Robert Cawdrey (ca. 1538 – after 1604) was an English clergyman who produced one of the first

dictionaries A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, ...

of the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...

, the ''

Table Alphabeticall ''A Table Alphabeticall'' is the abbreviated title of the first monolingual dictionary in the English language, created by Robert Cawdrey and first published in London in 1604. Although the work is important in being the first collection of it ...

'', in 1604.

Career

Robert Cawdrey did not attend university, but became a school teacher in

Oakham Oakham is the county town of Rutland in the East Midlands of England, east of Leicester, south-east of Nottingham and west of Peterborough. It had a population of 10,922 in the 2011 census, estimated at 11,191 in 2019. Oakham is to the west o ...

Rutland Rutland () is a ceremonial county and unitary authority in the East Midlands, England. The county is bounded to the west and north by Leicestershire, to the northeast by Lincolnshire and the southeast by Northamptonshire. Its greatest len ...

, in 1563. In 1565, Cawdrey was ordained

deacon A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian churches, such as the Catholic Chur ...

and priest in 1570, and on 22 October 1571, he was made

rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

South Luffenham South Luffenham is a village in the county of Rutland in the East Midlands of England. The population of the civil parish at the 2001 census was 432, increasing to 455 at the 2011 census. The village lies largely on the north side of the A ...

in Rutland. However, Cawdrey was sympathetic to

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...

teachings, and got in trouble with the Church authorities. In 1576 he was chastised for not reading the approved texts in his sermons, and in 1578 he performed a marriage even though he was not authorized to do so, and was briefly suspended. His suspension lasted only a few months but, in 1586, he was again in trouble for violating the rules and was called before his

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ...

Richard Howland Richard Howland (1540–1600) was an English churchman and academic, Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and of St John's College, Cambridge, and bishop of Peterborough. Life He was the son and heir of John Howland, of the city of London, an ...

. He had powerful friends, among them his patron

Lord Burghley William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (13 September 15204 August 1598) was an English statesman, the chief adviser of Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign, twice Secretary of State (1550–1553 and 1558–1572) and Lord High Treasurer from 1 ...

, who tried to defend him, but he was deprived of his rectory in 1588 and had to return to teaching to support himself.

Writing

With the assistance of his son

Thomas Cawdrey Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the Ap ...

(1575–1640), who was a school teacher in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, Robert Cawdrey decided to create an instructional text; the ''

'', which appeared in 1604 when Cawdrey was living in

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...

. As many new words were entering the English language in the 16th century, Cawdrey became concerned that people would become confused. Cawdrey worried that the wealthy were adopting foreign words and phrases, and wrote that "they forget altogether their mothers language, so that if some of their mothers were alive, they were not able to tell or understand what they say." He also described how "far journied gentlemen" learn new words while in foreign lands, and then "pouder their talke with over-sea language." Thomas Cawdrey worked on improvements to the ''Table Alphabeticall''. While he was a rector, Robert Cawdrey wrote ''A Short and Fruitefull Treatise of the Profit of Catechising'' in 1580. He revised this work and published a second edition in 1604. Cawdrey also published ''A Treasurie or Store-House of Similes'' in 1600, and again in 1609.

''A Table Alphabeticall''

The full name of his famous dictionary is His dictionary contained about 2,500 words. He was careful to explain the

alphabetical order Alphabetical order is a system whereby character strings are placed in order based on the position of the characters in the conventional ordering of an alphabet. It is one of the methods of collation. In mathematics, a lexicographical order is t ...

to his readers, which even the most literate of his readers would not know or expect; "Nowe if the word, which thou art desirous to finde, begin with (a) then looke in the beginning of this Table, but if with (v) looke towards the end." Cawdrey dedicated the ''Table Alphabeticall'' to five daughters of Lucy Sidney, Lady Harington; Sarah, Lady Hastings, Theodosia, Lady Dudley, Elizabeth, Lady Montagu, Frances, Lady Leigh, and Mary, Lady Wingfield.Rebecca Shapiro, ''Fixing Babel: An Historical Anthology of Applied English Lexicography'' (Lewisburg, 2017), pp. 8, 10.

Life

Robert Cawdrey had many sons. His youngest son Daniel Cawdrey (ca. 1588-1664) was a Puritan minister.

References

* ''The Acorn of the Oak: A Stylistic Approach to Lexicographical Method in Cawdrey's A Table Alphabeticall'', Raymond G. Siemens, CCH Working Papers, vol. 4 (1994) and in Dictionnairique et lexicographie, Paris, Didier Érudition, vol. 3: Informatique et dictionnaires anciens (1995).

External links