The Book of Henryków (, ) is a Latin chronicle of the Cistercian abbey in Henryków in Lower Silesia, Poland. Originally created as a registry of belongings looted during the first Mongol invasion of Poland of 1241, with time it was extended to include the history of the monastery. It is notable as the oldest known document to include an entire sentence written in early Polish language. What can be interpreted as Old Polish language is described in the text itself as polonico and converted to latin.Allen Kent, Harold Lancour, Jay E. Daily, Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, CRC Press, 1978, pg. 3, Barbara i Adam Podgórscy: Słownik gwar śląskich. Katowice: Wydawnictwo KOS, 2008, page 12. . Currently the book is on exhibition in the Archdiocesan Museum in Wrocław. On October 9, 2015 the Book of Henryków was listed in UNESCO's "Memory of the World Programme".
The first part of the 100-page-long book is devoted to the early history of the abbey, from its foundation by Henry the Bearded in 1227 until 1259. The second part includes the later history until 1310. In the record for 1270, a settler from the nearby village is reported to have said to his wife "Day, ut ia pobrusa, a ti poziwai", which could be roughly translated as "Let me, I shall grind, and you take a rest".
The circumstances under which this sentence was written closely reflected the cultural and literary conditions in Poland in the first centuries of its national existence. It appeared in a Latin chronicle, written by a German abbot. The man who reportedly uttered the sentence almost one hundred years earlier was Bogwal, a Czech (Bogwalus Boemus), a local settler, and subject of Bolesław the Tall, as he felt compassion for his wife, who "very often stood grinding by the quern-stone". The local village, Brukalice, came to be named after him.
The Old Polish sentence The medieval recorder of this phrase, the Cistercian monk Peter of the Henryków monastery, noted "Hoc est in polonico" ("This is in Polish") before quoting it.Digital version Book of Henryków in latinBarbara i Adam Podgórscy: Słownik gwar śląskich. Katowice: Wydawnictwo KOS, 2008, Bogdan Walczak: Zarys dziejów języka polskiego. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 1999,
"Unde dicti B[ogwali] Boemi uxor stab[a]t sepissime ad mola[m] molendo. Cui vir suus idem B[ogwalus], compassus dixit: Sine, ut ego etiam molam. Hoc est i[n] polonico: Day, ut ia pobrusa, a ti poziwai." - Book of Henryków (Liber fundationis claustri Sanctae Mariae Virginis in Henrichow), 1270Digital version Book of Henryków
See also Hortulus Animae
References
Bibliography
External links Digitalised Book of Henryków