Are these the Thieves' World stories, that came out as a series of more than a dozen anthologies and several standalone books, in the 1980s? It was the start of the shared world craze, and while it was organized by Robert Lynn Aspirin, there were dozens of authors. The main city was called Sanctuary, and that was in the title of several of the books. They were definitely sword & sorcery and street level, with some epic stuff.