The Catholicon Anglicum (1483): A reconsideration

Abstract

Within the history of English lexicography, bilingual word lists with the language order Latin-English precede those with the order English- Latin. Stein (1985) compared the two earliest English-Latin dictionaries, the Promptorium parvulorum (1440) and the Catholicon Anglicum (1483) and suggested that the overall organization of the Catholicon Anglicum seems to be more geared towards the encoding language needs of the 15thcentury English person learning Latin than was the case with the Promptorium parvulorum. In the present article, this suggestion is taken up and developed further by looking at the Catholicon Anglicum from learners' point of view. It is shown that the compiler's strategies to meet the learners' needs interestingly anticipate the pedagogical and lexicographical methods that became commonplace in learners' dictionaries only several centuries later.