How to Make an Index

by Henry B. Wheatley

Before going further, it would be well for author and reader to come to an agreement as to what an index really is. An index may, in certain circumstances, be arranged in the order of the book, like a table of contents, or it may be classified or chronological; but the index to a book such as we all think of when we speak of an index should be alphabetical. The other arrangements must be exceptional, because the books indexed are exceptional.

It is strange, however, to find how long the world was in coming to this very natural conclusion. The first attempt at indexing a book was in the form of an abstract of contents in the order of the book itself. Seneca, in sending certain volumes to his friend Lucilius, accompanied them with notes of particular passages, so that he "who only aimed at the useful might be spared the trouble of examining them entire." Cicero used the word "index" to express the table of contents of a book, and he asked his friend Atticus to send him two library clerks to repair his books. He added that he wished them to bring with them some parchment to make indexes upon.

Many old manuscripts have useful tables of contents, and in Dan Michel's Ayenbite of Inwyt (1340) there is a very full table with the heading: "Thise byeth the capiteles of the boc volȝinde."

It was only a step to arrange this table of contents in the order of the alphabet, and thus form a true index; but it took a long time to take this step. Alphabetical indexes of names are to be found in some old manuscript books, but it may be said that the general use of the alphabetical arrangement is one of those labour-saving expedients which came into use with the invention of printing.

Erasmus supplied alphabetical indexes to many of his books; but even in his time arrangement in alphabetical order was by no means considered indispensable in an index, and the practice came into general use very slowly.

The word "index" had a hard fight with such synonyms as "calendar," "catalogue," "inventory," "register," "summary," "syllabus." In time it beat all its companions in the race, although it had the longest struggle with the word "table." [1]

[ [1] All these words are fairly common; but there is another which was used only occasionally in the sixteenth century. This is "pye," supposed to be derived from the Greek πίναξ, among the meanings of which, as given in Liddell and Scott's Lexicon, is, "A register, or list." The late Sir T. Duffus Hardy, in some observations on the derivation of the word "Pye-Book," remarks that the earliest use he had noted of pye in this sense is dated 1547: "A Pye of all the names of such Balives as been to accompte pro anno regni regis Edwardi Sexti primo."—Appendix to the "35th Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records," p. 195.

Cicero used the word "index," and explained it by the word "syllabus." Index was not generally acknowledged as an English word until late in the seventeenth century.

North's racy translation of Plutarch's Lives, the book so diligently used by Shakespeare in the production of his Roman histories, contains an alphabetical index at the end, but it is called a table. On the title-page of Baret's Alvearie (1573), one of the early English dictionaries, mention is made of "two Tables in the ende of this booke"; but the tables themselves, which were compiled by Abraham Fleming, being lists of the Latin and French words, are headed "Index." Between these two tables, in the edition of 1580, is "an Abecedarie, Index or Table" of Proverbs. The word "index" is not included in the body of the dictionary, where, however, "Table" and "Regester" are inserted. "Table" is defined as "a booke or regester for memorie of thinges," and "regester" as "a reckeninge booke wherein thinges dayly done be written." By this it is clear that Baret did not consider index to be an English word.

At the end of Johnson's edition of Gerarde's Herbal (1636) is an "Index Latinus," followed by a "Table of English names," although a few years previously Minsheu had given "index" a sort of half-hearted welcome into his dictionary. Under that word in the Guide into Tongues (1617) is the entry, "vide Table in Booke, in litera T.," where we read, "a Table in a booke or Index." Even when acknowledged as an English word, it was frequently differentiated from the analytical table: for instance, Dugdale's Warwickshire contains an "Index of Towns and Places," and a "Table of men's names and matters of most note"; and Scobell's Acts and Ordinances of Parliament (1640-1656), published 1658, has "An Alphabetical Table of the most material contents of the whole book," preceded by "An Index of the general titles comprized in the ensuing Table." There are a few exceptions to the rule here set forth: for instance, Plinie's Natural Historie of the World, translated by Philemon Holland (1601), has at the beginning, "The Inventorie or Index containing the contents of 37 bookes," and at the end, "An Index pointing to the principal matters." In Speed's History of Great Britaine (1611) there is an "Index or Alphabetical Table containing the principal matters in this history."