The Oxford History of English Lexicography considers him the first modern lexicographer[1] for his monolingual dictionary (Latin-Latin), Elementarium Doctrinae Rudimentum,[2] written over a period of ten years in the 1040s.
[7] Bruno of Würzburg saw an early draft of the Elementarium before he died in 1045, but an unambiguous reference in the chronicle of Albericus Trium Fontium establishes that it was published by 1053.
He marks vowel length in the word entry when ambiguous, and notes the gender and declension or conjugation, recognizing that the lemma may be insufficient for grammatical usage.
[10] Of greater general interest, Papias provides often copious examples and discursive information for each word,[11] and should probably be regarded as an encyclopedist as much as a lexicographer.
"[14] The Elementarium anticipated some principles of derivational lexicography (disciplina derivationis), that is, a method that generates vocabulary through verbal analogy.
[15] Among the sources used by Papias in addition to Priscian were Isidore of Seville, Boethius, the Physiologus, Remigius of Auxerre,[16] the glossary of Pseudo-Philoxenus,[17] and Carolingian commentaries on Martianus Capella and classical authors such as Terence.