ABSTRACT
During the sixteenth century a great number of important Latin-English and English-Latin dictionaries were compiled, following a surprisingly long tradition of English lexicography whose dawn can be traced back to between 600 and 700 A.D. At that time, the first Latin glosses of religious and practical treatises appeared with the primary purpose of explaining difficult Latin words; later on, these glosses came to be written in vernacular, especially after English had been sanctioned for general use, and were often collected in glossaries which evolved into authentic Latin-English dictionaries, arranged either alphabetically or under classified entries. Their object was essentially to provide a Latin dictionary for the use of Englishmen 1. It was not before the fifteenth century, however, that English-Latin dictionaries began to enrich the scene of English lexicography; by that time the aim of lexicographic works had turned from Latin to English, since they were mainly concerned with glossing English entries.
