Plant names ”z náśienia śię rodzących ná ogrodźiech ku żywonośći ludzkiey” in Krescencjusz’s handbook compared to selected 16th century herbariums

The article attempts to describe fitonimy registered in the Polish translation of a popular medieval household guide by Piotr Krescencjusz. The material has been excerpted from the first part of the IV book of the second edition of the text of 1571, and compared with selected 16th century herbariums. The analysis revealed differences and similarities between the handbook and the herbariums in the scope of a number of collected names and their references to a designate. Majority, i.e. as many as 42 out of 64 discussed names, are included in the 16th century herbariums. However, three of them (home and garden saffron, buttercup) were introduced by Krescencjusz to name other plant species. We deal here with a phenomenon characteristic of this group of words, i.e. polysemy. Despite apparent similarities to the herbariums in a compositional and contentsrelated level, Kresencjusz’s guidebook enriches fitonimic vocabulary. On the one hand, it stored words which were already rare in the 16th century, and on the other hand, it introduced new occasional words, including some to be found in later texts.Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu911512