Includes bibliographical references (p. [433]-469) and index.

Preliminary Material -- INTRODUCTION -- CHAPTER ONE: THE STUDY OF OLD GERMANIC LANGUAGES: THE BEGINNINGS -- CHAPTER TWO: JAN VAN VLIET (1622-1666): VICISSITUDES OF A PHILOLOGIST -- CHAPTER THREE: VAN VLIET'S PHILOLOGICAL KITCHEN: THE PRIMARY MATERIAL -- CHAPTER FOUR: HACTENUS MIHI FERE INAUDITA: SOURCES AND REFERENCES -- CHAPTER FIVE: CONTEMPORARY SCHOLARS AND INFLUENCES -- CHAPTER SIX: VAN VLIET'S GERMANIC STUDIES -- CHAPTER SEVEN: AFTER VAN VLIET -- CHAPTER EIGHT: RETROSPECT -- APPENDIX ONE: INVENTORY OF VAN VLIET'S CORRESPONDENCE -- APPENDIX TWO: VAN VLIET'S DEDICATION TO MAGNUS GABRIEL DE LA GARDIE -- APPENDIX THREE: INVENTORY OF WORKS PUBLISHED BY JAN VAN VLIET -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX.

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This volume deals with the study of Old Germanic languages in the Low Countries, in the seventeenth century. The work of the philologist and lawyer Jan van Vliet (1622-1666) has been taken as a starting point for a discussion of the intellectual background and philological methodology of seventeenth-century investigations into the earliest recorded forms of the Germanic languages. Van Vliet's activities provide an extraordinary example of the earliest attempts to approach Old Germanic languages from a comparative point of view. The cosmopolitan tradition of philological studies in the Dutch Republic as well as Van Vliet’s great admiration of Francis Junius (1590–1677), the founding-father of Germanic philology, formed the basis for his ideas about vernacular languages. His work allows us a unique insight in the pioneering seventeenth-century studies in Germanic philology.