In the Middle Ages, Old Occitan (formerly “Old Provençal”) was a literary and cultural language, the influence of which extended far beyond the frontiers of Southern France. It was also the language of the troubadours, whose songs had a decisive impact on the love poetry of the European literatures during the Middle Ages.
The only comprehensive portrayal of the Old Occitan vocabulary to have appeared up to now is the “Lexique roman” by François Raynouard. This lexicon, in six volumes, was published during the first half of the 19th century (1836–1845). It was supplemented by Emil Levy’s “Provenzalisches Supplementwörterbuch”, published between 1894 and 1924 and comprised eight volumes. An updated dictionary, taking into account progress in research over the last 100 years, has been the desideratum of literary scholars, linguists, and historians ever since. The publication of the new “Dictionnaire de l'occitan médiéval” (DOM) began at the end of 1996 and has been supervised by the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. The DOM appeared in print until 2013; since then it has been available online at www.dom-en-ligne.de.