4.3. Contribution of the Editions

The nomenclature of the CA is based on a monolingual Latin dictionary finished in 1286, and the French glosses are copied from a bilingual Latin-French manuscript compiled in the late fourteenth century. Apart from the fact that lingering traces of Old French found in some of the other Aalma manuscripts are missing from Caillaut's copy, the French forms are nearly identical.

Thus the macrostructure was two hundred years old and the French forms in the microstructure were a century old at the time the first edition of the CA was published. Succeeding editions did not greatly alter the basic structure of the macrotext; indeed, the gross errors in alphabetical order found in Caillaut's manuscript (see 8.1.2.1.1.) are still unchanged in Gaultier's edition of 1519. The principal change in the nomenclature was made by Morin when he added articles taken from the VFC.

The first major change affecting the microstructure occurred in Vérard's edition. When Vérard changed the page layout from one-column to two-column (see 8.1.2.2.1.), he shortened a number of the French glosses (which often affected the sense of the definition). He also added or substituted some new French forms. The second change affecting the microstructure occurred when Morin added or substituted new French forms. In addition to these large changes, there are additions of articles and additions or substitutions of French glosses in some editions.

The instability of Middle French orthography is clearly reflected in all the copies of the CA which we have examined. Spelling varies within each text, not to speak of changes from one edition to the next. However, it is not our purpose to conduct a language study and we do not discuss orthography. There are also a vast quantity of typographical errors (more in some editions than in others). We do not believe it is valuable to this study to examine them, with the exception of a few instances in which a persistent faulty reading is finally corrected. We regard such a correction as a contribution by the printer.

We feel the greatest interest lies in illustrating additions of French forms throughout the life of the dictionary. Our research is based on examination of the letter 'A' in seventeen editions of the CA. This represents between 840 and 850 articles (the number varies from one edition to another). Our method is to report the gloss as it appears in the text used as a base, followed by the gloss as it appears in the text under review.

4.3.1. Caillaut

C2 corrects some of the typographical errors in C1, and adds a small amount of new material.

a) Additions

b) Corrections c) New articles C3 also corrects typographical errors but adds only a small amount of new material: a) Additions (s.v. Afficio) > tourmenter couvoiter ou informer
tourmenter ou couvoiter ou informer (s.v. Attente) > attentement
actamnent attentement

4.3.2. Vérard

As we have observed (see 4.1.1.), most of the French forms in Caillaut's editions are based on his copy of a fourteenth-century manuscript. Vérard made a number of changes which, presumably, are more in line with contemporary French.

a) Substitutions

b) Additions c) Corrections

4.3.3. Garbin

Garbin copied V closely and corrected a few typographical errors, but retained many others. Neither of his editions contributes anything new in the letter 'A'.

4.3.4. Huss

Huss followed G2 without correcting the typographical faults which had been passed on from V. He made some additions and changes.

a) Additions

b) Substitutions Huss did not reprint his dictionary, and the other editions which subsequently appeared in Lyons descended through another filiation. It is unfortunate that the revised French forms which he introduced were not picked up in later editions of the CA.

4.3.5. Unknown [printer of Casus Longi], Lyons

The unknown author of the edition we call UL1 combined C1 and G2 to produce his dictionary. As a result, some of the forms rejected by V are restored.

a) Restorations

The change to preposition has the effect of changing a Latin form into a French one. b) Substitutions c) Corrections Faulty Latin forms are sometimes corrected.

4.3.6. Schultis

Schultis adopted UL1 as his source and printed it carefully. Among the very few changes which he made are:

a) Reordering

b) Correction

4.3.7. Havard

Havard copied S but made a lot of typographical errors. He shortened a number of articles by omitting part of the French definition, and also omitted some articles. Havard contributed nothing of interest in the letter 'A'.

4.3.8. Morin

Morin adopted C1 as his principal source, with the result that his French glosses follow those in that edition. Elimination of the preposition la (which was introduced in C2) from the first article (A premiere lettre de a b c) is the marker for editions belonging to Series 2. New material is largely, although not exclusively, drawn from the VFC (see 4.1.2.).

a) Substitutions

b) Additions to existing articles c) New articles d) Correction

4.3.9. Unknown, Paris

The compiler of the first Paris edition of Series 2 (UP) printed Morin's text with only a few typographical errors. He also eliminated some French glosses from articles which contained more than one equivalent. We have only observed one change in the letter 'A'.

a) Substitutions

4.3.10 Morand

Morand adopted the edition we call UP for his dictionary. There are a large quantity of typographical errors but few changes in the microstructure.

a) Substitutions

b) Additions Morand's second edition adds more typographical errors, and a few changes:

a) Substitutions

This last substitution is the same as one made by Vérard (see 4.3.2.). However, we do not see any evidence that Morand used Vérard's edition and assume rather that the change reflects contemporary use. b) Additions

4.3.11. Le Noir

Typographical faults are very common in Le Noir's edition, which is based on M1. He makes a few changes in the letter 'A':

a) Substitutions

b) Correction

4.3.12. de la Barre

De la Barre used both M2 and T2 as his sources. He corrects some errors but also creates others. He contributes nothing original in the letter 'A' and makes only one change:

a) Addition

4.3.13. Le Bourgeois

LB is a copy of MM, with a number of orthographical variants, some typographical errors, and the occasional omission of a French gloss from articles where there were previously several equivalents. Le Bourgeois adds nothing of interest to letter 'A'.

4.3.14. Hostingue

Hostingue's edition is the finest of all the editions of the CA. Unfortunately, he copies some of the faulty readings from M2, but the text is virtually without typographical errors. There is one change in the letter 'A'.

a) Addition

4.3.15. Gaultier

GA is another good edition. It is a copy of HO, with very few typographical faults, apart from two faulty readings, and running headlines which are switched at the top of two pages. A ante u over column a and A ante u over column b are switched on folio A.iiii for A ante d over column a and A ante g over column b. GA does not make any contribution in the letter 'A'.

4.3.16. Conclusion

Results from the examination of only one letter are not conclusive but they support an assumption that there is little original material in the CA. Most of the changes relate to the addition of grammatical words, such as articles and conjunctions, to the glosses. Huss's use of trencheplume (see 4.3.4.) is an earlier attestation than that given by Godefroy (8, 12: Franchières, Fauc. II, 87, 1561). Further examination of the CA might provide additional examples.

4.4. Summary

The hastily conceived and often rudely printed dictionary generally referred to as the Catholicon abbreviatum occupied a place in the market for Latin-to-French lexica just at the time that the European printing industry was in its first explosion of growth. By the second decade of the sixteenth century, printing was well established in all major cities in France. Due to humanist influence and the interest in classical Latin and Greek, there was no longer a demand for texts containing medieval Latin. The lacuna left by the disappearance of the CA was largely filled by the Latin-French and French-Latin dictionaries created in the 1530s by Robert Estienne (see 7.0.).

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