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 [w]. 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 [x]. 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 [y]. By the English
feudal law, the superior lord was prohibited from marrying his female
ward to a burgess or a villain [z]; 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 honourable, and when the loose
execution of laws gave so much encouragement to open violence, and
rendered it so decisive in all disputes and controversies [a].
[FN [u] LIBER HOMO anciently signified a gentleman; for scarce any
one beside was entirely free. Spellm. Gloss. in verbo. [w] Du
Cange's Gloss in verb. COMMUNE, COMMUNITAS. [x] Guibertus, de vita
sua, lib. 2. cap. 7. [y] Stat. of Merton, 1235. cap. 6. [z]
Hollingshed, vol. iii. p. 15. [a] Madox's 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 [b]. 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
expression