The entry “animal” cites a document called the “Battlefield Grammar,” dated around 1450. I have tried to look up where I can access the manuscript. I can only find a single scholar to have read it: one Cynthia Lloyd, who cited it once in her book Semantics and Word Formation (p. 136). She notes it contained the word evocacioun. Can anyone help me access the “Battlefield Grammar,” whatever it is?
I think he may just have copied a quote from a dictionary and not from the original. Maybe Barnhart’s page 702?
Thanks so much for bringing it to my attention that I could’ve also been searching terms on Google Books. I was able to find the complete (and digitized) Battlefield Grammar! Images of its pages can be viewed at mss-cat.trin.cam.ac.uk/Manuscript/O.5.4 or by searching “1285” as the James Number in the online James Catalogue of Western Manuscripts.
The most helpful article in this quest was a chapter called “An Early Treatise in English Concerning Latin Grammar” in Essays and Studies in English and Comparative Literature, an edited book published in 1935 by the University of Michigan Press and written by Sanford Brown Meech. By then a renowned scholar of Middle English, Meech had studied Chaucer and Margery Kempe, and was an assistant editor of the Middle English Dictionary (MED) (Tobin). Although he was a blip in the decades-long project to construct the MED, Meech was integral to its sound reputation, likely saving it from a permanent residency in hackdom. One of his duties was to survey the starkly different Middle English dialects, and he did so by reviewing archival texts from all over England (Adams 161). While paddling this arcane maelstrom of confusion, he came across a manuscript that, despite being on the subject of Latin grammar, was partly written in a nonstandard dialect of Middle English (Meech 81–82).
It was (and still is) kept by Trinity College in Cambridge, having already been catalogued by the meticulous M. R. James about 3 decades earlier. James’s description included the provenance of the document: it had changed ownership from parochial to antiquarian hands before being placed in its current home in 1738 (James 301–302). Based on its (unofficial) title—the Battlefield Grammar—I had initially expected this manuscript to be about English words relating to conduct in war. But actually, this Latin grammar gets its name because it once belonged to a college in the West Midland town of Battlefield. Meech writes positively of the author, noting the scribe’s careful hand, accurate facts, and learned usage of Latin works (84, 125). For my lay part, I appreciate the many abstract representations that would have helped students to understand the material (e.g., f243r), as well as the beautiful marginalia (e.g., f080r). Much to my delight, even though James had already well described the Battlefield Grammar, Meech transcribes the English parts. Here’s one of my favorites:
How many case hastowe? Sixe: the nominatyf, genitif, datyf, accusatyf, vocatyf, & ablatyf. How knoweste the nominatyf case? A word that comyth by fore the verbe and the dede of the verbe passyth oute of hym, that schall’ be nominatyf case. On an other maner a word that by tokenyth doyng or suffryng’, the word that doth’ or suffreth’ schall’ be nominatyf case, as the maister sytteth on the benche, magister sedet super scamnum. (Meech 105)
Works Cited
Adams, Michael. “Sanford Brown Meech at the Middle English Dictionary.” Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America, vol. 16, 1995, pp. 151–85, doi.o rg/10.1353/dic.1995.0015.
Grammar etc. Circa 1450. The James Catalogue of Western Manuscripts, Trinity College Library Manuscript Catalogue, mss-cat.trin.cam.ac.u k/Manuscript/O.5.4. Accessed 22 Aug. 2026.
James, Montague Rhodes, Litt.D. “1285. Grammatica. Dictionarium etc.” Cambridge UP, 1902, pp. 301–08. Vol. 3 of The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge: A Descriptive Catalogue. 4 vols. Internet Archive, archive.o rg/details/WesternManuscriptsInTheLibraryOfTrinityCollegeCambridgeV3/page/288/mode/2up.
Meech, Sanford Brown. “An Early Treatise in English concerning Latin Grammar.” Essays and Studies in English and Comparative Literature, by Members of the English Department of the University of Michigan, U of Michigan P, 1935, pp. 81–125. Vol. 13 of University of Michigan Publications: Language and Literature.
Tobin, James. “War over Words.” University of Michigan Heritage Project, Regents of the U of Michigan, heritage.umich.e du/stories/war-over-words/. Accessed 22 Aug. 2026.
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Success! Do you understand the purpose of the “abstract representations” on f243r? I opened up that leaf but it is impenetrable to oafs such as myself.