Cange, Charles du Fresne, Lord du

Cange, Charles du Fresne, Lord du

(born Dec. 18, 1610, Amiens, France—died Oct. 23, 1688, , Paris) French scholar. Du Cange's most important works, A Glossary for Writers of Middle and Low Latin (1678) and A Glossary for Writers of Middle and Low Greek (1688), made use of his encyclopaedic knowledge not only of languages but of history, law, archaeology, and geography. His historical approach and effort to distinguish medieval vocabularies from their classical counterparts inspired later scholars to examine the development of language from a historical perspective. Frequently reedited, his dictionaries retained their usefulness through the 20th century.