PROJECTS OF THE IUA

In 1920, the UAI submitted to its member Académies a project which took up a wish expressed during an international historical congress, held in London in 1913, in the course of which the idea was expressed that a new edition of the Glossarium of Du Cange be prepared, having in mind the examination of all sources which had become available. Discussions at the UAI led to several resolutions from 1922 to 1924. It was decided that each country draw up a list of texts which it would extract in principle from texts written within its borders, both published and unpublished. For the resolution of disagreements and difficulties, it was suggested to all the Western European countries that they should establish card indexes reflecting their particular interests, with these card indexes allowing them to produce from them national dictionaries based on criteria which were to be decided by lexicographers of the different countries. At the same time, the UAI had never abrogated its intention to publish a comprehensive dictionary of Medieval Latin, utilizing the results of the systematic examination of texts carried out by the different countries. As a result of this, the idea of the comprehensive dictionary Novum Glossarium Mediae Latinitatis was conceived in 1950 at the instigation of F. Blatt. An editorial committee was established from the Novum Glossarium, which decided that F. Blatt should produce a first fascicle for the letter L on an experimental basis. In addition, the committee decided that the language of the translations and of the explanations should be French and that, for practical reasons, the Novum Glossarium should cover the vocabulary used from A.D. 800 to 1200. The experimental fascicle for the letter L was published in 1957. .F. Blatt did not have sufficient editorial staff for the continuation of the dictionary.

This task was handed over to the French committee. The French committee assembles copies of the file cards of each national committee, combines them with those which it has established itself, completes the file on each word and by pursuing its research by means of all available working tools and monographs, carries out the editing of the articles. The fascicles, of about 100 pages each (letter M and following), are published as and when they are completed. At the same time, the French committee continues to classify, in a systematic manner, the Latin texts written in France between A.D. 800 and 1200.

Category B. Directed by the UAI itself. Directors : H. Pirenne 1920-1921, J.J. Salverda de Grave 1922-1924, H. Baxter 1925-1954, F. Blatt 1954-1980, Y. Lefèvre 1980-1985, J. Monfrin 1985-1995, J. Monfrin and F. Dolbeau 1995-1999, B. Guenée and F. Dolbeau 1999-2003, F. Dolbeau and M. Zink 2004-

Web sites :
France : www.irht.cnrs.fr/recherche/lexico.htm
Great Britain : www.britac.ac.uk/pubs/cat.dml.html
Italy : www.uan.it/alim/letteratura.nsf
Sweden : www.ra.se/ra/medglosseng.html