The three oldest Slavic manuscripts - 972 to 1022 AD

Brizzinski spomeniki, also known as Freisinger Monuments are thousand-year old manuscripts written in Slovenian language of the time. They are part of a church codex – most probably used by the bishop of Freising himself - consisting of 169 pages and containing 70 items in Latin. Of these nine pages - three complete texts - are written in Old Slovenian presumably spoken in the area during the 10^th century. The preserved Brizzinski spomeniki are thought to be copies of even older 9^th century originals in Upper Carinthia or in Freising in the territory of the present day Austria and most probably written by German and possibly Slovenian priests for their flock.

The Brizzinski spomeniki consist of three texts. Brizzinski spomeniki I, and Brizzinski spomeniki III are translations of unidentified Old High German confession formulas. The first text was repeated after the priest in fragments in what has been liturgical practice to the present day, the second manuscript is a homily on sin and its consequences for mankind.

On the basis of the script preserved in the documents, it is possible to determine the precise period of the origin of Brizzinski spomeniki II and Brizzinski spomeniki III, which were written between May 972 and the year 1000. The Brizzinski spomeniki I came into being later, most probably around 1022 or 1023.

The Brizzinski spomeniki have been known for nearly 190 years. Joseph Docen found the manuscripts in 1806 in one of the volumes acquired by the Munich National Library from the nearby Freising Diocese. Without fully realising their value, he placed them linguistically in the interest sphere of the present day Slovenian language speakers, recognising it as "the Carynthian or Illyrian dialect". The name Freising was translated into Slovenian as Brizzinj in 1854 and so the name Brizzinski spomeniki.

The codex was not distinguished for its quality, both the paper and ink were quite ordinary. However it soon became clear that the codex was remarkable precisely because of its non-Latin texts, which are not only the oldest preserved writing in Slovenian but the oldest Slavic manuscript in general. Joseph Dobrovsky, the greatest and most distinguished linguist of his period, was among the first Slavists to see the texts. He copied them and sent the first text to Baron Ziga Zois in Ljubljana in recognition of its importance for Slovenes. Dobrovsky’s letter which reached Ljubljana in September 1812, indicates clearly that the Slovenian identity of the Brizzinski spomeniki was never in question among the scholars. Zois failed to publish the find, so generously yielded by Dobrovsky. However the first texts, Brizzinski spomeniki 1 were published by a Slovene , Jernej Kopitar, in 1822, while all three texts were published together in 1827 in Saint Petersburg by Peter Ivan Koepen.

Distribution of Slavs in Europe in 9th century,
the period when the Brizzinski rokopisi originated
(from Enciclopedia populare Pompa, 6th edition,Torino)

The texts comprise some 1014 words and are logically divided into three distinct volumes or "monuments". They were written in the miniscule script of the German scribal centres at the threshold of the 11^th century which had developed from the Carolingian miniscule, a script without capital letters.

The language in which Brizzinski spomeniki are written a thousand years ago shows many characteristics which confirm continuity to the present day Slovenian. There are also many differences, not just in vocabulary, but also in some phonetic structures of both vowels and consonants.

The most recent edition of the Brizzinski spomeniki was prepared in 1991 by the Institute for Slovene Literature and Literary Sciences of the Slovene Academy of Sciences and Arts, presenting in single volume the sources and material behind various scholarly illuminations. This edition includes transcriptions, translations, speech reconstructions, bibliographies, synthetic surveys, and a very precisely printed colour facsimile. A second edition was published in 1992, differing from the first only in a less elaborate facsimile.