Petersburg. Further,
the _Evangelium of Mistislav_, written before the year 1225, for the
prince Mistislav Vladimirowitch; and another _Evangelium_ of the year
1143, both at present in ecclesiastical libraries at Moscow.
Besides these venerable documents, there are several inscriptions on
stones, crosses, and monuments, of equal antiquity; and a whole series
of political documents, contracts, ordinances, and similar writings;
among which one of the most remarkable is the oldest manuscript of the
_Pravda Russkaya_[19] a collection of the laws of Jaroslav, A.D. 1280.
The libraries of the Russian convents possess a large number of
manuscripts; some of which proved to be of great value, when examined
about twenty years since by a Commission of scholars, appointed
expressly for that purpose by the Academy of Sciences.[20] The spirit
of critical-historical investigation, which took its rise in Germany
within our own century, has penetrated also the Russian scholars; and
their zeal is favoured by their government in a manner at once
honourable and liberal. The task was not small. The Synodal library of
Moscow alone has a treasure of 700 Old Slavic Codices; the Academy of
Sciences in St. Petersburg possesses likewise numerous Slavic
manuscripts.
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