This volume contains 30 contributions, all dealing with the history of French pedagogical grammars and French language teaching in the 16th and 17th century. The volume opens with a historical and methodological survey of the teaching and description of French as a foreign language between 1500 and 1700. The 29 contributors that follow are grouped into two sections. The first section is devoted to methodological issues and institutional aspects of French language pedagogy. The second section, covering the teaching of French in the Scandinavian countries, Great-Britain, the Low Countries, the German-speaking area and Central Europe, the Iberian peninsula and Italy, offers detailed analyses of national traditions of foreign language teaching, manuals, grammarians and didactical practices. All contributions are followed by extensive bibliographies. The volume contains an index of personal names and of concepts. The editors of the volume are members of the "Seminarium Historiographiae Linguisticae" (University of Leuven, Belgium).