Neacșu's letter

Neacșu's letter (Romanian: Scrisoarea lui Neacșu), written in 1521, is the oldest surviving document available in Old Romanian that can be reliably dated. Written using Cyrillic, it was sent by Lupu Neacșu, a merchant from Câmpulung, Wallachia (now Romania) to Johannes Benkner, the mayor of Brassó, Kingdom of Hungary (now Brașov, Romania), warning him about the imminent attack of the Ottoman Empire on the city of Belgrad and its implications to regional politics.

Lupu Neacșu was the son of Mircea Neacșu, mentioned for the first time during Vlad cel Tânăr's reign (1510–1512), in documents related to a trial regarding debts between himself and merchants of Brașov. It is possible that he was himself a merchant involved in the trade of Turkish goods that he was buying south of the Danube and selling in Transylvania, which may explain his relationship with the mayor of Brașov. The letter is kept in the collections of the National Archives in Brașov.

For a long time this document was considered the oldest text written in Romanian. In recent decades it has been proven, on the basis of watermarks, that the Hurmuzaki Psalter is the oldest Romanian text, being written sometime between 1491-1504. Neacșu's letter remains the oldest precisely dated Romanian document.