RE: VMs: Encyclopedia

["Philip Neal" <philipneal_vms@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Slightly off-topic:  Does anyone know of a Medieval European encyclopedia 
> or
> lexicon that groups entries by theme, as opposed to alphabetically?  There
> are a few Asian ones (like the Pentaglot), which group all the names of
> birds together, and all the names of farm implements together, and so on.


Are we talking about

a) a modern thematic dictionary of various medieval languages in which 30+ 
words for owl appear near 30+ words for swan and 30+ words for eagle

or

b) a medieval encyclopedia, arranged thematically?

The answer to a) is
Buck, Carl Darling: A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal 
Indo-European Languages,
Chicago 1949

The paperback reprint is good value and easily available.

There are many answers to b), for instance Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum 
Maius (very long and no modern edition) and Konrad von Megenburg, Das Buch 
der Natur which is online here

http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/etcs/germ/mhd/konrmeg/konrm.htm


Philip Neal


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