City Rights In The Low Countries
City rights are a medieval phenomenon in the history of the Low Countries. A liegelord, usually a count, duke or similar member of high nobility, granted a settlement he owned certain town privileges that settlements without city rights did not have.
In Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, a settlement is, often proudly, called a city when it was granted (or collected) a complete package of city rights at one time of its history. As the current number of inhabitants has no relevance on this, there are very small cities. The smallest one is Staverden in the Netherlands, with 40 inhabitants. In Belgium, Durbuy is the smallest city, whilst the smallest in Luxembourg is Vianden.
Read more about City Rights In The Low Countries: Overview, Common City Rights, Rights Granted To The Cities of Present-day Belgium, Rights Granted To The Cities of The Present-day Netherlands
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The garden mouse eats what he can;
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—Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894)
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—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851)
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—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)