In what fashion would a royally chartered city be punished for not upholding it’s feudal obligations (say by refusing, in times of war, entrance too and use of the city by forces loyal to the crown)? – Thank You, RSAFan.

Well, it depends who won and how they wanted to proceed. The City of London, for example, was known for its Yorkist sympathies, but Henry Tudor understood his need for the capitol (and its capital) outweighed any desire for revenge. But losing your charter might be a potential punishment – indeed, the Intolerable Acts passed by the British Parliament to punish Boston for the Tea Party are an 18th century example.

Worst-case scenario?

Münster

in 1534-5, which was put under siege by its own bishop (the chartered city in this case was part of a prince-bishopric), starved out, and then sacked.

You couldn’t build a warehouse without a charter? How does that even work?

Well, keep in mind we’re talking about two separate things. There’s the physical structure where you keep goods. And then there’s the legal right to require goods to be stored in a public warehouse where they would be guarded by public officials and inspected by public officials, paid for by excise taxes on those goods.

Municipal warehouses were important pieces of civic infrastructure, because they provided an amenity that encouraged merchants to trade in that city and to bring larger quantities of goods, because those merchants knew there would be somewhere to store their goods, that they could bring goods in bulk (as opposed to just arriving with samples and then taking orders that would be shipped later), and that they could be assured of a certain standard of product quality.

And yes, you needed a charter to make all of this legal; that’s what it means to live in a pre-capitalist society – there is no assumption of a “free market” in which the government doesn’t intrude; rather, governments create markets by extending legal privileges that lower transaction costs. For more on this, I highly recommend Karl Polayni’s Great Transformation.

What is the difference between a city charter and a town charter? What are the advantages each brings? Also how does a charter affect the people and how would a Lord Paramount or the King grant a charter? Does someone ask for one or does the Lord/King decide where the new city or town will be built and how?

City charters offer more extensive rights than town charters (and generally speaking, if a city had a city charter, it would include the rights of a town charter but not vice-versa). So for example, a town charter might provide borough rights (i.e, its inhabitants are burghers not peasants) and some measure of self-government but only a city charter would give you the staple or storage right (which was necessary to conduct international trade). a town charter might give you the right to hold a market but you might need a city charter to the right to establish a warehouse (which was very important for long-distance, international, and bulk trade).

In terms of how a charter affects the residents of a town, it provided a whole host of legal, political, and economic opportunities that could change one’s status enormously. Being a burgher meant that you not only had the right to live in the town, but that you were a free person under the law and not a serf. Living in a chartered town or city probably meant that there were guilds you could join and become a member of, and it definitely meant access to markets and trade and occupations that could not be accessed outside of that town/city. It might mean that there was a city government that you could vote for or run for office in if you got wealthy enough.

While there are cases of charters being granted ahead of construction – often as a means of enticing people to move to a new (and therefore risky) settlement – usually, the settlement would predate the charter. The way it normally worked is that you had a settlement of people who would petition the king or overlord for a charter, the charter would be written out and sealed (as we see above), and there would be a big ceremony where the king/overlord would present the charter to the city government, after which the city would now exist as a legal corporation.

Sorry, another question. Where/why/how did medieval cities tend to develop?

There’s a huge literature on this, and there’s no one right answer, but…

Where – Medieval Cities developed around pre-existing (usually Roman) cities or settlements, cathedrals and other centers of worship, major castles/the courts of kings and major nobles, significant points on rivers, roads, and passes, and ports.

Why – usually to offer specialized goods and services to a place where permanent or steady demand existed. So at cathedrals you get stonemasons, makers of stained-glass-windows, candlemakers, etc. And those people in turn need brewers and bakers and butchers, etc. Nobles need smiths, tailors, clothmakers, clerks, lawyers, moneylenders, etc. And so and so forth.

How – usually a combination of the gradual accretion of population and the acquisition of a charter.

In your EDPs, you recommend city charters in every one of the regions (except maybe the Iron Islands). The question is: Why would any Lord Paramount (or the King) encourage the creation of such charters? You wrote in response to one ask (long ago) that these charters made the residents “free burghers rather than serfs or vassals”, “the city/town and its residents were no longer part of a feudal fief, and thus didn’t have to pay feudal taxes”, etc.

There’s a couple reasons.

First and foremost, money. While the residents themselves don’t pay feudal taxes (or sometimes fewer of them, or only to the liege lord rather than the whole chain of subinfeudation), the people who travel to the town aren’t afforded the same luxury. And since cities are hubs for trade, there’s a lot of money to be made from import duties, port fees, warehousing fees, and other taxes.

Second, goods and services. Aside from your village blacksmiths or village carpenters or whatever, the vast majority of peasants are engaged in the production of agricultural goods and other raw materials. Cities, on the other hand, is where you get specialized manufacturing on larger scales – textiles, metalworks, glass, etc. A domestic source for these kind of goods means that it’s cheaper to get those kinds of goods for yourself, and it means a more favorable balance of trade for the goods you can’t get at home. So to put your military cap on for a minute, if you’re trying to equip an army, cities with their more advanced economies are invaluable.

Third, political organization. While this is potentially a double-edged sword for feudal lords, one of the advantages of having cities is that they govern themselves to some extent. This means that the lord, who already has to administer a fief with an extremely limited staff, doesn’t have to spend time governing them and has someone on the ground they can turn to enforce laws for them. For example, you’re probably going to be able to raise more in taxes (or payments in lieu of taxes) than you would from the peasants under your own control and with less effort, because people are more willing to pay when they’re taxing themselves. Likewise, a city or town militia means higher-quality infantry – at the very least, you know they’ve done some drilling and have standard equipment – than your standard peasant levy.

Given their access to water transport routes to underserved parts of the Seven Kingdoms and several of the Free Cities, Saltpans/Maidenpool should be more important trading ports (as should Seaguard at the other end of the Blue Fork). One would also expect a trading port on the eastern side of The Neck—where the Kingsroad passes closest to The Bite seems a likely spot. Is this due to Westerosi feudalism being a poor system to support economic development or is something else going on?

Well, there is a trading port on the eastern side of the Neck, it’s White Harbor. Which has a first mover advantage that would probably put the kibosh on any competitors.

And yes, Saltpans and Maidenpool should be more important. The story here – as with Duskendale – is the lack of royal charters inhibiting development. In the case of Saltpans and Maidenpool, we learn that there was “a tendency for the kings of the past to refuse the charters that might have given some Saltpans or Lord Harroway’s Town or Fairmarket leave to expand.” (WOAIF, p.151) This is possibly because the Kings of the Rivers and Hills weren’t that secure in their powerbase and wanted to ensure that the more easterly parts of their realm (in the case of Saltpans and LHT and Maidenpool) or the former capital of a previous House (in the case of Fairmarket) didn’t get too powerful and challenge the Kings for supremacy.

The question is why didn’t this change when the Targaryens came? Well, as with Duskendale, the Targaryens weren’t interested in letting other cities “vie for trade with King’s Landing,” (WOIAF, p. 118) as the Iron Throne gets 100% of the income from King’s Landing trade and would get a smaller cut from any other lord’s port. Given that every city in Westeros predates the Targaryens, I don’t know that there’s any examples of a Targaryen monarch giving a city charter (not a town charter, the two are different) and creating a new city.

In fact, if you look at Targaryen development policy – most noticeably the royal highways built by Jaehaerys I – the whole point is to route traffic through the capitol. Thus, the River Road abruptly turns south at Lord Harroway’s Town straight to King’s Landing, rather than continuing along the bank of the Trident to Maidenpool; Maidenpool in turn is on the Rosby road, so that you have to travel to King’s Landing before taking your goods anywhere important via roads.

So I think the story here is the weakness of the post-Draconic monarchy driving policy to favor the King’s personal income and thus the capitol. If the Targaryen monarchy was more of a genuine nation-state, you might well see the Kings doing more to promote economic development more widely.