Common City Rights
Privileges
- City walls (the right to erect a defence wall around an inhabited area)
- Market right (the right to hold a market and receive income from the markets)
- Storage right (the right to store and exclusively trade particular goods, often only granted to a few cities)
- Toll right (the right to charge toll)
- Mint right (the right to mint city coinage)
Freedoms
- Personal freedom (citizens had a relative degree of personal freedom in comparison to citizens of rural areas: they were not subject to the liegelord and had freedom of mobility) — Hence the old saying Stadslucht maakt vrij ('City air makes free').
Governance
- City governance (Well-to-do citizens could sometimes elect local government officials)
- Judiciary and law making (Within its boundaries the city could have a large degree of autonomy)
- Taxation (the right to levy taxes)
Read more about this topic: City Rights In The Low Countries
Famous quotes containing the words common, city and/or rights:
“You know, what I very well know, that I bought you. And I know, what perhaps you think I don’t know, you are now selling yourselves to somebody else; and I know, what you do not know, that I am buying another borough. May God’s curse light upon you all: may your houses be as open and common to all Excise Officers as your wifes and daughters were to me, when I stood for your scoundrel corporation.”
—Anthony Henley (d. 1745)
“The city mouse lives in a house;—
The garden mouse lives in a bower,”
—Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894)
“The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)