The subject says it all. How big should a settlement be to qualify as a "town" in the context of the Virtue? Would a village of 100 souls qualify? Would a fortified citadel qualify?
In practice, I call it a town if it is a permanent settlement sustaining a regular market at least weekly, drawing surrounding people to trade.
As I understand typical town sizes in 13C, 100 souls would be more like typical than a lower bound.
Do you need to know the number of trees for Way of the Forest? That's a classic philosophical problem
IMC, does it have a crossroad?
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Traditionally, at least in England, a "town" was a settlement which had a regular market.
But, for purposes of the virtue I wouldn't worry about if something actually is a town, or a village, or a city. I would rule that "Ways of the Town" would apply inside any human (and possibly some non-human) settlement large enough to have a name. So, all villages, hamlets, towns, cities.
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Reminds me of a town in Kansas named Peck- "the town so small they dropped the S". It consists of a post office and three roads, each less than 100 yards in length with three residences on each road.
It is about 10 miles outside of Wichita, so presumably everyone who lives there works in Wichita (or at the post office). Actual place- I've been there twice and used to have a friend who lived there for about a year.
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No. I agree there will always be some places that I feel are "borderline" Forest or "borderline" Mountains for the purpose of the Ways of the Land Virtue. However, I feel those places are relatively few compared to areas that are definitely Forest or Mountains, at least from the perspective of my troupe.
On the other hand I'd expect many more settlements to be "borderline" Towns - say, settlements below 200 souls - than "definitely" Towns - say settlements above 200. So, it's important for me to get a better sense of what "Town" means, particularly in Medieval Europe.
Having a marketplace, or a crossroad, are both excellent tests - simple and meaningful. The one I like best is that proposed by ErikT: if it's a human settlement with a name, including a tiny hamlet, it's in.
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Sorry. A town is a settlement with a town charter.
The number of inhabitants is irrelevant.
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And in countries where there is no such thing as a town charter (or equivalent)?
Or in cities?
In England, it seems, the main function of the charter was to grant the right to host a market. Which features more often in the narrative, the charter or the market?
You'll probably realise they have a charter (and so are a town) because they have a market.
No, because at least in England it was the other way around.
A settlement could get a charter that gave them the right to hold a market. Settlements with such markets were called towns.
But trying to use some old legal definition of "town" for where the virtue would work is very silly, because those definitions would vary from region to region, and even depend on the local language since not all languages even have a word for "town" as distinct from other types of settlements.
... that was my point exactly. Apologies if I was unclear. To (legally) have a market means the settlement must have a town charter, and so be a town. So when you observe the market, it's reasonable to infer that the settlement must be a town, no?
A very in-periode definition of a town, remember? It's straight out of C&G :-/
My own native language only sort-of have this distinction. So I'm aware of that.
However, unlike today, "Town" is a protected title in the medieval period.
It actually matters. Please use it properly.
You could, however, have Ways of the Settlement, and get that bonus anytime there's 4 homes in sight of eachother. I'd be happy with that.
Well, this has definitely generated more discussion than Ways of the Forest or Ways of the Mountains would have! 
I am not inclined to tie a Town (for the purposes of the Virtue) to the notion of having a charter. There are many cities without a charter in Mythic Europe, and yet I feel Ways of the Town is intended to apply to them too.
Looking it up in wikipedia, it appears that the etymology and early meaning of "town" comes from a settlement protected by a fence or palisade at the minimum. This would also kind of work as a criterion, I guess.
So... Way of the Town only works in England?
I think that was why EricT would rather base it on an universal effect (having a market).
I wouldn't base it on having a market either, since that would only be relevant for being a town in parts of Mythic Europe.
As I said, I would allow the virtue (Ways of the Town) to apply in any human settlement large enough to have a name. Doesn't matter if the settlement is technically a town, or a village, or a hamlet, or a city, or a ville, or an urbs, or a köping, or a polis, or an oppidum or whatever term is used in the local language for the settlement.
Having Ways of the Town apply to hamlets sounds overly permissive. I would expect most of the rural population in many parts of Europe to cluster together in hamlets of three or four cottages. Since people tend to name things, and refer to them, I would find it odd if an hamlet does not have a name, so this criterion is hardly limiting.
My reason for taking the market as a criterion, is that it is a major functional change to the community. People in the market town is a much more mixed population, with a larger proportion of peddlars travelling through and peasants from a larger area. It is not the large resident population which make town dwellers used to deqal with many different people, but the large number of visitors. This changes their ways, and is thus what's relevant to the virtue.
My suggestion (above) was 'Way of the Settlement', though @loke just argued against it.
If a settlement is small, it will only be a small area the virtue applies in. In a large town, it will apply to a large area.
My proposed criterion isn't supposed to be very limiting, so no surprise if it isn't. It is just meant to weed out individual farms and the like.
"Ways of the Town" will in some ways not apply to people in a settlement, so their ways is somewhat irrelevant. It will however apply to the animals living there, and they will be the same regardless of if there is a market or not. So, I don't think the (non-)existence of a market would be relevant at all.
This is of course a valid choice, but out of curiousity, how common do you think individual farms are, compared to farms in hamlets?
In my world, your definition would include more than 90% of peasants as townsfolk, as far as the virtue goes, and even if people do not matter to the virtue in some respects, it does in others. My players always want to use Ways of the Town for every social roll.
You have, of course a point about the animals being the same, but I do not think they differ between an individual farm and a couple of farms in a hamlet either.
There are issues with any of them. As an example and isolated estate where a single man practicing polygamy (illegally) and having 100 children (have I mentioned he is quite mad) has named this estate (which exists primarily to feed his oversized family) as "Chatterley" which is truly insane since it is in Italy, not England. Fearing the local's wrath he has placed a border of a piece of string supported by fenceposts around the property, which is largely comprised of fruit trees interspersed between each other (again, madman) in a way that more closely resembles a forest than an orchard.
So is this a town?
Yes it is an extreme borderline case but it also illustrates the flaws with a number of the criteria- having a name only means someone named it. Population levels for a town can be a single family in a single (large) building- or even a campsite of a gypsy clan. A marked boundary could similarly be portable. Markets make sense for the real medieval world, but with faerie markets and infernal markets may not mean much in AM. A definition of at least 5 occupied buildings on the same acre of land might be more appropriate.