GLOSS (from Lat. glossa, gloss, Gk. 7Xektra, glossa, tongue). A brief note or explanation written upon the margin or between the lines of a manuscript by some reader. In subsequent copy ings such glosses often became incorporated as a part of the text. The object was generally to explain some purely verbal difficulty. Words which are commonly the subject of such explana tions are reducible to five classes: (1) foreign words; (2) provincialisms or dialectic expres sions; (3) obsolete words; (4) technical words; and (5) words used by the author in some abnor mal or exceptional signification. From an early period these verbal difficulties were the object of attention, and the writers who devoted themselves to their elucidation were called glossatores, and their works glossaria. The principal Greek glossatores are Hesychius of Alexandria (fourth century), Photi us ( q.v. ) Zona ras ( twelfth cen tury) , Suidas (q.v.), and Favorinus, a Benedic tine (died 1537). Most of the rabbinical writers did the same work for the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. The chief glossatores of the Latin Vulgate are the celebrated Walafrid Strabo (q.v.), in the ninth century, author of the Glossa Ordinaria, and Anschn of Laon, author of the Glossa Interlincaris, who continued \Valafrid's work in the twelfth century. Their work was the
great storehouse of mediaeval exegesis. It was printed with the Latin text in an edition of the Vulgate in 1480. in Roman and canon law, the practice of introducing glosses was of early origin and probably was in imitation of the bibli cal glosses. Among jurists, the gloss was not purely verbal, hut had to do with the true inter pretation of the law, and in some cases it was held to be of equal authority with the text itself.
From the position which it occupied in the manu script, being generally written between the lines of the text, it was called glossa interlinearis. The gloss of the Roman law is written in very pure Latin, that of the canon law in the Latin ity of the mediaeval schools. The first collection of glosses to the canon law was made by Johannes Semeca (Teutonicus) in 1212. It accompanied the Decretunt Gratiani and was printed in con nection with it (Lyons, 1584). Other divisions for the Corpus Juris Canonici also had glosses, and they are given in the edition mentioned above.