Birchbark documents (+/- 1400 n Cr.)constitute the most significant set of early Rus written sources to have been discovered. As of the early twenty-first century, the total number of Novgorodian documents was close to one thousand. Besides being of fundamental importance to the study of early Rus writing itself, and to the study of early Rus language, the birchbark documents shed new light on a wide range of historical issues, including social and family relations, commerce and trade, taxation, law, and administration. They provide direct insight into the lives and concerns of groups of people who are underrepresented in traditional written sources: the non-princely, nonecclesiastical urban elites (though churchmen and princes do figure in the birchbark documents as well); women; and to some extent even sections of the peasantry. To me, when I first saw them, I thought of them like being ancient emails…
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