German-East Slavic (Language) Contacts in Legal Texts of the Thirteenth-Fifteenth Centuries

Active relations between German¹ merchant cities and East Slavic lands² lasted approximately three centuries; there were long periods of diplomatic and commercial success in this time, punctuated by dramatic crises and conflicts. The prolonged contact left behind a massive legacy of manuscript sources in a variety of languages. As a rule, the respective sides in the partnership did not have a common language for communicating with each other and for negotiating agreements and treaties. This means, that in addition to commercial and legal matters their relations were complicated by the necessity of dealing with linguistic matters, which included overcoming the