Bartłomiej z Bydgoszczy wobec terminologii prawniczej omówionej w „Vocabulariusie” Johannesa Reuchlina

Abstract

Vocabularius breviloquus by the German humanist Johannes Reuchlin contained specialized vocabulary, including legal terminology. Bartholomew of Bydgoszcz, who owned a copy of the work, made his own notes alongside certain entries. The article examines which equivalents of Latin legal terms Bartholomew introduced, their stability/variability, etymology, and collocations; which meaningsinterested him and which he omitted. The study also aimed to determine the monk’s legal awareness and identify the legal issues that caught his interest. The analyses followed a two-step approach: first, the Latin entries Ius and Lex were examined to explore how Bartholomew interpreted them; then, the Polish lexeme prawo (law) was analyzed to track which Latin entries it corresponded to. It was found that the monk annotated legal terms in both Latin and Polish. The Polish vocabulary he used was of native origin and reflected Slavic customary law. Bartholomew showed little interest in entries related to specific Roman legal statutes. Instead, he focused primarily on judicial practice, as evidenced by his notes, which expanded the lexical network of Vocabularius with terms related to this area.