In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle discusses a little-known medieval poem
Here’s a question for you. Which single English text provides the Oxford English Dictionary with the most new words? By ‘new’ words I mean words which were unknown before they appeared in that particular text. So, what would you go for? One of Shakespeare’s plays, perhaps? Milton’s Paradise Lost? Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales?
The answer is none of these. Instead, it’s a little-known poem – indeed, more or less completely unknown outside of medievalist and lexicographical circles – called Cursor Mundi.