charter

charter, a document granting certain specified rights, powers, privileges, or functions from the sovereign power of a state to an individual, corporation, city, or other unit of local organization. The most famous charter, Magna Carta (“Great Charter”), was a compact between the English king John and his barons specifying the king’s grant of certain liberties to the English people. Elsewhere in medieval Europe, monarchs typically issued charters to towns, cities, guilds, merchant associations, universities, and...