Charles du Fresne, sieur du Cange

Educated by Jesuits, du Cange studied law and practiced for several years before assuming the office of Treasurer of France.

Du Cange was a busy, energetic man who pursued historical scholarship alongside his demanding official duties and his role as head of a large family.

Du Cange's most important work is his Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae Latinitatis (Glossary of writers in medieval and late Latin, Paris, 1678, 3 vol.

This work, together with a glossary of medieval and late Greek that he published ten years later, has gone through numerous editions and revisions and is still consulted frequently by scholars today.

Du Cange's pioneering work distinguished medieval Latin and Greek from their earlier classical forms, marking the beginning of the study of the historical development of languages.