Concerning the emergence of pledge in Ancient Rus

The study discusses the emergence of the legal relationship between pledgors and pledgees in Russia in the ancient period. Currently, pledge is a common type of debt security. For example, the mortgage lending market is the dynamically developing sector in modern Russia. The Russian pledge has evolved from personal bondage into security over both movable and immovable property. While developing, the institution of relationship between pledgors and pledgees faced the difficulties in the procedure of transaction, the conditions of its validity. The ancient Russian legislation tried to overcome them with the help of legal techniques available in the period under consideration. Although there are many pre-revolutionary historical legal studies on the pledge, the origin and development of this category in Ancient Rus are of considerable interest to the scientific community. At the same time, modern science has the opportunity to attract a wider range of historical sources, in particular birchbark letters, which makes it possible to broaden the concept of legal relationship between pledgors and pledgees in Ancient Rus.