[3] This club of lawyers, heralds and antiquarians largely consulted records in Latin but Thynne was remarkable for his ability to read Old English (Anglo-Saxon) sources.
Archbishop Matthew Parker had initiated the searches of the libraries of dissolved monasteries, primarily to find evidence for the historical singularity of the English Church, free from Rome.
[4] However, the small circle of scholars he employed largely ceased research after his death, whilst his manuscripts disappeared into university college libraries.
Apart from Henry Savile's "poorly-executed" chronicles (1598), no further Anglo-Saxon texts were published until L'Isle's Saxon Treatise (1623) and Wheelock's edition of Bede's Historiae ecclesiasticae gentis Anglorum (1644).
Thynne was perhaps the most scholarly of the antiquaries: "His work on Anglo-Saxon and medieval chronicles was solid and factual, based on his firm belief in the accuracy of the original manuscripts.
Thynne thought this was some kind of official term, and such misunderstandings were inevitable when he was having to learn the language with almost no support and certainly no publicly available grammar or gloss.
His "significance lies in the manuscripts he collected, transcribed, and translated",[11] but his most impressive achievement was to help keep the study of Old English alive after its shaky revival by Parker's circle.