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Acharter is the grant ofauthority orrights, stating that the granter formally recognizes theprerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (orsovereignty), and that the recipient admits a limited (or inferior) status within the relationship, and it is within that sense that charters were historically granted, and it is that sense which is retained in modern usage of the term. In early medieval Britain, charters transferred land from donors to recipients.
The word entered theEnglish language from theOld Frenchcharte, viaLatincharta, and ultimately fromGreekχάρτης (khartes, meaning "layer of papyrus"). It has come to be synonymous with a document that sets out a grant of rights or privileges.
The term is used for a special case (or as an exception) of an institutional charter. Acharter school, for example, is one that has different rules, regulations, and statutes from a state school.
Charter can be used as a synonym for "hire" or "lease", as in the "charter" of abus,boat orplane.[1]
Acharter member (US English) of an organization is an original member; that is, one who became a member when the organization received its charter.[2] Achartered member (British English) is a member who holds anindividual chartered designation authorized under that organization's royal charter.[3][4]
Anglo-Saxon charters (also called diplomas) are documents drawn up between the seventh century and 1066 inBritain, which typically make a grant ofland or record a privilege. They are usually written onparchment, inLatin. Around 200 survive in their original form, and many of the others have been altered or forged. The oldest surviving charters granted land and privileges to the church, but from the 8th century surviving charters were increasingly used to grant land to lay people.[5]
TheBritish Empire used three main types of colonies as it sought to expand its territory to distant parts of the earth. These three types were royal colonies,proprietary colonies, and corporate colonies. A charter colony by definition is a "colony chartered to an individual, trading company, etc., by theBritish crown."[6] Although charter colonies were not the most prevalent of the three types of colonies in the British Empire, they were by no means insignificant.
A Congressional charter is a law passed by theUnited States Congress that states the mission, authority, and activities of a group. Congress issued federal charters from 1791 until 1992 underTitle 36 of the United States Code.
A corporate charter is a document or charter that establishes the existence of acorporation in the United States and Canada.
A charter of "Inspeximus" (Latin, literally "We have inspected") is frequently a royal charter, by which an earlier charter or series of charters relating to a particular foundation (such as a monastery or a guild) was recited and incorporated into a new charter, usually in order to confirm and renew its validity under present authority. Where the original documents are lost, an inspeximus charter may sometimes preserve their texts and lists of witnesses.
Amunicipal corporation is the legal term for alocal governing body, including (but not necessarily limited to)cities,counties,towns,townships,charter townships,villages, andboroughs.Municipal incorporation occurs when suchmunicipalities become self-governing entities under the laws of the state or province in which they are located. Often, this event is marked by the award or declaration of a municipal charter, a term used because municipal power was historically granted by the sovereign, byroyal charter.
Charters may establish or govern the operation ofchivalric orders and other orders, such as theSovereign Military Order of Malta.
Inproject management, a project charter (sometimes called theterms of reference) is provided by the sponsor to formally authorize the existence of a project. It provides a preliminary delineation of roles and responsibilities, outlines the project purpose and objectives, identifies key stakeholders, and defines the authority of the project manager. It serves as a reference of authority for future planning of the project. The project scope is developed from the project charter.
A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch underroyal prerogative asletters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgatepublic laws, the most famous example being the EnglishMagna Carta (great charter) of 1215, but since the 14th century have only been used in place ofprivate acts to grant a right or power to an individual or abody corporate.[7][8][9] They were, and are still, used to establish significant organisations such as boroughs (withmunicipal charters),universities andlearned societies, and were used historically to establishcompanies.
TheCharter of 1814, France's constitution during theBourbon Restoration, was thus called to promote the legal fiction that the King had granted it "voluntarily, and by the free exercise of [his] royal authority", in the manner of medieval charters.
At one time a royal charter was the only way in which an incorporated body could be formed, but other means (such as the registration process forlimited companies) are generally now used instead.
A university charter is a charter issued to create or recognise auniversity. The form of charter used varies by period and jurisdiction.[10]
In the context of a political uprising, a charter might lay out the basic principles and goals of the movement, define the organizational structure of the movement, and describe the roles and responsibilities of its members.[11]
