'City rights' redirects here. See also: municipal charter

Municipal charter

A city charter or town charter is a legal document establishing a municipality such as a city or town. The concept developed in Europe during the middle ages....

.

Town privileges or city rights were important features of Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an town

Town

A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...

s during most of the second millennium.

Judicially, a town was distinguished from the surrounding land by means of a charter

Charter

A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified...

 from the ruling monarch

Monarch

A monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication...

 that defined its privilege

Privilege

A privilege is a special entitlement to immunity granted by the state or another authority to a restricted group, either by birth or on a conditional basis. It can be revoked in certain circumstances. In modern democratic states, a privilege is conditional and granted only after birth...

s and law

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

s. Common privileges were related to trading (to have a market, to store goods, etc.) and the establishment of guild

Guild

A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...

s. Some of these privileges were permanent and could imply that the town obtained the right to be called a city, hence the term city rights (Stadtrecht in German). Some degree of self-government, representation in a diet

Diet (assembly)

In politics, a diet is a formal deliberative assembly. The term is mainly used historically for the Imperial Diet, the general assembly of the Imperial Estates of the Holy Roman Empire, and for the legislative bodies of certain countries.-Etymology:...

, and tax-relief could also be granted. Multiple tiers existed; for example, in Sweden, the basic royal charter for a city enabled trade, but not foreign trade, which required a higher-tier charter granting staple right

Staple right

The staple right was a medieval right accorded to certain ports, the staple ports, that required merchant barges or ships to unload their goods at the port, and display them for sale for a certain period, often three days...

.

See also

• German town law
  German town law
  German town law or German municipal concerns concerns town privileges used by many cities, towns, and villages throughout Central and Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages.- Town law in Germany :...
  
  
• Kulm law
• Lübeck law
  Lübeck law
  The Lübeck law was the constitution of a municipal form of government developed at Lübeck in Schleswig-Holstein after it was made a free city in 1226. The law provides for self-government. It replaced the personal rule of tribal monarchs descending from ancient times or the rule of the regional...
  
  
• Magdeburg rights
  Magdeburg rights
  Magdeburg Rights or Magdeburg Law were a set of German town laws regulating the degree of internal autonomy within cities and villages granted by a local ruler. Modelled and named after the laws of the German city of Magdeburg and developed during many centuries of the Holy Roman Empire, it was...
  
  
• Confoederatio cum principibus ecclesiasticis
  Confoederatio cum principibus ecclesiasticis
  The Confoederatio cum principibus ecclesiasticis of 26 April 1220 is a source of law of the Holy Roman Empire on German territory.-Origin:...
  
  
• City rights in the Low Countries
• City status in the United Kingdom
  City status in the United Kingdom
  City status in the United Kingdom is granted by the British monarch to a select group of communities. The holding of city status gives a settlement no special rights other than that of calling itself a "city". Nonetheless, this appellation carries its own prestige and, consequently, competitions...
  
  
• Town privileges in Sweden
• Imperial free city
• Scottish Burgh
  Burgh
  A burgh was an autonomous corporate entity in Scotland and Northern England, usually a town. This type of administrative division existed from the 12th century, when King David I created the first royal burghs. Burgh status was broadly analogous to borough status, found in the rest of the United...