Papias

Who is Papias?

Papias was a Latin lexicographer from Italy. Although he is often referred to as Papias the Lombard, little is known of his life, including whether he actually came from Lombardy. The Oxford History of English Lexicography considers him the first modern lexicographer for his monolingual dictionary, Elementarium Doctrinae Rudimentum, written over a period of ten years in the 1040s. The Elementarium has been called "the first fully recognizable dictionary" and is a landmark in the development of dictionaries as distinct from mere collections of glosses. Papias arranges entries alphabetically based on the first three letters of the word, and is the first lexicographer to name the authors or texts he uses as sources. Although most entries are not etymological, Papias laid the groundwork for derivational lexicography, which became firmly established only a century later.

Papias seems to have been a cleric with theological interests, possibly living in Pavia. The name "Papias" means "the guide," and may be a pseudonym or pen name. Bruno of Würzburg saw an early draft of the Elementarium before he died in 1045, but an unambiguous reference in the chronicle of Albericus Trium Fontium establishes that it was published by 1053.