9.0. Conclusion

9.1. Methods

• Elevation in the status of lexicography vis-à-vis grammar, from subordinate to equal, while still retaining essential ties.
• Expansion in the composition of the macrostructure of lexica, from difficult or foreign words through progressive compilations to the large collections of Balbi, Nestor, Calepino and Estienne.
• Reduction in the size of the nomenclature, first through abridgement, to produce Latin schoolbooks and Latin-vernacular lexica, and then through elimination of outdated and bizarre lemmata, firstly to retain recognizably medieval forms, later to return Latin to its classical purity.
• Related to this later purge is the recognition that an encyclopaedia and a dictionary are two distinct works (Brandon 1904: 29).
• Change in the arrangement of the macrostructure from local order in collections of interlinear and marginal glosses, through increasingly sophisticated alphabetical order, to a combination of alphabetical and derivational arrangement.
• Visual support for both manuscript and printed texts, through marginal notations, page layout, text division, and size and style of characters.
• Increasing uniformity of article structure, that is, the type, quantity and location of information, both definitional and linguistic.
• Change in definitional procedures, from equivalents to paraphrases and definitions. This is the first stage in the recognition that the role of a definition is not merely to translate a word but rather to explain it (Quemada 1972: 100).
• Change in the nature and function of citations. In medieval lexica, citations tend to be drawn from previous compilations (e.g. Isidore, Papias, Hugutio), from Latin grammarians both ancient and contemporary, and from the Vulgate. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, citations are more numerous and they are usually drawn from classical Latin works. Their function is changing from illustrating the meanings of Latin words to teaching their use through good examples (id. 1972: 100).
• The nomenclature of bilingual dictionaries is based on that of Latin lexica, and their metalanguage, whether in Latin or in French, usually relates to Latin forms.
• The original purpose of bilingual dictionaries - translating, teaching, learning Latin - is still virtually unchanged in the first half of the sixteenth century.

9.2. Sources and transmission

We also see that the close interdependence among Latin lexica makes it impossible to trace their transmission except in the broadest terms. For example, when the author of a dictionary in the Catholicon line of descent cites Hugutio or Papias, we cannot know whether he drew his material directly from those sources or by way of the Catholicon. As Buridant (1986: 27) accurately observes:

"La lexicographie médiévale, comme la science médiévale dans son ensemble, vit de compilation, qu'il s'agisse de sommes lexicographiques latines ou bilingues".

9.3. Early Printed Latin-French Dictionaries

Estienne's Thesaurus represents a new stage in Latin lexicography because Estienne is the first lexicographer to break entirely free of the medieval tradition. Kibbee (1986: 140) affirms:

"Estienne has as a primary goal cleaning up the Latin dictionaries of his medieval predecessors, ridding them of the medieval barbarisms by substituting classical sources for medieval sources, and expunging medieval usages for which no classical examples can be found."

Brandon (1904: 26) claims that Estienne was unaware of medieval manuscript lexica, although he knew the printed Latin dictionaries from 1460 to 1530. We feel it is rather unlikely that Estienne, as a student in the first two decades of the sixteenth century, would not have had some exposure to manuscript dictionaries. In any case, he must have retained some impressions, both positive and negative, from earlier compilations, whether manuscript or printed. His early experience with dictionaries, even before Calepino's Dictionarium, probably contributed to his resolve to create a new work.

There is no evidence that Estienne knew or used other bilingual dictionaries. What is clear, however, is the supremacy of Latin in all of them, including Estienne's. Wooldridge (1977: 23) tells us that "although the essential form of the French dictionary is established" in the DFL of 1539, "the intention will only be born later", in the second edition of 1549. Brandon (1904: 73) affirms that the seed of a true French language dictionary may be seen in the second edition.

9.4. Future Opportunities

1. French lexicography.
   There are untapped resources of Middle French in the Aalma series of manuscripts, in all editions of the Catholicon abbreviatum, and in all editions of the Vocabularius nebrissensis/Epithoma vocabulorum. A database of the text in these dictionaries would complement the work of the REFLEX  [103] Group in the Department of French Language and Literature at the University of Toronto. One of their databases contains the entire text of the Dictionarius of Firmin Le Ver, the Glossarium gallico-latinum and the Vocabularius familiaris et compendiosus, and another the works of Robert Estienne (beginning with the Thesaurus of 1531), and his successors up to the Thresor of Nicot (1606).
2. Latin lexicography.
   We do not believe that a database has been created of the monolingual Latin editions of Ambrogio Calepino's Dictionarium. Such a database, which might also include the Latin text from the three groups of bilingual lexica mentioned in 1. above, would provide an excellent record of late medieval and pre-Renaissance Latin language.

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