What is the name for a medieval town privilege allowing self-government and markets?

The story behind the answer

A charter was the formal grant, typically from a king or lord, that bundled key urban liberties: electing officials, running their own courts, levying tolls and taxes, and holding weekly markets and annual fairs. By contrast, “borough status” was usually the status created by such a grant, a “market right” was only one clause within it, and a “manorial grant” empowered a lord over a rural manor, not a town.

From the 11th to 13th centuries, as trade boomed, towns across Europe bargained for charters—England’s borough charters, French communes, German Stadtrecht—producing freer, wealthier cities. These documents underpinned guild regulation, urban walls and services (financed by murage and pavage), and helped seed representative institutions that later evolved into civic councils and national parliaments.