Specialists on intellectual, religious and cultural life in Jerusalem have most often paid attention to spiritual practices linked to liturgical life and pilgrimages. Whereas in the field of Jerusalem’s urban history, scholarly attention traditionally has focused on the numerous centres of political, religious, and economic life, rather than on the residential areas. On the other hand, little or no research has been carried out into the day-to-day interactions between people of different faiths and the impact of the urbanity on religious practices. This shortcoming in a well-established field of research can partly be explained by the lack of relevant sources. The unpublished archives of the Franciscan custody in the Holy Land and those of the Greek and Armenian patriarchates, which are considered virtually inaccessible, offer a whole new perspective. They consist of Islamic legal documents divided into firmans, i.e., issued from the government and including the signature of the Sultan, and hujjāt, i.e., from the cadi’s court. This paper sets out to demonstrate their full potential for highlighting, documenting and mapping the religious pluralism of the Holy City, and the interactions between urbanity and lived religion.