ome
resident proprietors, called Lagemanni, had jurisdiction (socam et
sacam) over their tenants. But nowhere have I been able to discover any
trace of municipal self-government; unless Chester may be deemed an
exception, where we read of twelve judices civitatis; but by whom
constituted does not appear. The word lageman seems equivalent to judex.
The guild mentioned above at Canterbury was, in all probability, a
voluntary association: so at Dover we find the burgesses' guildhall,
gihalla burgensium. p. 1.

Many of the passages in Domesday relative to the state of burgesses are
collected in Brady's History of Boroughs; a work which, if read with due
suspicion of the author's honesty, will convey a great deal of
knowledge.

Since the former part of this note was written, I have met with a
charter granted by Henry II. to Lincoln, which seems to refer, more
explicitly than any similar instrument, to municipal privileges of
jurisdiction enjoyed by the citizens under Edward the Confessor. These
charters, it is well known, do not always recite what is true; yet it is
possible that the citizens of Lincoln, which had been one of the five
Danish towns, sometimes mentioned with a sort of distinction by writers
before the Conquest, might be in a more advantageous situation than the
generality of burgesses. Sciatis me concessisse civibus meis Lincoln,
omnes libertates et consuetudines et leges suas, quas habuerunt tempore
Edwardi et Will. et Henr. regum Angliae, et gildam suam mercatoriam de
hominibus civitatis et de aliis mercatoribus comitatus, sicut illam
habuerunt tempore predictorum, antecessorum nostrorum, regum Angliae,
melius et liberius. Et omnes homines qui infra quatuor divisas civitates
manent et mercatum deducunt, sint ad gildas, et consuetudines et assisas
civitatis, sicut melius fuerunt temp. Edw. et Will. et Hen. regum
Angliae. Rymer, t. i. p. 40 (edit. 1816).

I am indebted to the friendly remarks of the periodical critic whom I
have before mentioned for reminding me of other charters of the same
age, expressed in a similar manner, which in my haste I had overlooked,
though printed in common books. But whether these general words ought to
outweigh the silence of Domesday Book I am not prepared to decide. I
have admitted below that the possession of corporate property implies an
elective government for its administration, and I think it perfectly
clear that the guilds made by-laws for the regulation of their memb