CITRUS, a genus of plants or the class Polyadelphia, and order Icosandria. See BOTANY, p. 281.
CITY (civitas), is defined by Coke, and after him by Blackstone, a town incorporated, which is or has been the see of a bishop ; and though the bishopric be dis solved, as at Westminster, yet still it remains a city. Some, however, have disputed the accuracy of this cha racteristic difference between cities and other towns, the word city having, according to them, obtained in this island only since the conquest, though bishops, and their sees, were certainly known long before. It may be re marked also, as a very strong, or rather decisive authority in favour of this opinion, that Ingulph, in his History of the Abbey of Croyland, has related, that at the great coun cil assembled in 1072, to settle the claim of precedence between the two English archbishops, it was decreed that bishop's sees should be transferred from towns to cities ; and to this circumstance William of Malmsbury also re fers; concessunz est, says he, eiziscopis de villis transire in civitates. Yet though, originally, there thus appears to
have been no necessary connection between cities and the sees of bishops, certain it is that for a long time the ap pellation has been confined to such towns only as either now are, or have been at some former period, honoured with that ecclesiastical distinction.
For a very distinct and probable account of the pro gress of cities, towns, &c. in wealth and consequence, see the Wealth of Nations, book 3. cap. 3. and Robertson's Charles V . vol. 1. Sec also Madox's Firma Burgi, and Brady's Historical Treatise of Cities and Burghs. (J. a.)