Part of a five volume set which provides an authoritative and comprehensive account of the attitudes to language prevailing in different periods and civilizations, in this case the Renaissance and Early Modern period. It examines the development of linguistic thought in the specific social, cultural and religious contexts involved. Issues discussed include the place of language in education, variation and prestige and approaches to lexical and grammatical description. This volume examines the study of Latin, Romance, Germanic and Slavic and the study of language in its philosophical context.