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Robert Cawdrey (ca. 1538 – after 1604) was an English clergyman who produced one of the first dictionaries of the
‘Cawdrey, Robert (b. 1537/8?, d. in or after 1604)’
''
Table Alphabeticall
' on University of Toronto Libraries site. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cawdrey, Robert English lexicographers 1530s births Date of birth unknown Year of death unknown 17th-century deaths People from Oakham 16th-century English writers 16th-century English male writers 17th-century English writers 17th-century English male writers People from South Luffenham
Robert Cawdrey (ca. 1538 – after 1604) was an English clergyman who produced one of the first dictionaries of the English language
English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...
, the '' Table Alphabeticall'', in 1604.
Career
Robert Cawdrey did not attend university, but became a school teacher in Oakham, Rutland, in 1563. In 1565, Cawdrey was ordained deacon and priest in 1570, and, on 22 October 1571, he was made rector of South Luffenham in Rutland. However, Cawdrey was sympathetic to Puritan 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 hisbishop
A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...
, Richard Howland. He had powerful friends, among them his patron Lord Burghley, 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 (1575–1640), who was a school teacher inLondon
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
, Robert Cawdrey decided to create an instructional text; the '' Table Alphabeticall'', which appeared in 1604 when Cawdrey was living in Coventry.
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."
This quote actually appears to be originally from The "Virtue of Simplicity" by Thomas Wilson in "The Arte of Rhetorike", though Cawdrey was a contemporary of Wilson, this quote did not originate from Cawdry and it has been misattributed to him in several papers. Sir Henry Craik 1893 pp.289
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 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).Further reading
* Brent L. Nelson, "The Social Context of Rhetoric, 1500-1660," ''The Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 281: British Rhetoricians and Logicians, 1500-1660, Second Series'', Detroit: Gale, 2003, pp. 355–377. * Janet Bately‘Cawdrey, Robert (b. 1537/8?, d. in or after 1604)’
''
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from History of the British Isles, British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') ...
'', Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 23 Sept 2008
External links
* The fullTable Alphabeticall
' on University of Toronto Libraries site. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cawdrey, Robert English lexicographers 1530s births Date of birth unknown Year of death unknown 17th-century deaths People from Oakham 16th-century English writers 16th-century English male writers 17th-century English writers 17th-century English male writers People from South Luffenham