The version of Niermeyer that forms the basis of Niermeyer Online is the 2nd revised edition (2002) with an estimated 10% new / updated material over the 1st (1976) edition. Features of the 2 nd edition include:
- A wider scope:
- geographical area (e.g. to include England)
- time span (into the 13th century)
- type of source material (e.g. university records)
- New entries
- Updated entries: new examples, additional meanings
- Obvious mistakes corrected
- German translation of the Latin keywords (along with French and English): widening targeted readership
General characteristics of Niermeyer's Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus:
- The best concise dictionary of medieval Latin in existence
- It explores the post-classical Latin language of the Western European Middle Ages from 550 to 1150, tracing the development and use of words.
- Its practical use to scholars is that
- It opens up that great body of technical words relating to law and institutions and to the social structures of feudalism encountered early and high medieval sources.
- It stresses explanations and quotations rather than syntax or etymology;
- It offers brief definitions in French, German and English
- It reveals the diversity and change of meanings, produces instances of quotation and use in sources
- It draws on a wide range of sources, including
- Chronicles, annals, histories
- Diplomas, monuments, charters and cartularies
- letters
- lives, exempla, miracle collections, passions and martyrologies
- royal, ecclesiastical and university acta, statutes and visitations
- collections of civil, customary and canon laws
- the early medieval Fathers and theologians
- what does it NOT cover:
- classical Latin
- the period after 1155
- Eastern Europe (and Islamic and Byzantine Europe)
- the language of scholasticism and technical theology
