy from Dr. Gilbert Watts)
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Kennedy, Arthur Garfield. A Bibliography on Writings on the English Language from the Beginning of Printing to the End of 1922. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1927. 8581, 8582 (1637), 8584 (1672). view record
Kennedy, Arthur Garfield. A Bibliography on Writings on the English Language from the Beginning of Printing to the End of 1922. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1927. 8581, 8582 (1637), 8584 (1672). view record
Other editions
1637: STC 5901-02; Alston XVIII.II.39-40
1658: Wing C 6644; Alston XVIII.II.41
1672: Wing C 6645; Alston XVIII.II.42
1684: Wing C 6646; Alston XVIII.II.43
1701, 1708, 1727, 1737, 1742 (5 editions): Alston XVIII.II.44-48
British Library Add. MSS 24,281-283: 1637 edition, annotated by Sir Roger Twysden;
Cambridge University Library Adv.d.28.4, formerly Cambridge University Library Add. MS. 116 (CUL 1856-67: V, 577), MS notes to Cowell's Interpreter, which R.S. [Richard Smith, Secondary of the Poultry Compter] transcribed from a book in which Dr. Gilbert Watts copied the author's notes.
1658: Wing C 6644; Alston XVIII.II.41
1672: Wing C 6645; Alston XVIII.II.42
1684: Wing C 6646; Alston XVIII.II.43
1701, 1708, 1727, 1737, 1742 (5 editions): Alston XVIII.II.44-48
British Library Add. MSS 24,281-283: 1637 edition, annotated by Sir Roger Twysden;
Cambridge University Library Adv.d.28.4, formerly Cambridge University Library Add. MS. 116 (CUL 1856-67: V, 577), MS notes to Cowell's Interpreter, which R.S. [Richard Smith, Secondary of the Poultry Compter] transcribed from a book in which Dr. Gilbert Watts copied the author's notes.
Facsimiles
Cowell, John. The Interpreter, 1607. English linguistics, 1500-1800, no. 318. Menston: Scolar Press, 1972.
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Cowell, John. The Interpreter. The English experience, no. 231. Amsterdam and New York: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum and Da Capo Press, 1970. view record
Cowell, John. The Interpreter. The English experience, no. 231. Amsterdam and New York: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum and Da Capo Press, 1970. view record
Criticisms
Chrimes, S. B. "The Constitutional Ideas of Dr. John Cowell." The English Historical Review 64.253 (1949): 461-87.
view record
Levack, B. P. "Law and Ideology: The Civil Law and Theories of Absolutism in Elizabethan and Jacobean England." The Historical Renaissance: New Essays on Tudor and Stuart Literature and Culture. Eds. H. Dubrow and R. Strier. Chicago: n.p., 1988. 220-41. view record
Levack, B. P. "The Civil Law, Theories of Absolutism, and Political Conflict in Late Sixteenth- and Early Seventeenth-century England." Law, Literature and the Settlement of Regimes. Eds. G. J. Schochet, P. E. Tatspaugh, and C. Brobeck. Folger Institute Proceedings, 2. Washington: n.p., 1990. 29-48. view record
Osselton, N. E. "English Specialized Lexicography in the Late Middle Ages and in the Renaissance." Fachsprachen. Languages for Special Purposes. Eds. L. Hoffman and others. 2 vols. Vol. II. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1998. 2458-65. view record
Simon, Jocelyn. "Dr. Cowell." Cambridge Law Journal 26.2 (1968 November): 260-72. view record
Cowley, John D. "IV. The Law Dictionaries." A Bibliography of Abridgments, Digests, Dictionaries and Indexes of English Law to the Year 1800. London: Selden Society, 1932. lxxix-xciii. view record
Squibb, G. D. Doctors' Commons: a History of the College of Advocates and Doctors of Law (1977): view record
Coquillette, Daniel R. "Legal Ideology and Incorporation I: the English Civilian Writers, 1523-1607." Boston University Law Review 61 (1981 January): 1-89. view record
Seipp, D. J. "The Structure of English Common Law in the Seventeenth Century." Legal History in the making: Proceedings of the ninth British Legal History Conference. Eds. W. M. Gordon and T. D. Fergus. London and Rio Grande, Ohio: Hambledon Press, 1991. 61-83. view record
Boucher, Harold I. The Hangman's Burning of Interpreter, an English Law Dictionary, Written by Sir John Cowell: Published in 1607 and Burned in 1610 by the Order of England's King James I. n.p.: typescript, 1992. view record
Boucher, Harold I. King James's Suppression of The Interpreter and Denouncement of Dr. Cowell. San Francisco?: draft version, 1998 ca.. view record
Levack, B. P. "Law and Ideology: The Civil Law and Theories of Absolutism in Elizabethan and Jacobean England." The Historical Renaissance: New Essays on Tudor and Stuart Literature and Culture. Eds. H. Dubrow and R. Strier. Chicago: n.p., 1988. 220-41. view record
Levack, B. P. "The Civil Law, Theories of Absolutism, and Political Conflict in Late Sixteenth- and Early Seventeenth-century England." Law, Literature and the Settlement of Regimes. Eds. G. J. Schochet, P. E. Tatspaugh, and C. Brobeck. Folger Institute Proceedings, 2. Washington: n.p., 1990. 29-48. view record
Osselton, N. E. "English Specialized Lexicography in the Late Middle Ages and in the Renaissance." Fachsprachen. Languages for Special Purposes. Eds. L. Hoffman and others. 2 vols. Vol. II. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1998. 2458-65. view record
Simon, Jocelyn. "Dr. Cowell." Cambridge Law Journal 26.2 (1968 November): 260-72. view record
Cowley, John D. "IV. The Law Dictionaries." A Bibliography of Abridgments, Digests, Dictionaries and Indexes of English Law to the Year 1800. London: Selden Society, 1932. lxxix-xciii. view record
Squibb, G. D. Doctors' Commons: a History of the College of Advocates and Doctors of Law (1977): view record
Coquillette, Daniel R. "Legal Ideology and Incorporation I: the English Civilian Writers, 1523-1607." Boston University Law Review 61 (1981 January): 1-89. view record
Seipp, D. J. "The Structure of English Common Law in the Seventeenth Century." Legal History in the making: Proceedings of the ninth British Legal History Conference. Eds. W. M. Gordon and T. D. Fergus. London and Rio Grande, Ohio: Hambledon Press, 1991. 61-83. view record
Boucher, Harold I. The Hangman's Burning of Interpreter, an English Law Dictionary, Written by Sir John Cowell: Published in 1607 and Burned in 1610 by the Order of England's King James I. n.p.: typescript, 1992. view record
Boucher, Harold I. King James's Suppression of The Interpreter and Denouncement of Dr. Cowell. San Francisco?: draft version, 1998 ca.. view record
