- Frederic Madden
Sir Frederic Madden (
February 16 ,1801 -March 8 ,1873 ), was an English palaeographer.The son of an officer of Irish extraction, he was born at Portsmouth. From his childhood he displayed a flair for linguistic and
antiquarian studies. In 1826 he was engaged by theBritish Museum to assist in the preparation of the classified catalogue of printed books, and in 1828 he became assistant keeper of manuscripts. In 1833 he wasknight ed, and in 1837 succeededJosiah Forshall as keeper of manuscripts. He did not get on well with his colleagues, and retired in 1866. Madden was the leading palaeographer of his day. However, his ignorance of German prevented his ranking high as aphilologist , although he paid much attention to the early dialectical forms of French and English. His minor contributions to antiquarian research were numerous: the best known, perhaps, was his dissertation on theorthography of Shakespeare's name, which, mainly on the strength of the Florio autograph, he contended should be "Shakspere."On his death, he bequeathed his journals and other private papers to the
Bodleian Library , where they were to remain unopened until 1920.Editions
He edited for the
Roxburghe Club "Havelok the Dane " (1828), discovered by himself among the Laudian manuscripts in theBodleian Library , "William and the Werwolf" (1832) and the old English versions of the "Gesta Romanorum " (1838). In 1839 he edited the ancient metrical romances of "Syr Gawayne" for theBannatyne Club , and in 1847Layamon 's "Brut", with a prose translation, for theSociety of Antiquaries . In 1850 the magnificent edition, in parallel columns, of what are known as the "Wycliffite" versions of theBible , from the original manuscripts, upon which he and his coadjutor, Forshall, had been engaged for twenty years, was published by theUniversity of Oxford .In 1866-1869 he edited the "Historia Minor" of
Matthew Paris for theRolls Series . In 1833 he wrote the text ofHenry Shaw 's "Illuminated Ornaments of the Middle Ages"; and in 1850 edited the English translation ofJoseph Balthazar Silvestre 's "Paléographie universelle".References
*1911
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