ABSTRACT
The Medieval Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem is characterised by its specific multilingualism. Following the Islamic conquest, an Arabisation of the language of the Melkites, the term used to describe oriental orthodox Christians, becomes evident from the late eighth century onwards. A contract of sale dating to 1169 highlights how the business sphere coped with wide variety of languages and peoples. Besides some Georgian monks, acting as buyers, from the monastery of the Holy Cross near Jerusalem, some local Arabic Christians appear as sellers in the contract. The example of documents from the Geniza belonging to the Jewish community in Cairo proves that contracts of other minorities of different faiths under Islamic authority were also influenced by the strong formalism of Islamic contracts of sale. The Arabised community of the originally Aramaic-speaking Melkites in the rural areas of Palestine was aware of this language change, and this awareness was conducive to the long perpetuation of the Aramaic language in liturgy.
