The dictionary is intended to help native speakers of English read Early Modern German texts (the Early Modern German period is reckoned to be from 1350 to 1750). I have tried to assume no previous knowledge on the part of potential users and have therefore included much of what may seem obvious to some, such as place-names, personal names and other necessary contextual information.
Of course, any dictionary begins somewhere and this one uses Latin-German dictionaries of the period as a basis. There are two related reasons for this. First, I have an academic interest in the dictionaries of the early modern period. Second, during my studies of these texts it became obvious that they provide sufficiently comprehensive coverage of the lexicon to warrant "turning the data round" and using the Latin definitions and lemmata to arrive at definitions in English.
Of course, this can be a risky business. For example, the meanings of plant names are inherently difficult to determine, firstly because the German words are often used for various plants, secondly because the meaning of the Latin words themselves may be uncertain. I have relied heavily on Lewis and Short's Latin Dictionary (abbreviated L&S) for almost every entry, but other reference works have been used where necessary.