The progress of wealth, population, and the useful arts produced, in many of the greater towns, the subdivision of the general community into guilds of particu lar trades, called in many instances since the Norman sera companies, which thus became avenues for admission to the ge neral franchise of the municipality. In their greatest prosperity these fraternities, more especially in the metropolis, became important bodies, in which the whole community was enrolled ; each had its distinct common-hall, made by-laws for the regulation of its particular trade, and had its common property ; while the rights of the individuals composing them, as members of the great general com munity, remained the same.
But for several centuries after the Con quest, any select body forming within a municipal town a corporation, in the mo dern sense of the term, was entirely un known. When the men of a town became answerable to the crown for a fern or other payment due from their community, then the barons of the exchequer, the king's attorney, or his other clerks and officers, charged, impleaded, and sued the townsmen collectively, by any name by which they could be accurately desig nated, and they answered by one or more of their number, deputed for that purpose by the rest. There was also a method of summoning a community to appear in the king's courts of law, by six or some other number of " the better and more discreet" inhabitants, to be nominated by the rest. The duties of the boroughs to the king were rendered entirely by their executive officers, elected yearly by the whole community. Generally it was granted to them to elect a single chief magistrate, bearing, as already observed, the Norman title of mayor, who became answerable to the crown for all things in which the bailiff or bailiffs were pre viously responsible, and the officers bear ing the latter title declined to an inferior rank. The executive officer, thus elected, it was always necessary to present to the king, or some one appointed by him, to be accepted and sworn faithfully to dis charge his duties both to the crown and to the community; and to receive these presentations, accept the officer elected, and take his oath, became a part of the duties of the treasurer and barons of the exchequer. To these, when the citizens or burgesses had made their election, it was notified by letters under their com mon seal, and the mayor elect was pre sented to them at the exchequer by two of his fellow-burgesses. The same pro ceeding was observed with regard to sheres, which some of the larger cities and towns acquired power to elect as counties of themselves ; and for the like reason, because of the duties they had to render to the king. In course of time
communities acquired by charter the pri vilege of taking the oaths of their own officers, or they might be tendered to the constable of the nearest royal castle. If such officer performed auy official duty without being duly sworn, it was deemed a contempt, and the liberties were liable to be seized into the king's hands, unless redeemed by fine or a valid excuse.
But the sole legislative assembly in every municipal town or borough was originally the Saxon folk-mote, or meeting of the whole community, called in many places the hundred, and where held within doors, the hus-ting or the common hall. This assembly was held for mutual advice and general determination on the affairs of the community, whether in the enact ing of local regulations, called burgh-laws (of which some persons suppose by lam to be a contraction), the levying of local taxes, the selling or leasing of public property, the administration of justice, the appointment of municipal officers, or any other matter affecting the general interests. In this assembly, held com monly once a week, appeared the body of burgesses in person, to whom, together with their officers, whom they elected annually, every general privilege con veyed by the royal charters was granted ; and however vested in later times, every power exercised in the ancient boroughs has derived its origin from the acts of this assembly. The increase of popula tion and extension of trade in the larger towns led naturally to the introduction of the representative principle in local legis lation, &c., and to an aristocratic organi zation. Next, as the distinction of race became lost in the fusion of blood and the rise of the modern English other circumstances sprung up, ton enfirg to create and perpetuate a distinction of civic classes. The progress of in dividual wealth, as commercial property became more secure against exactions by arbitrary power, and the commercial resources of the country became deve loped, was among the most powerful of these causes. In London, as early as the close of Henry III.'s reign, the aldermen, and those calling themselves " the more discreet of the city," made an attempt to elect a mayor, in oppo sition to the popular voice ; which, how ever, ended in the triumph of the latter, in a general folk-mote held at St. Paul's Cross.