First Vrbnik Breviary
13th/14th-century Glagolitic manuscript

The First Vrbnik Breviary (Croatian: Prvi Vrbnički brevijar) or BrVb1 is a 13th/14th-century Glagolitic manuscript from Vrbnik on the island of Krk. Not counting fragments, it is the oldest surviving Glagolitic breviary.
History
Originally, Ivan Berčić dated the manuscript to the 13th century. Vatroslav Jagić did not take that date for granted, but did not propose his own. Dragutin Parčić in his unpublished manuscript dated it to the middle of the 14th century. Josef Vajs examined it in greater detail, dating it to the end of the 13th or beginning of the 14th century. Josip Hamm developed a more extensive dating system, placing the First Vrbnik Breviary in the second half of the 13th century.
During the visitation of the parish by Alberto Divini Gliričić bishop of Krk in 1555, a total of 8 manuscript breviaries were recorded, and no printed breviaries; this number rose only to 9 by the time of the 1633 inventory.
The manuscript became known to science thanks to Zadar-born priest Ivan Berčić, who first published extracts from the manuscript in 1864.
The first detailed studies of the manuscript were conducted by Vajs, published in 1908.
The public source identifies “First Vrbnik Breviary” as 13th/14th-century Glagolitic manuscript. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around First, Vrbnik and Breviary.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q130392711. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1555, 1633, 1864 and 1908.
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This entry incorporates text from “First Vrbnik Breviary” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.