« Critical cumulation? How Glossaries were constituted in early Middle Ages (6th-8th C.) »

Résumé En

Numerous glossaries circulated during the Middle Ages, so that almost every generation of masters seems to have felt the need to endow their institution with new lexicographic tools. Although some glossaries have enjoyed a very long life (in circulation terms, that is to say, they could be copied almost identically, several centuries after their composition), most of them were replaced by new ones, a priori more complete or better adapted to the needs of their time.How did the masters proceed? Was the renewal of a glossary only guided by pragmatic questions related to the attrition of reference books? Does the "logic of cumulation" that seems to prevail were animated by some critical thinking? Here are some of the questions that this paper will discuss thanks to the testimonies of three glossaries, mainly Abavus, Abba and Ambrosia (Goetz's fragmenta monacensia).