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     [* Spel. Gloss, in verb. Baro.]

If it be unreasonable to think that the vassals of a barony, though their tenure was military, and noble, and honorable, were ever summoned to give their opinion in national councils, much less can it be supposed that the tradesmen or inhabitants of boroughs, whose condition was so much inferior, would be admitted to that privilege. It appears from Domesday, that the greatest boroughs were, at the time of the conquest, scarcely more than country villages; and that the inhabitants lived in entire dependence on the king or great lords, and were of a station little better than servile.[*] They were not then so much as incorporated; they formed no community; were not regarded as a body politic; and being really nothing but a number of low, dependent tradesmen, living, without any particular civil tie, in neighborhood together, they were incapable of being represented in the states of the kingdom. Even in France, a country which made more early advances in arts and civility than England, the first corporation is sixty years posterior to the conquest under the duke of Normandy; and the erecting of these communities was an invention of Lewis the Gross, in order to free the people from slavery under the lords, and to give them protection by means of certain privileges and a separate jurisdiction.[**] An ancient French writer calls them a new and wicked device, to procure liberty to slaves, and encourage them in shaking off the dominion of their masters.[***] The famous charter, as it is called, of the Conqueror to the city of London, though granted at a time when he assumed the appearance of gentleness and lenity, is nothing but a letter of protection, and a declaration that the citizens should not be treated as slaves.[****] By the English feudal law, the superior lord was prohibited from marrying his female ward to a burgess or a villain;[*****] so near were these two ranks esteemed to each other, and so much inferior to the nobility and gentry. Besides possessing the advantages of birth, riches, civil powers and privileges, the nobles and gentlemen alone were armed a circumstance which gave them a mighty superiority, in an age when nothing but the military profession was honorable, and when the loose execution of laws gave so much encouragement to open violence, and rendered it so decisive in all disputes and controversies.[*****]

     [* “Liber homo” anciently signified a gentleman:
     for scarce any one beside was entirely free. Spel. Gloss, in
     verbo.]

     [** Du Gauge’s Gloss, in verb. Commune,
     Communitas.]

     [*** Guibertus, de vita sua, lib. iii. cap. 7.]

     [**** Stat. of Merton, 1235, esp. 6.]

     [****** Madox, Baron. Angl. p. 19.]

The great similarity among the feudal governments of Europe is well known to every man that has any acquaintance with ancient history: and the antiquaries of all foreign countries, where the question was never embarrassed by party disputes, have allowed that the commons came very late to be admitted to a share in the legislative power. In Normandy particularly, whose constitution was most likely to be William’s model in raising his new fabric of English government, the states were entirely composed of the clergy and nobility; and the first incorporated boroughs or communities of that duchy were Rouen and Falaise, which enjoyed their privileges by a grant of Philip Augustus in the year 1207.[**] All the ancient English historians, when they mention the great council of the nation, call it an assembly of the baronage, nobility, or great men; and none of their expressions, though several hundred passages might be produced, can, without the utmost violence, be tortured to a meaning which will admit the commons to be constituent members of that body.[***]

     [** Norman, du Chesnil, p. 1066. Du Cange, Gloss,
     in verb. Commune.]

     [*** Sometimes the historians mention the people,
     “populus,” as a part of the parliament; but they always mean
     the laity, in opposition to the clergy. Sometimes the word
     “communitas” is found; but it always means “communitas
     baronagii.” These points are clearly proved by Dr. Brady.
     There is also mention sometimes made of a crowd or multitude
     that thronged into the great council on particular
     interesting occasions; but as deputies from boroughs are
     never once spoken of, the proof that they had not then any
     existence becomes the more certain and undeniable. These
     never could make a crowd, as they must have had a regular
     place assigned them if they had made a regular part of the
     legislative body. There were only one hundred and thirty
     boroughs who received writs of summons from Edward I. It is
     expressly said in Gesta Reg. Steph. p. 932, that it was
     usual for the populace, “vulgus,” to crowd into the great
     councils; where they were plainly mere spectators, and could
     only gratify their curiosity.]

If in the long period of two hundred years, which elapsed between the conquest and the latter end of Henry III., and which abounded in factions, revolutions, and convulsions of all kinds, the house of commons never performed one single legislative act so considerable as to be once mentioned by any of the numerous historians of that age, they must have been totally insignificant: and in that case, what reason can be assigned for their ever being assembled? Can it be supposed that men of so little weight or importance possessed a negative voice against the king and the barons? Every page of the subsequent histories discovers their existence; though these histories are not written with greater accuracy than the preceding ones, and indeed scarcely equal them in that particular. The Magna Charta of King John provides that no scutage or aid should be imposed, either on the land or towns, but by consent of the great council; and for more security it enumerates the persons entitled to a seat in that assembly, the prelates and immediate tenants of the crown, without any mention of the commons; an authority so full, certain, and explicit, that nothing but the zeal of party could ever have procured credit to any contrary hypothesis.

It was probably the example of the French barons, which first imboldened the English to require greater independence from their sovereign: it is also probable that the boroughs and corporations of England were established in imitation of those of France. It may, therefore, be proposed as no unlikely conjecture, that both the chief privileges of the peers in England and the liberty of the commons were originally the growth of that foreign country.

In ancient times, men were little solicitous to obtain a place in the legislative assemblies; and rather regarded their attendance as a burden, which was not compensated by any return of profit or honor, proportionate to the trouble and expense. The only reason for instituting those public councils was, on the part of the subject, that they desired some security from the attempts of arbitrary power; and on the part of the sovereign, that he despaired of governing men of such independent spirits without their own consent and concurrence. But the commons, or the inhabitants of boroughs, had not as yet reached such a degree of consideration, as to desire security against their prince, or to imagine that, even if they were assembled in a representative body, they had power or rank sufficient to enforce it. The only protection which they aspired to, was against the immediate violence and injustice of their fellow-citizens; and this advantage each of them looked for from the courts of justice, or from the authority of some great lord, to whom, by law or his own choice, he was attached. On the other hand, the sovereign was sufficiently assured of obedience in the whole community if he procured the concurrence of the nobles; nor had he reason to apprehend that any order of the state could resist his and their united authority. The military sub-vassals could entertain no idea of opposing both their prince and their superiors: the burgesses and tradesmen could much legs aspire to such a thought: and thus, even if history were silent on the head, we have reason to conclude, from the known situation of society during those ages, that the commons were never admitted as members of the legislative body.