Abstract: Neology can be seen as a major phenomenon during the Middle Ages, alongside the
use of Latin and pre-humanism. But to study this requires a broader chronology than usual,
i.e. as from the first attestations, taking into account a great variety of procedures and usages.
Medieval terminology emerges as a complex entity of innovation where all the possibilities
of linguistic creation are used. Progression is far from linear: terms appear, disappear or
remain without any clearly perceptible causes, posing the question of a model which could
explain how terms are formed, how they emerge and how they are disseminated.
