Oponice appears in writing for the first time in a charter of the Nitra chapter — the college of canons at the cathedral, which drew up legal documents for the whole region — dated 16 November 1244. That is three years after the Mongol army passed through the kingdom, at exactly the moment when Béla IV was pressing his nobles to build stone castles on hilltops. People had lived on this stretch of the Nitra valley for thousands of years before that: there are finds here from the Neolithic and from the Iron Age. The charter is the first time the name was written down, which is not the same thing as the beginning.Oponice sa prvý raz spomínajú v listine Nitrianskej kapituly — zboru kanonikov pri katedrále, ktorý pre celý kraj spisoval právne dokumenty — zo 16. novembra 1244. Sú to tri roky po tom, čo krajinou prešlo mongolské vojsko, teda presne v čase, keď Belo IV. tlačil na šľachtu, aby stavala kamenné hrady na kopcoch. Ľudia tu pritom žili tisícročia predtým: z chotára poznáme nálezy z neolitu aj z doby železnej. Listina je prvý zápis mena, čo nie je to isté ako začiatok.
