Although there were no dictionaries, as we know them, available to Shakespeare some books called dictionaries had been published.
There was a book of Latin words published as a Dictionarius in 1225.
In 1538 the first of a series of Latin-English dictionaries appeared in London: Thomas Elyot's word-list, which was the first book to use the English word dictionary in its title.
Almost twenty years later a man named John Withals published a dictionary for young people in Latin and English, but the words were not listed in alphabetical order.
They were listed by subject - for example, the name of birds or water birds.