Entstehung und Entwicklung kleinerer Städte

Duchy of Luxembourg and the County of Chiny in the 15th century, though
all of them, exept Luxembourg, remained comparatively small towns . More
numerous are places which cannot be designated as towns, yet cannot be
labelled as villages either.
The towns doubtlessly owe most of their central functions to sovereign
initiatives in the 13th century . This applies above all to the provostial centres,
but beside administrative and political functions, economic (market-bestowal,
mint, . . . .) and religious (convent, mendicant friars, . . . .), central functions of
county origin were playing a part in promoting towns as well . The
consideration of central criteria alone, however, does not permit a certain
statement about the actual importance of a town, as the comparison between
various places of a same number of central functions clearly indicates . But
minor lords, vassals to the counts of Luxemburg, were hardly able to provide
their localities with central functions and could not therefore develop them
into towns .
While ecclesiastical centrality sometimes preceded urban development
under manorial control (as, for instance, in the abbey town of Echternach),
this centrality is also traceable to the initiative of the count . Hospitals and
schools, on the other hand, are more often due to civic initiative and are,
therefore, rather marks of secondary centrality. They indicate, just as the
settlement of Jews or Lombards does, central functions already existing within
the site .
The privileges granted to many sites, above all in the County of Chiny, near
the border with the County of Bar, are due to »national