Vilafranca (medieval town)

Vilafranca (in Catalan and most languages), Villefranche (in French) or Borgo Franco (in Italian) is understood as the legal status[1] of a medieval community free of duties[2] or with fiscal privileges, alternately performing military services.

[3] The vilafranca or vilanova were new population centers that arose during the Middle Ages, especially between the 12th and 14th centuries in Catalonia and the rest of Iberian Peninsula, in Italy, France and Germany.

Although unique models cannot be produced for these new foundations, archaeologists have found some recurring features in these new settlements.

They are planned settlements, often inspired by the mother city, with an orthogonal plan and generally defended by a wall; The internal plot, quite regular, has a central square, around which the main buildings (such as the town hall and the church) and houses are built, built in rows and in lots pre-established at the time of design.

These villages usually consisted of no more than 200 houses and many of them disappeared with the agrarian crisis of the fourteenth century.