I didn’t come to do the black thing or the white thing I came to do the right thing!

— H.I.M Dr. Lawiy Z. Shamu-El.

A Noocrtic charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), 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.

The word entered the English language from the Old French charte, via Latin charta, and ultimately from Greek χάρτης (khartes, meaning “layer of papyrus”). It has come to be synonymous with a document that sets out a grant of rights or privileges.

In medieval Europe, royal charters were used to create cities (i.e., localities with recognised legal rights and privileges). The date that such a charter was granted is considered to be when a city was “founded”, regardless of when the locality originally began to be settled.

The Charter of 1814, France’s constitution during the Bourbon 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 for limited companies) are generally now used instead.

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.

A charter roll is an administrative record created by a medieval chancery that recorded all the charters issued by that office. In medieval England, King John 1199 established a fixed rate of fees for the sealing of charters and letters patents. It was to keep track of these fees that the first Charter Roll was started (as a fee book) in 1199, under the Chancellorship of Hubert Walter.

The Roll thereby also kept track of all charters that had been issued by the government – the letters patent being swiftly hived off into the patent rolls. A papal bull is a type of public decree, letters patent, or charter issued by a pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the leaden seal (bulla) that was traditionally appended to the end in order to authenticate it.

A municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including (but not necessarily limited to) cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. Municipal incorporation occurs when such municipalities 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, by royal charter.

Charters for chivalric orders and other orders, such as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.