Already during the conquest of the Prussian lands, the Teutonic Knights were aware that military successes alone would not allow them to survive in the occupied territories. In order to lure settlers to the emerging Teutonic state, Hermann von Balk went to Silesia. There he met the townspeople from Zlotoryja, the first city in Poland founded under German law. This is where the first Torun residents probably came from, who received from the Teutonic authorities the charter of Torun’s location, dated December 28, 1233.
The document changing the Torun settlement into a city was issued by the Grand Master of the Order, Hermann von Salz, and the monastic superior of Prussia and the Slavic region – Hermann von Balk. As the content of the act also concerned the location of Chelmno, planned as the future capital of the Teutonic state, the document was commonly called the Chelmno privilege. The location privilege itself, one of the oldest of its kind in Poland, was in fact a contract concluded between the Teutonic Order and the inhabitants of Torun and Chelmno. Its power gave Torunians a judicial self-government, moreover, according to the German Magdeburg law, the freedom of trade was also introduced and the inhabitants of the city were exempted from all customs duties within the monastic state. Torun also received land goods intended for the needs of its inhabitants. The foundation charter of Torun and Chelmno became a model reproduced in the following centuries during the foundation or reorganization of several hundred cities in Poland, Lithuania and Ruthenia.