1.  From Cyril, or from the ninth century, to the thirteenth century.  This is the ancient genuine Slavonic; as appears from the manuscripts of that period.

2.  From the thirteenth to the sixteenth century.  This is the middle age of the Slavonic, as altered gradually by Russian copyists, and full of Russisms.

3.  From the sixteenth century to the present time.  This comprises the modern Slavonic of the church books printed in Russia and Poland; especially after the Improvement of those writings, so called.

The most ancient documents of the Old Slavic language, are not older than the middle of the eleventh century.  There has been indeed recently discovered a manuscript of the translation of John of Damascus, written by John, exarch of Bulgaria, in the ninth century.  Vostokof however proves on philological grounds, that it cannot be the original, but is a later copy.  The above-mentioned Evangelium of Ostromir (1056) is the earliest monument of the language, as to the age of which no doubt exists.  It is preserved in the imperial library at St. Petersburg.[18] According to Vostokof, this is the third, or perhaps the fourth, copy of Cyril’s own translation.  This latter is irretrievably lost, as well as the copy which was made for Vladimir the Great, a hundred years afterwards.

Only a few years younger is a Sbornik, A.D. 1073, or a collection of ecclesiastical writings, discovered in the year 1817, and a similar Sbornik of 1076; the former in a convent near Moscow, the other now in the library of the imperial Hermitage of St. 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.  Among the libraries of other countries, there is hardly one of any importance, which has not like Codices of more or less value to exhibit.  Those of Vienna and the Vatican are in this department especially rich.  These two were thoroughly searched by a like Commission.[21] Of the great activity, and the critical spirit which the Russian historians of our day have shown in respect to their own past, more will be said in our sketch of the Russian literature.