German has been studied as a foreign language for some 1200 years. The oldest documents are medieval glossaries for travellers. In the High Middle Ages, the 'direct method' predominated, with people learning the vernaculars through oral instruction. In the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Ages, economic interests and mass expulsions resulting from religious conflicts led to an intensification of the need to learn German. There is evidence of systematic teaching of German in Northern Italy in the 15th century, and at this time German was also being taught in Central and Eastern Europe. The 16th century saw the production of a wide variety of language books, dictionaries, practice materials and finally also learners’ grammars, and in the 17th century there was already a broad spectrum of concepts and media for learning German. This book is the first to trace the course of this development up to the end of the 17th century.