This letter dates c.1180-1200. The images come from https://gramoty.ru/birchbark/document/show/novgorod/400/

Translated from the Old Slavic by Jacob Bell. After edition in A.V. Arcixovskii, ed., Novgorodskie gramoty na bereste, Vol. VI (Moscow: Akademiia nauk SSSR, 1963), 100. This translation CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

[To]…from Tugosha and from Voiuta and from Kuz’ma and from…concerning [you] calling us slaves. I have not called you…

Discussion Questions

  1. What can this source tell us about slavery in medieval Novgorod?
  2. Why might these men be upset that the unknown recipient called them slaves?