Abstract

Lexicography in the Middle Ages. This paper gives a short historical survey of Latin lexicography as it developed in the Middle Ages, focusing especially on Papias, Osbern of Gloucester, Hugucio, John Balbi, and William Brito. It treats the various techniques used by medieval lexicographers, in particular glossography and the derivation method. The latter is discussed in more detail because it was much more complex, and it prepared the way for a new kind of almost modern-looking dictionaries. A third technique, that of alphabetization, is taken into account as far as lexicography is concerned. The article considers, as well, the vocabulary used by lexicographers to describe their own methods and their products. The evolution of medieval lexicography, and in particular its thirteenth-century achievement, is shown to be the basis of our modern dictionaries.

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