2.3. Local-order Latin-French Glossaries

Hasenohr (1984) published another French glossary, found on ff.87-88 of ms. Poitiers, BM n° 94 (end of the fifteenth century), in which all of the words are qualifying adjectives relating to the virtues and qualities, or vices and faults, of human nature. These epithets are grouped according to the traditional branches of vices or virtues (id. 1984: 122f.; Monfrin 1988: 31), and they relate directly to a French treatise on rhetoric which immediately precedes the glossary, on ff.37-86v of the same manuscript (Hasenohr 1984: 123.).

Lindemann (1994: 125f.) cites a collection of French glosses relating to a letter of Sidonius Apollinaris, found by Gustav Gröber in ms. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 172 (12th century). [27] Delisle (1869) describes a collection of short Latin works, mostly relating to natural history and medicine, found in ms. Tours, BM n° 789 (formerly Cathédrale n° 433) (twelfth century), of which ff.1-5 comprise a Greek-Latin glossary, which also contains French glosses for many Latin words. The lemmata are not in alphabetical or thematic order; they may relate to some unknown text. A few of the Latin terms and their French glosses are shown in Exhibit 11:

Meyer (1895) describes two other collections, neither of them following alphabetical or thematic order, which may be presented in the order in which the lemmata occured in an as-yet-undiscovered text. He observes (1895: 162) that the text was probably one of the didactic works which students were obliged to read or learn by heart, in order to fix Latin vocabulary in their minds. One of these collections, containing about fifty French glosses, is found in ms. Paris, BN lat. 8246, f.106r (c.1286). The other glossary, which occupies f.77v of ms. London, BL Harley 2742 (thirteenth century), contains 117 Latin lemmata, of which about 100 are glossed in French.

We include in this section a small Latin-French glossary published by Ulysse Robert in 1873. Robert found this glossary, which contains 239 lemmata arranged in first-letter alphabetical order, on ff. 23v-24 of ms. Paris, BN lat. 8653A, which is the notebook of a schoolboy from Arbois, and probably dates from the early fourteenth century. It is unlikely that this small glossary relates to a specific text, but it was clearly compiled as an aid to learning Latin and the lemmata may have been drawn from several school texts. Allen (1914: 42) describes the process of which this small compilation could have been a part: "The normal method of acquiring a dictionary was, no doubt, to construct it for oneself; the schoolboy laying foundations and building upon them as he rose from form to form, and the mature student constantly enlarging his plan throughout his life and adding to it the treasures gained by wider reading."

2.4. Thematic Latin-French Glossaries

Ewert (1957), Hunt (1991: I, 400) and Lindemann (1994: 129f.) describe a thematic Latin-Anglo-Norman glossary containing about 700 glosses, found on ff.18-21 of ms. Glasgow, Hunter 292 (formerly U.6.10, R.7.14). This Nominale, which is written in a mid-thirteenth-century hand, is set out in anything from two to five columns per page. It begins with a random list of eighteen Latin verbs and French equivalents, followed by a list of plant names, then by short lists of Latin synonyms grouped under French headings. The remainder of the glossary is divided into twenty sections, ranging from plant names through parts of the body, clothing, horses, domestic animals and wild animals, to birds and trees. [28]

Hunt (1991: I, 401) and Lindemann (1994: 131f.) also describe ms. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 88, ff.147va-152vb (mid-thirteenth-century), [29] which contains a Latin-French glossary made up of eighteen similar chapters. The similarities between Hunter 292 and Douce 88 are obvious from the extract shown below in Exhibit 12.

Ewert (1934) describes a nominale found on ff.414v-415r and two colums of f.415v of ms. St. John's College, Oxford, 178. It has 360 lemmata, arranged in groups which are very similar to those in ms. Glasgow, Hunter 292 and ms. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 88.

In his introduction to Tome I of Lexiques alphabétiques, Roques (1936b: xviiif.) describes the various works contained in ms. Évreux, BM n° 23 (beginning of the fourteenth century). One of the texts, on ff. 149-153, is a Latin-French glossary which he calls Abavus (see 2.5.1.). Another text, on f.153 and f.156r, is a thematic Latin-French glossary containing 218 lemmata. [30] Roques also mentions (1936b: xi) a short list of names of fish contained on f.19v of ms. Paris, BN fr. 25545.

Hauréau (1885: 595f.) [31] describes a fourteenth-century thematic glossary which follows the double alphabetical glossary in ms. Montpellier, Faculté de Médecine H236 (see 2.5.2.). In the thematic glossary, Latin lemmata and French equivalents are grouped under familiar headings: parts of the body, clothing, wild and domestic birds, and so on. Exhibit 13 is the section on domestic birds from this manuscript. The similarities with the same section in ms. Glasgow, Hunter 292 and ms. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 88 are striking.

Scheler (1865a) edited a large thematic glossary (twenty-eight chapters, containing some 700 lemmata), found in ms. Lille, BM n° 147 (formerly n° 388, n° 369), ff.1-12 and 310v-312v (fifteenth century). As may be expected, this glossary deals with, among other topics, the human body, domestic and wild animals, snakes, birds and fish, rivers, winds and countries, metals and gems, trees and plants, titles of officials and clerics, and items belonging to the house, including utensils. [32]

Littré (1852: 32f.) briefly describes a thematic Latin-French glossary, found in ms. Paris, BN lat. 8426 (fifteenth century). He does not indicate the number of folios but gives twenty-nine categories of terms which are found in the manuscript, including the human body, various trades, animals, birds and fish, trees and plants, and so on. The manuscript ends, "Explicit per me Petrum Rogerium", but it is not clear whether Peter Roger is the author of the glossary or a scribe.

Medico-botanical glossaries are an especially numerous sub-group of thematic glossaries. One of the earliest of these, dating from the twelfth century, is a collection found on ff.34-35 of ms. Tours, BM n° 789 (formerly Cathédrale n° 433). This glossary, which is described in Delisle (1869: 323 and 330f.), relates almost exclusively to botany.

Many botanical nominalia are located in English libraries, often collocated with medical receipts. Hunt (1989a) published more than 1800 vernacular names, covering over 600 plant species (1989a: xi), drawn from over sixty texts, dating from 1280 to 1500. He explains (1989a: xviii): "These lists were compiled as practical aids to the understanding and making up of medical prescriptions. [...] The regularity with which varied lists were compiled and copied suggests that they were found useful."

Some of the collections, e.g. those found in mss. London, BL, Add. 15236 ff.2r-9r, London, BL, Sloane 5 ff.4v-12v (700 glosses), and London, BL, Royal 12.G.IV.6 (400 glosses), are written in alphabetical order, although this arrangement is not common. Most of these thematic glossaries are multilingual. Some are Latin-French or Latin-English, others are Latin-French-English. Still others contain Irish or Welsh; in ms. London, BL Add. 15236 ff.2r-9r, for example, the vernacular entries are marked anglice, gallice or hibernice (id. 1989a: xix).

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