This was a gradual process though, it took a couple of hundred years to figure it all out. How could the local authorities (and in the end, the king) govern these people, and more importantly, collect taxes from them? This question was answered by issuing town charters, where the rights of the local lord or the king, and the rights of the town’s inhabitants, were explained in detail. So, they didn’t fit into the typical structure, where rural peasants paid taxes to the local lord in agricultural produce and worked on other projects for the lord when they weren’t working in the fields. They could be merchants or builders or other kinds of tradespeople and they might have had a bit of disposable income, rather than living on subsistence farming. They were convenient centres of trade and commerce for local lords, and a sort of “middle class” developed there, known as “burgenses” (in Latin) or “bourgeois” (in French), or as we call them in English, burgesses - non-noble and non-peasant people who lived in a burg or a fortified town. (Other places in what we think of as “France” were either still completely independent, or only theoretically under royal control.) The Île-de-France was very rural and agricultural, but towns and cities were growing in size and importance. Lorris is located in the Île-de-France, the area around Paris that was the “royal domain” in the 11th and 12th centuries - basically the only area of France where the king had any effective authority. But I can better explain how things worked in two places in France (Lorris and Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier), and in a French-inspired town in crusader Jerusalem (Bethgibelin). I understand that having the status of a “city” is a particular legal status in England, and hopefully another one of our medieval experts could explain how charters worked in England. There would not necessarily even be a difference between a town charter and a city charter. This is a bit hard to answer because there wasn’t really a standard town/city charter that applied to all places at all times. Previous AMAs | Previous Roundtables Featuresįeature posts are posted weekly. May 25th | Panel AMA with /r/AskBibleScholars Please Subscribe to our Google Calendar for Upcoming AMAs and Events To nominate someone else as a Quality Contributor, message the mods. Our flaired users have detailed knowledge of their historical specialty and a proven record of excellent contributions to /r/AskHistorians. Please Read and Understand the Rules Before Contributing. Report Comments That Break Reddiquette or the Subreddit Rules. Serious On-Topic Comments Only: No Jokes, Anecdotes, Clutter, or other Digressions. Provide Primary and Secondary Sources If Asked. Write Original, In-Depth and Comprehensive Answers, Using Good Historical Practices. Questions should be clear and specific in what they ask, and should be able to get detailed answers from historians whose expertise is likely to be in particular times and places. Nothing Less Than 20 Years Old, and Don't Soapbox. Be Nice: No Racism, Bigotry, or Offensive Behavior. Downvote and Report comments that are unhelpful or grossly off-topic.Upvote informative, well sourced answers.New to /r/AskHistorians? Please read our subreddit rules and FAQ before posting! Apply for Flair
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