Early Indexing Techniques: A Study of Several Book Indexes of the Fourteenth, Fifteenth,

and Early Sixteenth Centuries

Author(s): Francis J. Witty
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Library Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Jul., 1965), pp. 141-148
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4305565 .
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THE

LIBRARY QUARTERLY

VolumeXXXV

JULY 1965

Number 3

EARLY INDEXING TECHNIQUES: A STUDY OF SEVERAL BOOK

INDEXES OF THE FOURTEENTH, FIFTEENTH,
AND EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURIES
FRANCIS J. WITTY

IN

THE

course of preparinglectures rallela of John Damascene,3which could

for a class in indexing and abstracting, the writer has tried to locate
the earliest examples of book indexing
in order to present a coherent account of
the history of the subject by way of
introduction to current methods and
techniques. An examination was made
of all available manuscripts, facsimiles,
and microfilmsthat might involve works
likely to be indexed; and this examination led to the conclusion that the earliest manuscripts exhibiting alphabetic
indexes were no earlier than the fourteenth century. Lloyd W. Daly came to
a similar conclusion in his researches
into alphabetic indexing in the Vatican
Archives.' It is true that alphabetic listing can be traced back into Hellenistic
times, especially as used in financial
records,2 and medieval works exist that
might be considered as indexes; for
example, the eighth-century Sacra pa1 "Early Alphabetic Indices in the Vatican
Archives," Traditio, XVIV (1963), 483-86. "Evidence indicates that alphabetic indexing was not
introduced into papal record-keeping as represented
in the Vatican Archives until the fourteenth century" (p. 486).

be called an alphabetic subject index

to the Bible and the Fathers, and the
Milleloquia of Augustine and Ambrose
compiled by Bartholomew of Urbino,
with quotations from these authors arranged alphabeticallyby subject. These,
however, are not indexes to individual
books, and they do not pretend to be
exhaustive indexes to the works they
analyze.
The writer decided to examine the
indexes found in two fourteenth-century
manuscripts and several indexes found
in printed books of the fifteenth and
early sixteenth centuries, when bookindexing techniques seem to have been
fairly well established. One fourteenthcentury manuscript-Egidio Colonna's
Commentarius in primumnSententia* Many papyrus documents from Egypt show
alphabetic listings of taxpayers and their villages;
e.g., Tax Lists and Transportation Receipts from
Theadelphia, ed. W. L. Westermann and C. W.
Keyes ("Columbia Papyri Greek Series," No. 2
[New York: Columbia University Press, 19321).
See "P. Columbia 1 Recto, la-b," pp. 3-36, and "P.
Columbia 1 Recto 2,"7 pp. 37-78.
3Patrologia
graeca (Migne) 95. 1039-1588; 96.
9-442.

141

142

THE LIBRARY QUARTERLY

rum-was available on microfilm. Also

available was the printed edition of
indexes found in several fourteenthcentury manuscriptsof Dioscorides' De
materia medica, edited by Max Wellmann.4 For the latter work the writer
also had facsimiles of indexes from two
of the Vatican Dioscorides manuscripts.
A large number of incunabula contain
alphabetic indexes; to choose among
them, the writer felt that the tabula in
the Liber cronicarum of Schedel (Koberger, 1493) is typical of the fifteenthcentury book index. For sixteenth-century material two outstanding works
published before 1550 were chosen: the
Erasmus edition of St. Augustine (Froben, 1529) and Bude's De asse et partibus eius (Vascosanus, Stephanus,
Roigny, 1541). Because of the scholarly
renownof the editors and the publishers
of these two works, it was felt that
probably they would be representative
of the best indexing techniques. They
also provide examples of the treatment
of varying content. One is an index to
a voluminous author in the fields of
theology and philosophy (Augustine).
The other indexes a highly technical
treatise dealing with ancient fiscal procedures (Bude). Both, of course, would
put an indexer to the test.
The first manuscript index examined
appears on the first seven leaves of a
fourteenth-century copy of the Commcntarius in primum Sententiarum of
Aegidilus Romanus (Egidio Colonna).
A microfilm copy at the Catholic University of AmericaLibrary was studied;
however, through an administrative error at the time of acquisition no source
was listed on the description of the
work, and a thorough perusal of the
'Pedanius Dioscorides, De materia medica, ed.
Max Wellmann (Berlin: Weidmanns, 1906-14), III,
109-35.
I
.

film shows no library stamp or statement of ownership. The library's records are also defective on this point.
Undoubtedly, it is one of those manuscripts listed in G. Bruni's work, Le
opere di Egidio Romano (Florence: L.
S. Olschki, 1936, pp. 114-15), but further identification is not necessary for
our purposes here. The index is written
in a small, gothic handwriting which
differs from the handwritingof the text,
and begins as follows on leaf Vr (abbreviations are resolved):
Incipit tabula super lecturam primi sententiarum editam a fratre egidio de roma ordinis
fratrum heremitarum sancti augustini.

There follows a rough alphabetic index

of the principal questions treated in the
text. The alphabetic order is by catchword-not necessarily by the first
word; for example under the letter "Y"
the following entries are found:
Quid sit ymago . . .
Qualiet ydea pertinet ad ...
Quam ymago dei reperitur in angelo ...
Qualiet mala possunt dici habere ydeam in
deo . . . [My italics.]

Citations in the index are made to

the various numbered distinctiones and
questions; thus, a typical entry is as
follows:
Actio et passio sunt una res et duo predicamenta. d: 24. q. 3. d: 34. q. 1.

The two citations for this thesis are:

"'distinction24, question 3"; and "distinction 34, question 1.'

The index itself is of little interest
as an original subject analysis, because
it is merely an alphabetic listing of the
propositionstreated in the commentary.
The word tabula seems to be the most
used term for this kind of index, just
as the term pinax is employed for Greek
indexes of the same century. The index

EARLY INDEXING TECHNIQUES

143

to Aegidius ends on the verso of leaf 7 and theses) could hardly have prewith the following statement:
sented their compilers with much of a
Explicitoptimatabulasuperlecturamprimi challenge.
The indexes found in the printed
sententiarumeditam a fratre egidio de roma
ordinisfratrumheremitarumsanctiaugustini. books of the fifteenth century, however,
It can readily be seen that the com- show a little more ingenuity at times;
piler's estimation of his index (optima as a typical example of an incunabulum
tabula) belies this writer's lack of index, the writer chose that of Hartmann Schedel's Liber cronicarum,
enthusiasm for it.
Several fourteenth- and fifteenth-cen- printed by Anton Koberger of Nuremtury manuscripts of the De materia berg in 1493 (Hain 14508).
The index, which appears at the bemedica of Dioscorides contain alphaginning
of the work, has its own title
betic indexes to the principal subjects
on the recto of the first
page
printed
(capitula); for example, Vat. gr. 289,
unnumbered
leaf:
Laur. gr. 74, 23, Pal. gr. 77-all of the
Registrumhuiusoperislibni
fourteenth, and Paris. gr. 2183 of the
cronicarumcum figuriset
fifteenth century.5All these indexes are
ymaginibus ab inicio mundi.
necessarily so much alike that they are
presented with a critical apparatus in Then, on the recto of the second unWellmann's edition, cited above. Since numbered leaf begins the index, with
each main subject in the text is pre- the following statement:
ceded by a number, the index citations
Tabula operis huius de temponibusmundi,
are made to these numbers and not to ut historiarumrerumqueceterarumac urbium
in se sparsim varieque conscriptarumexopleaves:
[index entry]
[text]

CKE'. /EXaV
COKE.

a
pEXAv,
cKeva14erat

[825 . Ink]
yp&+Opev,
XVy'bes

6K

uuvVaro'sWeqS &K Oq6Ov.

..

tanti singula facilia inventu sint iuxta seriem

aIphabeti nomina rerum sunt ordinata. E
directoquecuius rei nominisnumerusapparens
chartamfoliorumindicat.

The leaves of the text are numbered

with printed Roman numerals, but no
distinction is made between recto and
verso in the index citations; for exThus, these two examples of early ample,
indexing, although representing a great
Ars imprimendilibros his temporibusin
advance in rendering published inforCCLII
germaniafuit enata
mation more accessible, by their very
nature (alphabetic indexing of capitula Actually this statement about the invention of printing begins at the top of
?At times the elements of the materia medica leaf 252 verso. This is the famous referwere arrangedin alphabeticorder; thus, the capience to the invention of printing. It is
tulatio-so common at the beginning of ancent
and medievaltechnicaltreatises-became an alpha- interesting to note that the exact wordbetic index automatically, if citations were in- ing of the text stands as the index
cluded; e.g., Ms Vindobonensissuppi. graec. 28
of the late sixth or early seventh century shows entry. The only entry for Gutenberg's
this alphabeticarrangement,with indexes at the invention is this one under the letter
beginning of each letter; cf. Miranda Anichini,
"II Dioscoride di Napoli," Atti della Accademia "A" (ars imprimendi). No entry apNazionaledei Lincei, Ser. 8, XI (1956), 77-104.
pears under Imprimendi ars or any
[825 . Ink with which we write is
prepared from soot gathered
from firewood . . .J

144

THE LIBRARY QUARTERLY

other form of imprimnere,

or under liber
or germania; yet one does find such an
entry as Arandi artem, etc. Having examined several such entries the writer
was forced to conclude that there was
no consistency in the choice of entry
catchword.
Although very frequently the index
entry represents the exact wording of
the text, this is not always the case;
for example,
[entry]

Iaphet tercius filius noe septem filios

habuit per quos septem sunt gentes
XVI
institute

[text]

Iaphet tercius filius noe habuit septem

filios qui et europam sortitus est ...
Septem autem gentes per iaphet
filios institute fuerunt.

It might be added that europa does not

get an entry from this passage; although double entries do appear here
and there:

But as far as the writer has been able

to ascertain, this is the only one of the
1,800-odd illustrations in the text that
is mentioned in the index.
The leaf citations sometimes appear
only with the printed leaf number; in
other instances the leaf number might
be preceded by vide folio, vide in folio,
or just the word folio. However, there
seems to be no practical reason for
these different phrases and they might
have been used merely to provide variety.
Although the chronicle begins with
the biblical cosmogony,there is no mention of Eve in the index. She is certainly mentionedin the text, but searching under Eva, Heva, and mulier was in
vain; for she is found in only one entry
under the letter "A," appropriatelywith
her husband:
Adamet eva quot annisvixerunt...

[under "A"] Adorabatur Ceres dea frugum

XXV

As in most earlier alphabetic listings

from antiquity and the Middle Ages,
[under "C"] Ceres dea frugum adorabatur a the order of the alphabet is not strictly
gentibus
XXV
maintained within words; e.g.,
And the text of leaf 25 recto does not
Eunomius...
exhibit the same wording as the entry:
Euangelium...
.E . eam [Cerem] deam frugum arbitrati sunt.
Et eam divinis honoribus extulere.

This example clearly shows that the

indexer was not merely working mechanically from the wording of the text,
although that might be inferred fron
the form of some entries.
The famous map of central Europe
receives two entries: one under germanie, and the other under imago:

Eustochius
Eusebius. . .
Europa. . .

The letter "W' is not recognized as

an initial letter for index entries; names
beginning with this letter in the text
are spelled with a "B" in the index;
for example, Bilibaldus and Bilhelmus.
These are entered under the letter "B."
Several perusals of the index also
revealed no cross-references.
The index is printed on 19 leaves
Germanie tabula et quibus irrigetur fluminibus est depicta. Et quare romani appel- (38 pages) with about 80 entries per
labant illos germanos
CCXCIX page; thus the 300-leaf work has an
index of about 3,000 entries, or an
and
Imago germanie est in tabula depicta. vide average of about 5 entries per page.
During the examination of the Nufolio
CCXCIX

EARLY INDEXING TECHNIQUES

remberg Chronicle another Koberger

work was near at hand, the Chronicon
of St. Antoninus printed in 1484 (Hain
1159). This book presented similar indexes to each part of the work. But,
although the leaves were numbered,the
index citations were to chapters and
paragraphs.
Proceeding into the sixteenth century we find a few more refinements in
book indexing. The Opera Omnia of St.
Augustine edited by Erasmus was
chosen because of the obvious problems
that a voluminous and abstruse writer
would present to the indexer and because of the meticulousness one might
expect in a work published in the name
of so outstandinga scholar. This edition
was published in Basel by Froben (first
volume containing the index dated
1529). Each page is numbered, but the
whole leaf is divided into four sections
marked A, B, C, D. Thus the recto (for
example, p. 477) will be representedby
the letters A and B; and the verso (p.
478) will have C and D. Consequently
index references will be made to volume, page, and lettered section; for
example, to. 2. pa. 513. a.

There are nine volumes in the work,

and two indexes are printed in the first
volume: an alphabetic subject index to
the whole set, and an index of seemingly
contradictory Scripture passages that
are reconciled by Augustine. The first
has the following title:

145

appear in the work, and does not concern us here.

The entries of the subject index are
arranged under subject headings; so
the index does not have the appearance
of the "key-word-in-context" list so
typical of the indexes we have seen so
far. Thus we find such headings as
Abstinentia, Adeodatus, Stigmata, with
modifications and citations printed below them. Of course, there are multipleword entries such as Adventus Christi
and Arbitrium liberum; and similar
subjects are sometimes brought together
under compound headings like Arius,
Ariani and Malum, Malefacere (although Mali and Maledictio and
Malum pro affictione are three separate headings, undoubtedly for theological reasons). Subdivisions appear
under some headings; for example, under Spiritus Sanctus there is the subheading Haereses. A careful search revealed that the citations under this subdivision did not appear under the general heading Haeresis, Haeretici-quite
possibly because the key word kaeresis
or haereticus did not appear in the
portions of the text here analyzed.
Cross-references of both "see" and
"see also" types are employed, although
no verbal distinction is made between
them ("vide" is used in every case):
Agar,Vide in Sara
de crapula.to. I. pa. 126. d. et seq.
;Crapula,
Vide Gula.

Index omniumquae insigniterdicta sunt a

After five entries under Sydera there
Divo Augustino,iuxta ordinemliterarum
appears the "see also" reference, Vide
per Ioan. Huserumdigestus.

Astra; and a "see" reference under Uti

The second is entitled

quid: Vide Frui.
Loci aliquot scripturarumpugnantes conThe word order of the compoundand
ciliati in Augustino.
multiverbal headings seems to have
The latter list is arranged according to been dictated by the style of St. Augusthe order in which the reconciliations tine, rather than by the prominence of

146

THE LIBRARY QUARTERLY

the catchword; for we have such enig- fill out space left on the line after the
statement of the entry:
matic entries as
Christi nomina et officia
Christi adventus et nativitas
Christi imitatio
Liberum arbitrium

as well as
Mors Christi
Adventus Christi
Arbitrium liberum

A careful search showed that the entries

under Arbitrium liberum and Liberum
arbitriumdid not duplicate one another.
As in the previous works the alphabetic order of the headings is not always strict; for example:
Competentes
Compunctio
Communicatio, Communio
Commune
Comparatio

Order within the entries is ordinarily

according to the order of appearancein
the nine-volume set, with keywords
broughtas closely to the beginning as is
grammatically feasible; e.g.,
Crux nostra, mortificatio carnis
Crux poenitentiae
Crucis tempus
Crucem Christi Cyrenaeus portat
In cruce domini veteris hominis crucifixio
significata

There are also subentries:

Crucis Christi praefiguratio, arca Noe
Virga Moysi
Moyses manus ad coelum extendens
Serpens in eremo

However, the order within the setwhich is ordinarily followed-is sometimes interrupted to bring together
items on the same specific aspect of a
subject.
At times the citation is spelled out;
sometimes it is abbreviated. The reason
for this usage apparently is a desire to

Templum dei, ecclesia universa. tomo. 3. pa/

gina 121. a. b.
Templi XLVI annis aedificati allegoria. to. 3.
pag. 214. c. to. 9. pa. 64. d

The following quotations are given

to show the index entries in contrast
with the text upon which they are
based:
[entry]
[text]
[entry]
[text]

Lavacrum aquae in verbo, quo mundatur ecclesia. to. I. pa. 6. d.

Hoc est enim lavacrum aquae in verbo
quo mundatur Ecclesia.
Haeretici zizania in ecclesia. to. I. pa.
35. b.
Illud etiam quod dixi, Ad multitudinem zizaniorum, ubi intelliguntur
omnes haeretici, minus habet unam
necessariam coniunctionem: dicendum enim fuit: ubi intelliguntur
etiam omnes haeretici, aut ubi
intelliguntur etiam omnes haereses,
Nunc vero ita dictum est, quasi
praeter ecclesiam tantummodo sint
zizania . . . Unde et Cyprianusmartyr, Etsi, inquit, videntur in ecclesia esse zizania ...

While some entries, like those above,

take the wordingused in the index from

the text verbatim, many show that the
indexing was far from a mere mechanical exercise of lifting key sentences out
of the text and entering them under
catchwords. A good example of this
"indexing of ideas" is the entry "Ratio
vitiosa et tenebrae,"'which representsa
half-page of text in which one could
not find such a statement verbatim, but
the idea of the text is well expressed in
this entry.
The margins of the work contain
summaries of the text, and sometimes
the summary and index entry coincide;
but enough entries were checked to
prove that the index contains many
more entries than could be gathered
from these marginal abstracts.

EARLY INDEXING TECHNIQUES

The index is printed in two columns

and extends over 184 pages (numbered
3-186); there are approximately 13,000 entries altogether. A separate title
page, colophon, and index ternionum
are allotted to the indexes.
Moving into the sixteenth century we
encounter the monumental work of
Guillaume Bude, De asse et partibus
elus (Parisiis, Imprimebat Michael
\Tascosanussibi, Roberto Stephano, ac
lohanni Roigny, affinibus suis, 1541).
The leaves are numbered in Roman
numerals and each leaf is divided into
ten sections, with the letters "A"
through "E"' on the recto, and "F"
through "K" on the verso. The index
citations are printed in Arabic numerals
with lower case letters for the divisions
-though capital letters appear in the
text; thus, the entry
Aegypti abundantia

138 g

refers to the text on the verso of leaf

CXXXVIII, section "G."
As in the Erasmus Augustine, marginal summariesappear; however, these
are not only much fuller than those of
the Augustine, but also are-to the best
of the writer's knowledge-almost the
sole basis for the index entries, with
the exception of a few Greek terms
which do not appear in the margins.
These glossemata et scholia were composed by Iodocus Badius for the readers "qui non satis exercitati in lingua
Latina sunt."0 Every entry checkedwith the exception of the Greek terms
mentioned above-represented a marginal summary, and was expressed in
almost the identical words of the abstract. No summaries appear on leaves
XVI verso or on XV recto, and consequently no entries for these pages are
'In Badius' preface to the index on the recto
of the first leaf after CCXXIIII.

147

found in the index. However, Badius

explains in his preliminary statement7
that there should have been more summaries from leaf XV through leaf
XXV, and actually presents these summaries in this two-page statement. They
do not, however, appear in the index
which follows.
The index itself is entitled:
Rerumet vocumin hoc opereinsigniumpartim signatarumtantum,partimetiam explicatarum,index alphabeticus.

Printed three columns per page and

occupying 19 pages, it contains about
3,000 entries. The entries are not arranged under headings, as in the
Augustine; the index is composed,
rather, of the marginal summaries arranged in alphabetic order by catchword. Of course, the alphabetic arrangement is somewhat loose by our standards:
Aegyptusin provinciamredacta
Aegypti abundantia
Aegyptiadministratio
Aegyptiumtalentum,minimum
Aegyptiredditus
Aegyptii Tudaeosoderant

The following examples show the

relationship between entry and text:
[entry] Apocatastasis
223. g.
[margin] Apocatastasis,restitutio rerum et
instauratioperiodicain priscum
statum

There are no other entries for this, as

one might expect, under restitutio or
instauratio periodica. Other examples
of entries and texts are as follows:
Sportula,centumquadrantes
168.g. h.
[margin] Sportula,id est centumquadrantes.

[entry]

Although the general treatment of

sportula, the "dole," is covered in secI Loc. cit.

148

THE LIBRARY QUARTERLY

tions "G," "H," and "I,'? only the first first syllable and certainly not to the
two sections are cited in the entry, be- end of the word. The key word dictatcause another marginal summary is ing this arrangement might or might
not be the first word of the entry.
printedoppositesection"i."
Second, the most frequently em175. c.
Militare stipendium
[entry]
analytical device was a catchployed
[margin] Stipendium militare
word taken from the text. The majority
But the entries under the letter "S" of the early indexes are lists of seninclude:
tences-often taken verbatim from the
text-and arranged in order by the
175. c. 189. g.
Stipendium militare
catchword.One indexer varied the pracand at leaf CLXXXIX, G is found the tice of drawing entries from the main
marginal summary "De stipendio mili- text by taking his entries from the
tari." However, in spite of this example,
marginal summaries accompanying the
a careful perusal showed that duplicate text. The general approach and apentries are very few, and that there are pearance of these indexes remind one
no cross-references. Greek words are of the "key-word-in-context"idea, alinterfiled with the Latin; for example, though evidence has not revealed that
words beginning with "upsilon" are early indexers theorized about their
filed under "Y."
practices.
This brief examination of the inThird, the index to the works of St.
dexes contained in two fourteenth- Augustine edited by Erasmus departed
century manuscripts, an incunabulum, from the total reliance on catchwords
and two books printed in the sixteenth to use subject headings. This was not
century reveals some interesting points a sixteenth-centuryinnovation, because
about early indexing practice. First, subject headings were used in two early
the arrangementof entries was roughly medieval indexes to authors (not
alphabetical. The key words in the in- books). But the evidence at hand shows
dex were arranged alphabetically by that before 1550 the use of subject
their initial letters, but the strictness headings for subject indexes to books
of the order hardly carried beyond the was uncommon.