Du Cange, Charles Du Fresne, Sieur
Du Cange, Charles Du Fresne, Sieur
Du Cange, Charles Du Fresne, Sieur, eminent French scholar; b. Amiens, Dec. 18, 1610; d. Paris, Oct. 23, 1688. He was educated at the Jesuit Coll. in Amiens and studied law at the Univ. of Orleans. An erudite scholar in many disciplines, he is best known for his historical approach to language, which anticipated the development of modern linguistic criticism. He is important to musicology because he included definitions of Latin musical terms in his lexicographies. The most valuable of his many works are the Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae latinitatis (3 vols., Paris, 1678) and the Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae graecitatis (Lyons, 1688).
Bibliography
H. Hardouin, Essai sur la vie et sur les ouvrages de D.C. (Amiens, 1849).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire