Zee just launched a new series on medieval towns and urbanization.

And we just talked about the process of urbanization and all that entails for about an hour and a half on the member's feed.

And so I thought I'd give you a small, about 15-minute sample of that full hour and a half

discussion. Let's go back to the charters because this is important because while they are only

documents, they tell us a lot about what's going on. And then the documents do define what urban

life is going forward because once the rules are in place, you do have to mostly play

by them.

Right.

So charters really start going out for towns and boroughs are usually, there's a town or a city,

and it's established into a borough with a charter.

So it starts with Henry I first.

He establishes the exchequer and that oversees taxes.

And it leads the administration of cities that falls under this.

And so they become written down.

These charters are collected for the first time.

So we do see towns being created out of whole cloth.

But most of the time, we're just seeing our first

official peek into what's already going on.

Right.

And the difference between a town and a borough is this official legal status, so whether or not

they were given a charter.

Towns are about size and function.

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