The Freedom of the City. men) expounded them. There they also per formed the ceremony of admitting a new member to their privileges, their freedom. Strangers who came to their village met with various receptions. Marauders and the unfree of other tribes were probably held in servitude; others, who had no claim to special respect, remained in the depen dent class. But now and then one sought to be received who, because of kinship or other qualifications, was to be more favored. If the assembled freemen willed it so, he was admitted into their freedom; and under the great tree, with shield and spear clash ing approval, was conferred upon him the freedom of the community. After these hardy warriors had conquered and settled Britain, the independent groups grew and united into a nation; but the customs of the homeland were the general basis of their municipal organization. The rise of kings and nobles, however, stirred this simplicity to confusion. Most villages and rural townships (tun-scipcs) became subject to the nobles, as well as mediately to the king, though they clung to the rem nants of their primal usages. But a class of larger towns retained, in some measure, a constitution and local government. These were the boroughs—the fortified strong holds and the commercial and political cen tres of the country. They remained free of feudal subjection; they knew no lord but the king. Each had its own court and assembly. Each had a market; and that was a great privilege, for, by law, trading could be done only in open market, and such a market brought much commerce to the borough. The borough was a peculiar place also in that the king's peace, the sanctity of the king's own homestead, en veloped it. Because of these characteristics it was a privileged town, a free borough; and the exemptions and privileges which it en joyed entered into and comprised its free
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dom, and the freedom of its freemen, for in them were the liberties of the community vested. Admittance to burgherhood was in vestment with the freedom of the borough. A burgess was "free of" a certain borough; and to be made a burgess was to be "made free of a certain borough. Those boroughs which were cathedral sites, the seats of bishops, were not only boroughs but "cities." In later years many additional privileges were granted to boroughs and cities by charter: and most large towns, not prev iously boroughs, were given privileges by charter from kings and lords, and so became boroughs because they became possessed of special privileges. Under the Norman and Angevin monarchs, char ters became so various and so extensive that almost every borough of importance had a large, promiscuous cluster of special customs and liberties. The bur gesses might hold their houses at a fixed rent, instead of by general feudal service; sometimes power to transfer their holdings freely was added; or they might take the revenues of the court or of the market, might elect a bailiff, might be exempt from certain interferences of the king's sheriff,, might be exempt from summons to other than their own court. Then they acquired the privilege of farming all the revenues of the borough; and royal edict often or dained that all the trading of a certain region should be done within the borough of that region. But even more extensive mercantile privileges were bestowed by the king. Not only might the burgesses take tolls, they might be free of paying tolls, in any part of the realm; they might also organize themselves into a merchant guild, which had power to govern all the trade of the borough. ' All these special privi leges entered into the freedom of the com munity of burgesses or citizens. Eventually, by charter, the whole bor
