Why did townspeople want charters

The king was too powerful for the townspeople to begin an open struggle against him. Unlike the many towns on the continent of Europe which gained their independence by means of bloody wars and uprisings, in England, as a rule, the townspeople came to terms with the king.

The merchants and craftsmen agreed to pay for the use of land in money instead of services. Bit by bit the townspeople gained other rights in exchange for money payments.

In return for the money paid, the king would grant the townspeople a charter. The charter stated that the townsmen were free from the services they had formerly rendered and they had the right to choose their own council with a chairman at the head who was called the mayor. Now the townsmen had their own judges who administered justice in the town and their own officials who collected the dues for the king. The townsmen were also allowed to carry on trade, and to hold markets and fairs.

As many people could not read or write, the system was open to abuse and corruption. This is why many people in towns wanted to get a charter. A charter gave people in a town certain rights that were clearly stated in the charter that town had. Many charters gave towns the right to collect their own taxes thus removing corrupt sheriffs from doing so. It was also common for a town to ask for its own law court so that legal problems could be settled quickly.

Towns were dirty places to live in. There was no sewage system as we would know it today. Many people threw toilet waste into the street along with other rubbish. Rats were very common in towns and cities and lead to the Black Death of to Towns might use pigs to eat what rubbish there was. Water was far from clean as a local river would have been polluted with toilet waste thrown into it from villages both upstream and downstream.

Therefore, as people would have used this as a source of water they had no other choice and because people knew little about health and hygiene, disease was common. Life expectancy could be short. As homes were made of wood, fire was another danger in a town or city. Can kings do what they want? When was LOT Charters created?

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