Medieval Latin dictionary project bears fruit after a century of toil

Richard Ashdowne, the third and last editor of "The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources," holds a fascicule of the dictionary at the British Academy in London. (Mainichi)

It is the morning of Feb. 5 and the exhibition room at the House of Lords in London is dimly lit by four lights. The lights illuminate the four existing, original copies of the Magna Carta, the document that is the foundation of the rule of law in England. The exhibition at the British Parliament, which brings together these four documents for the first time, celebrates the 800th anniversary of its signing in 1215.

The language of the documents, scrawled across the parchment in ink, is Medieval Latin, the dominant literary language of the time. As I look through the glass case at the tiny characters, I am reminded of the words of Richard Ashdowne, 37, the final editor of a dictionary of Medieval Latin in a project that took over 100 years to complete:

"The Magna Carta is a fundamental document from British history with as much psychological significance as legal significance. Our dictionary makes such documents written in Medieval Latin more accessible."

The project in which Ashdowne was involved was the creation of "The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources." This major cultural project was started in 1913, the year before the outbreak of the First World War, by the British Academy, the UK's expert body for humanities and social sciences. The last bit of work on the project was completed in September last year, meaning it took 101 years to finish.

The dictionary is comprised of 17 fascicules, which run alphabetically from Fascicule I: A-B to Fascicule XVII: Syr-Z. In its 4,070 pages are 58,000 entries and 430,000 quotations. "Every successive editor wanted to see the dictionary finished," Ashdowne said, while showing me a copy of the dictionary at the British Academy. "This is the result."

For the most part, the dictionary was compiled manually. "Let me show you," said Ashdowne as he opened the dictionary at D and showed me the entry for "daemon," meaning "a spirit" in Greek, followed on the page by the entry for "Daedaleus," meaning "worthy of Daedalus," (a character from Greek myth). "This entry comes in the wrong alphabetical order. It was very easy to make a mistake when you were doing this manually, but a computer would never make the same mistake," he explained. However, there is a sense of warmth conveyed by this human error that transcends the mistake.

According to Ashdowne, who teaches linguistics with special reference to Latin at Oxford University, the project succeeded thanks to the determination of those involved to complete it, even during times of war and when funds were scarce. All 17 fascicules of the dictionary can be bought for 660 pounds. Considering that it took hundreds of people, including volunteers, 101 years to complete, this does not appear to make commercial sense. However, the dictionary's worth is not to be found in its commercial value.

The Magna Carta, which was written 800 years ago, still forms the basis of democracy in the United Kingdom, where no written constitution exists. It set out key principles that still survive, such as that "no free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions ... except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land" and that no taxes could be demanded without the "general consent of the realm." As a result, the dictionary is not only useful in understanding Medieval Latin but is also important in ensuring that these ideas survive.

Avril Powell reminisces about the time she worked with the first editor of "The Dictionary of Medieval Latin," at her home in Norwich, England. (Mainichi)

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Wearing a red cardigan, Avril Powell, 93, gave an elegant smile as she ushered me into her study in her home in Norwich, eastern England. A copy of the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources sat open on her desk at the letter G. She had worked on the project as an assistant editor.

"I wrote most of the letter G. It wasn't a very big letter, but I was very pleased to have my name on the title page. I worked very hard with people I admired, so it was a proud moment," she remarked.

Powell studied classics at Oxford University. After marrying during the Second World War, she became a housewife and had three children. She heard about the British Academy's project to produce a dictionary of Medieval Latin after her children had grown up.

"I rang up the editor and he told me to come up to London," she explained. "I thought I was going to be interviewed and asked to translate some Medieval Latin, but he simply took me out for lunch and it was taken that I would start." That was in 1967. Based at the Public Records Office in central London, Powell was first employed as a typist and then as an assistant editor by Ronald Latham (1907-92). Latham had been appointed as the dictionary's first editor that same year.

"At the time, the idea was that we would spend perhaps 10 years to complete the project. But the work grew and grew and it became obvious that wasn't going to be possible," Powell recalled. While some had suggested that the dictionary should just include Medieval Latin, Latham insisted that it also cover the relevant Classical Latin.

Latin can be divided roughly into the classical period (from the first century B.C. to the second century) and the medieval period (from the sixth to the 16th century). Classical Latin was the form of the language that was used during the Roman Empire. Medieval Latin grew throughout Western Europe after the collapse of the Romans and was greatly influenced by the various local languages.

"The dictionary wouldn't have happened without Ronald. He was the 'fons et origo,' which means 'the fountain and the origin.' He was the very beginning," said Powell in reference to Latham's stubborn insistence on producing a comprehensive dictionary.

The completed edition of "The Dictionary of Medieval Latin" is pictured at the British Academy in London. (Mainichi)

Latham published the first fascicule of the dictionary, A-B, in 1975 and retired at the end of 1977. His successor was David Howlett, 71, who was at the time working on the Oxford English Dictionary. "I was interested in the intellectual life of our ancestors, from the time they were first drawn into the orbit of Roman and Greek Mediterranean Christian literate culture," Howlett told me as we strolled along the streets of Oxford. "They went from illiterate barbarism to high civilisation very fast. That transformation in their outlook interested me a lot. I wanted to read everything they had written and it was mostly in Latin."

Born in the U.S. state of Montana, Howlett came to Oxford to read classics, which includes the study of Latin and ancient Greek. In 1978, he was appointed as the second editor of the dictionary, 65 years after the project began. Recalling that time, he said: "I felt as if I were the heir of this huge tradition of great scholars. I didn't feel like a great scholar; I felt like a schoolboy in a sandbox. But I received everything they had prepared."

As the dictionary's editor, Howlett was responsible for entries from C through to T. "The British Academy always wanted to cut funds and make me work twice as fast, but you cannot do that without making mistakes," he said with a chuckle.

During the Middle Ages, Medieval Latin was the language of governmental and church documents in Britain, as well as scientific papers by figures such as Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). Despite the importance of the language, a dictionary of Latin from that period had not been produced since an incomplete version published in 1678.

At the start of the 20th century, Oxford University medievalist Robert Whitwell (1859-1928) voiced his concerns about this situation. In 1913, he wrote an article in a British newspaper calling for volunteers to create a new dictionary. Around 200 people responded. At that time, all professionals who undertook higher education in Britain, including clergymen, lawyers and teachers, could read and write Latin. Many of these were happy to offer their services for free to help compile this dictionary.

"The dictionary enables people to understand medieval documents, such as the Magna Carta, which provide the key to the intellectual life of our ancestors," Howlett explained. Britain does not have a written constitution. Instead, its unwritten constitution is based on a mix of parliamentary statutes, conventions and case law. The Magna Carta is one such document. Therefore, in this sense, the dictionary is a tool to understand Britain's unwritten constitution.

Takayasu Ogura, left, interviews Richard Sharpe, a former assistant editor of "The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources." (Mainichi)

Richard Sharpe, 60, worked as an assistant editor under Howlett from 1981 to 1990. He would develop a reputation as a genius at lexicography, or the art of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries. Sharpe was responsible for E and F; which were considered to be difficult sections of the dictionary due to the huge number of Medieval Latin words that begin with these letters.

Sharpe explained the importance of Latin for Western Europe over lunch at his college. "Both in a practical sense of wanting to read texts from the period and in a political sense, Latin represents the unity of Western Europe. It was the international language for Western Europe, stretching to Hungary, from the time of the Roman Empire and it remained so post-empire."

One of the most difficult words Sharpe grappled with was "facere," which means "to do or to make." This entry for this single word comprises 47 different senses and takes up six pages of the dictionary. Nevertheless, to the amazement of his colleagues he completed this entry in a matter of weeks, instead of the months that most people expected it to take.

Dictionary entries were compiled by Sharpe and his colleagues using slips, or 3x4-inch index cards that volunteers had completed over a 40-year period. They would scour British Medieval Latin texts to find evidence of every word and all its meanings and usage. They would write this information onto slips, along with the source, and send them to the dictionary office.

The total number of slips accumulated throughout the history of the project was 750,000, including 20,000 completed by just one individual. The volunteers gave their time to the project for free, knowing it was unlikely it would be finished within their lifetimes. The only reward they took was the knowledge that they were contributing to an epic project for posterity.

Staff in the dictionary's office would put the slips in alphabetical order, classify whether the entry was Classical or Medieval Latin, write the English definition, and confirm the original source text. This was not such an easy task, since documents from the early medieval period were handwritten.

Volunteers would complete the slips by hand. "Some of the volunteers were experts in Medieval Latin, but not all," said Sharpe. "Some were just people who knew Latin and wanted to help the project." Through the slips, the editorial team was able to sense the great enthusiasm that the volunteers had for the project.

However, things did not always go smoothly. World War I (1914-1918) started just a year after the project got underway, meaning it was not until 1924 that the academy was able to set up a committee to administer it. Not long after this came World War II (1939-45). During this time, the only thing moving the project forward was the slips being prepared by all of the volunteers.

The project was financed by public funding via the British Academy and donations from various cultural bodies. As a result of severe financial difficulties experienced by the U.K. following World War II, it was only in 1965 that a dedicated staff was appointed and offices were set up. These were initially at the Public Records Office in London, but moved to the University of Oxford in 1982. The staff consisted of the editor, one or two assistant editors, and sometimes up to five part-time staff.

However, there was some irritation at the British Academy that work on the project was not progressing quicker and several demands were made by the academy's dictionary committee to speed up.

Every year, the committee would be shown the work that had been done in the preceding 12 months and, based on this, the committee would write its annual report used to request further funding. According to Tobias Reinhardt, 43, "It was always hard to go to a funder and explain that although we promised to have finished the dictionary we haven't and we need more money. I was pleased to be able to report to them when the project was completed."

James Rivington, head of academic publications at the British Academy, holds 17 fascicules of "The Dictionary of Medieval Latin" at the British Academy in London. (Mainichi)

A smiling James Rivington, 55, head of academic publications at the British Academy, stood in front of all 17 fascicules of the dictionary as he explained the situation: "By the time the dictionary reached M, there was worry that the fascicules were not being produced quickly enough. So I agreed they could produce smaller fascicules in order to show their progress. That is why from M they get smaller. Before that, different letters had been included in the same fascicule. This showed the committee at the British Academy that progress was being made."

So, while the early fascicules contain nearly 300 pages, from M onwards they grow as thin as 100 pages. Also, at the beginning on the project fascicules contained all the entries under a particular letter. However, this practice was dropped later on, so that entries under P were published in several different fascicules, such as P-Pel and Pel-Phi. It was important that the project was seen to be moving ahead in order to continue to attract funding.

Howlett, the dictionary's second editor, retired in 2011 following the completion of the letter T, leading to the appointment of Richard Ashdowne as the third editor. Eventually, the final fascicule was finished at the end of 2013, meaning that the project had processed an average of 150 slips a week. The entries ran from "a" to "zythum," a type of beer from ancient Egypt. After organizing the backlog of slips, Ashdowne officially completed his work on the project in September last year. This grand project of 101 years was finally complete. The British Academy is now considering how to publish an electronic version of the dictionary.

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In addition to the dictionary itself, another great achievement of this British project is that it has resulted in other countries across Western Europe producing their own dictionaries of Medieval Latin. One such project is "The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from Celtic Sources," which is supported by the Royal Irish Academy.

I visited the academy's majestic buildings in central Dublin to see work being done to compile the dictionary. In its narrow office, Editor Anthony Harvey, 56, showed me a computer several generations old, saying: "While we started later than the British project, this fact meant that we are computerized."

In Ireland, which was a part of the British Empire until it declared itself a sovereign, independent state in 1937, a dictionary was planned that would cover Medieval Latin from Irish sources, whereas the British Academy's project was meant to cover all British sources. As Britain includes Celtic regions, such as Scotland, we can still find entries with Celtic sources under A and B in "The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources." However, after these sections had been completed it was realised that Medieval Latin written in the Celtic parts of Britain had more in common with Latin written in Ireland than England. This led to the two academies agreeing that the Oxford group would just cover England and the Irish project, which is still working towards completion, would expand to cover the Celtic fringes.

According to Harvey, who was appointed as the Irish project's first editor in 1990, Irish Medieval Latin was shaped by the fact that the Romans never arrived in Ireland. "They arrived in England, Wales and France, but they did not reach here," he said, adding: "They considered invading Ireland but they never did. So the whole of Irish history is different from British history since then. So during Roman times, Latin wasn't used much in Ireland. It only started to be used here when the Christian church spread to Ireland."

In the dictionary's editing room, project assistant Angela Malthouse, 63, silently checks entries for P. "Our work is to understand the Latin from texts written in Celtic areas to understand how it differs from Latin written in other areas. This shows how locality affected the words," explained Harvey, giving me the example of the Latin for "tide." Since the Mediterranean Sea is enclosed by land and, therefore, tides did not vary greatly, there is only one word for "tide" in Classical Latin. However, according to Harvey, since tides around Ireland are high, there were many words to describe them in the Irish lexicon of Medieval Latin. "Just as archaeologists dig for treasures, lexicographers investigate the language of Latin for treasures," he said, adding, "The dictionary is the interface between medieval culture and the modern age." He hopes to complete the project by 2023.

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The preface to the final fascicule of the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources states: "(T)he work of the dictionary has been served and aided by countless people and institutions, including volunteer readers, committee members and chairmen, archives and archivists, libraries and librarians, printers, typesetters, and, above all, the many editorial staff. Without their collective efforts and contributions, this dictionary would not have been possible."

Measured together, the 17 fascicules of the dictionary are 23.5 centimeters thick and weigh 11.6 kilograms. They are incredibly heavy to lift. However, after all the interviews I conducted for this project, it seems to me that the size of the dictionary is dwarfed by the dedication and enthusiasm of its volunteers and editorial staff and their desire to create something lasting. That which is important cannot be expressed in mere numbers.

David Howlett, the second editor of "The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources," tends his vegetables in his allotment in the suburbs of Oxford, after retirement. (Mainichi)

I paid another visit to David Howlett, the dictionary's second editor, a few days ago, so I could see his allotment, which he has worked on in his spare time since retiring. However, unfortunately it had been snowing all morning and the plants in his Oxford suburb were dusted in snow.

As he stood in front of his asparagus spears poking their tips out of the snow, Howlett said, "I love it out here because, like the dictionary, it is not competitive. It is cooperative. Our culture is too full of competition. We need it to survive, but sometimes we forget that cooperation is important. It makes me happy. I feel happy most of the time."

Over the other side of a quiet field, a horse chewed on the grass.

Asparagus, which is native to the Mediterranean, rooted on these shores thanks to the expansion of the Roman Empire. Much the same is true of Medieval Latin.

When asked about the significance of the finished dictionary, Howlett told me: "Here I am just digging the ground and helping plants to grow, but doing the dictionary I felt I had my feet in the intellectual ground. So it was an intellectual archaeology. And the dictionary we created is a 'monumentum aere perennius.'"

As the pale sun peered through the clouds, a look of pride flashed across his face. (By Takayasu Ogura, Europe General Bureau Chief)

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