Cobblestone Lanes and Majestic Towers: Medieval Cities and Roads

[ChaoticanWriter]

Sorry if it a day later since my last posting. XD
That was an article I wrote a couple years ago.

THIS one, I just published an hour ago!!! ... And I'm quite excited about it.

Check out my new article about medieval cities and roads, as a companion piece to some random name generators I released. If you enjoy the content,... comment on the site (and below), bookmark, and share! Thanks everyone; feel free to let me know if you have questions.

Cobblestone Lanes and Majestic Towers: Medieval Cities and Roads

Today, we explore the medieval era and the classification of cities and roads based on their roles within historic and fantasy kingdoms and nations!

www.chaoticanwriter.com

 

[pmmg]

Very nicely done.

 

[Aldarion]

Nice article, but I have to note something here: city was often defined by existence of city walls. City of Hum in Croatia is often called the smallest city in the world, and for a good reason: it has good set of medieval city walls, and used to be a city administratively (not anymore though)... despite, to my knowledge, never having more than 100 people living in it.

First mention of Hum as a city was in 1102, by the way.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Nice article, but I have to note something here: city was often defined by existence of city walls. City of Hum in Croatia is often called the smallest city in the world, and for a good reason: it has good set of medieval city walls, and used to be a city administratively (not anymore though)... despite, to my knowledge, never having more than 100 people living in it.

Some places it's the reverse, as in, you were allowed to build city walls if you were granted city rights.

In the low countries this was definitely a thing (see also City rights in the Low Countries - Wikipedia ). Basically, a regional ruler could grant (usually sell) certain rights to places. These rights are things like the right to organize a market, to raise their own taxes, build walls and so on. It was these rights that determined your status as a place, not your size.

Which means that in the Netherlands, we also have a city with a population of 30 people.

The reverse was also the case. The city of The Hague never got city rights, despite being much larger, meaning that it was always considered a town and never a city.