The Reichenau Glosses were compiled in the 8th century in Picardy to help local monks understand archaic terms in the Vulgate, which had been written over three centuries prior in Late Latin, a language which they could no longer understand without formal training. For each obscure biblical term a more familiar equivalent is supplied, sometimes another Classical Latin one, sometimes a French or Germanic one with a latinized spelling. Usually it was the latter term that lived on in later French, not the biblical one- although sometimes the latter survived in specialized uses or in other Romance Languages.
Presented below is an alphabetized list of the glosses, along with the pronunciations of any terms that existed in Classical Latin. The pronunciations given for nouns will most often reflect the accusative, as those are the forms through which Romance Languages generally inherited Latin nouns. Verbs are usually given in the same conjugations in Romance as in Latin, but since Latin's synthetic passive, future, etc. have no equivalent in the modern languages, the infinitive will be supplied in those cases. Neologisms such as Spanish óptimo or borrowings such as Italian formaggio (from O.Fr. formage) are not considered in the derivative tables.