Chapter 3

A right of common not connected with the manorial system may be, and usually is, attached to land; it may be measured, like a manorial right, by levancy and couchancy, or it may be limited to a fixed number of animals. Rights of the latter character seem to have been not uncommon in the middle ages. In one of his sermons against inclosure, Bishop Latimer tells us his father "had walk (i.e. right of common) for 100 sheep." This may have been a right in gross, but was more probably attached to the "farm of £3 or £4 by year at the uttermost" which his father held. A right of common appurtenant may be sold separately, and enjoyed by a purchaser independently of the tenement to which it was originally appurtenant. It then becomes a right of common in gross.

A right of common in gross is a right enjoyed irrespective of the ownership or occupancy of any lands. It may exist by express grant, or by user implying a modern lost grant, or by immemorial usage. It must be limited to a certain number of cattle, unless the right is claimed by actual grant. Such rights seldom arise in connexion with commons in the ordinary sense, but are a frequent incident of regulated or stinted pastures; the right is then generally known as a cattle-gate or beast-gate.

There may be rights over a common which exclude the owner of the soil from all enjoyment of some particular product of the common. Thus a person, or a class of persons, may be entitled to the whole of the corn, grass, underwood, or sweepage, (i.e. everything which falls to the sweep of the scythe) of a tract of land, without possessing any ownership in the land itself, or in the trees or mines. Such a right is known as a right of sole vesture.

A more limited right of the same character is a right of sole pasturage--the exclusive right to take everything growing on the land in question by the mouths of cattle, but not in any other way. Either of these rights may exist throughout the whole year, or during part only. A right of sole common pasturage and herbage was given to a certain class of commoners in Ashdown Forest on the partition of the forest at the end of the 18th century.

Rights in common fields.

We have seen that the common arable fields and common meadows of a vill were thrown open to the stock of the community between harvest and seed-time. There is still to be found, here and there, a group of arable common fields, and occasionally a piece of grass land with many of the characteristics of a common, which turns out to be a common field or meadow. The Hackney Marshes and the other so-called commons of Hackney are really common fields or common meadows, and along the valley of the Lea a constant succession of such meadows is met with. They are still owned in parcels marked by metes; the owners have the right to grow a crop of hay between Lady day and Lammas day; and from Lammas to March the lands are subject to the depasturage of stock. In the case of some common fields and meadows the right of feed during the open time belongs exclusively to the owners; in others to a larger class, such as the owners and occupiers of all lands within the bounds of the parish. Anciently, as we have seen, the two classes would be identical. In some places newcomers not owning strips in the fields were admitted to the right of turn out; in others, not. Hence the distinction. Similar divergences of practice will be found to exist in Switzerland at the present day; _nieder-gelassene_, or newcomers, are in some communes admitted to all rights, while, in others, privileges are reserved to the _bürger_, or old inhabitant householders.

Rights in royal forests.

Some of the largest tracts of waste land to be found in England are the waste or commonable lands of royal forests or chases. The thickets and pastures of Epping Forest, now happily preserved for London under the guardianship of the city corporation, and the noble woods and far-stretching heaths of the New Forest, will be called to mind. Cannock Chase, unhappily inclosed according to law, though for the most part still lying waste, Dartmoor, and Ashdown Forest in Sussex, are other instances; and the list might be greatly lengthened. Space will not permit of any description of the forest system; it is enough, in this connexion, to say that the common rights in a forest were usually enjoyed by the owners and occupiers of land within its bounds (the class may differ in exact definition, but is substantially equivalent to this) without reference to manorial considerations. Epping Forest was saved by the proof of this right. It is often said that the right was given, or confirmed, to the inhabitants in consideration of the burden of supporting the deer for the pleasure of the king or of the owner of the chase. It seems more probable that the forest law prevented the growth of the manorial system, and with it those rules which have tended to restrict the class of persons entitled to enjoy the waste lands of the district.

Prevention of inclosure.

We have seen that in the case of each kind of common there is a division of interest. The soil belongs to one person; other persons are entitled to take certain products of the soil. This division of interest preserves the common as an open space. The commoners cannot inclose, because the land does not belong to them. The owner of the soil cannot inclose, because inclosure is inconsistent with the enjoyment of the commoners' rights. At a very early date it was held that the right of a commoner proceeded out of every part of the common, so that the owner of the soil could not set aside part for the commoner and inclose the rest. The Statutes of Merton and Westminster the Second were passed to get over this difficulty. But under these statutes the burden of proving that sufficient pasture was left was thrown upon the owner of the soil; such proof can very seldom be given. Moreover, the statutes have never enabled an inclosure to be made against commoners entitled to _estovers_ or _turbary_. It seems clear that the statutes had become obsolete in the time of Edward VI., or they would not have been re-enacted. And we know that the zealous advocates of inclosure in the 18th century considered them worthless for their purposes. Practically it may be taken that, save where the owner of the soil of a common acquires all the lands in the township (generally coterminous with the parish) with which the common is connected, an inclosure cannot legally be effected by him. And even in the latter case it may be that rights of common are enjoyed in respect of lands outside the parish, and that such rights prevent an inclosure.

The modern Inclosure Act.

_Modern Inclosure._--When, therefore, the common-field system began to fall out of gear, and the increase of population brought about a demand for an increased production of corn, it was felt to be necessary to resort to parliament for power to effect inclosure. The legislation which ensued was based on two principles. One was that all persons interested in the open land to be dealt with should receive a proportionate equivalent in inclosed land; the other, that inclosure should not be prevented by the opposition, or the inability to act, of a small minority. Assuming that inclosure was desirable, no more equitable course could have been adopted, though in details particular acts may have been objectionable. The first act was passed in 1709; but the precedent was followed but slowly, and not till the middle of the 18th century did the annual number of acts attain double figures. The high-water mark was reached in the period from 1765 to 1785, when on an average forty-seven acts were passed every year. From some cause, possibly the very considerable expense attending upon the obtaining of an act, the numbers then began slightly to fall off. In the year 1793 a board of agriculture, apparently similar in character to the chambers of commerce of our own day, was established. Sir John Sinclair was its president, and Arthur Young, the well-known agricultural reformer, was its secretary. Owing to the efforts of this body, and of a select committee appointed by the House of Commons on Sinclair's motion, the first General Inclosure Act was passed in 1801. This act would at the present day be called an Inclosure Clauses Act. It contained a number of provisions applicable to inclosures, which could be incorporated by reference, in a private bill. By this means, it was hoped, the length and complexity, and consequently the expense, of inclosure bills would be greatly diminished. Under the stimulus thus applied inclosure proceeded apace. In the year 1801 no less than 119 acts were passed, and the total area inclosed probably exceeded 300,000 acres. Three inclosures in the Lincolnshire Fens account for over 53,000 acres. As before, the movement after a time spent its force, the annual average of acts falling to about twelve in the decade 1830-1840. Another parliamentary committee then sat to consider how inclosure might be promoted; and the result was the Inclosure Act 1845, which, though much amended by subsequent legislation, still stands on the statute-book. The chief feature of that act was the appointment of a permanent commission to make in each case all the inquiries previously made (no doubt capriciously and imperfectly) by committees of the two Houses. The commission, on being satisfied of the propriety of an inclosure was to draw up a provisional order prescribing the general conditions on which it was to be carried out, and this order was to be submitted to parliament by the government of the day for confirmation. It is believed that these inclosure orders afford the first example of the provisional order system of legislation, which has attained such large proportions.

Again inclosure moved forward, and between 1845 and 1869 (when it received a sudden check) 600,000 acres passed through the hands of the inclosure commission. Taking the whole period of about a century and a half, when parliamentary inclosure was in favour, and making an estimate of acreage where the acts do not give it, the result may be thus summarized:--

Acres. From 1709 to 1797 2,744,926 " 1801 to 1842 1,307,964 " 1845 to 1869 618,000 Add for Forests inclosed under Special Acts 100,000 --------- 4,770,890

The total area of England being 37,000,000 acres, we shall probably not be far wrong in concluding that about one acre in every seven was inclosed during the period in question. During the first period, the lands inclosed consisted mainly of common arable fields; during the second, many great tracts of moor and fen were reduced to severalty ownership. In the third period, inclosure probably related chiefly to the ordinary manorial common; and it seems likely that, on the whole, England would have gained, had inclosure stopped in 1845.

Open Space movement.

As a fact it stopped in 1869. Before the inclosure commission had been in existence twenty years the feeling of the nation towards commons began to change. The rapid growth of towns, and especially of London, and the awakening sense of the importance of protecting the public health, brought about an appreciation of the value of commons as open spaces. Naturally, the metropolis saw the birth of this sentiment. An attempted inclosure in 1864 of the commons at Epsom and Wimbledon aroused strong opposition; and a select committee of the House of Commons was appointed to consider how the London commons could best be preserved. The Metropolitan Board of Works, then in the vigour of youth, though eager to become the open-space authority for London, could make no better suggestion than that all persons interested in the commons should be bought out, that the board should defray the expense by selling parts for building, and should make parks of what was left. Had this advice been followed, London would probably have lost two-thirds of the open space which she now enjoys. Fortunately a small knot of men, who afterwards formed the Commons Preservation Society, took a broader and wiser view. Chief amongst them were the late Philip Lawrence, who acted as solicitor to the Wimbledon opposition, and subsequently organized the Commons Preservation Society, George Shaw-Lefevre, chairman of that society since its foundation, the late John Locke, and the late Lord Mount Temple (then Mr W. F. Cowper). They urged that the conflict of legal interests, which is the special characteristic of a common, might be trusted to preserve it as an open space, and that all that parliament could usefully do, was to restrict parliamentary inclosure, and to pass a measure of police for the protection of commons as open spaces. The select committee adopted this view. On their report, was passed the Metropolitan Commons Act 1866, which prohibited any further parliamentary inclosures within the metropolitan police area, and provided means by which a common could be put under local management. The lords of the manors in which the London commons lay felt that their opportunity of making a rich harvest out of land, valuable for building, though otherwise worthless, was slipping away; and a battle royal ensued. Inclosures were commenced, and the Statute of Merton prayed in aid. The public retorted by legal proceedings taken in the names of commoners. These proceedings--which culminated in the mammoth suit as to Epping Forest, with the corporation of London as plaintiffs and fourteen lords of manors as defendants--were uniformly successful; and London commons were saved. By degrees the manorial lords, seeing that they could not hope to do better, parted with their interest for a small sum to some local authority; and a large area of the common land, not only in the county of London, but in the suburbs, is now in the hands of the representatives of the ratepayers, and is definitely appropriated to the recreation of the public.

Amendment of Statue of Merton.

Moreover, the Commons Preservation Society was able to base, upon the uniform success of the commoners in the law courts, a plea for the amendment of the law. The Statute of Merton, we have seen, purports to enable the lord of the soil to inclose a common, if he leaves sufficient pasture for the commoners. This statute was constantly vouched in the litigation about London commons; but in no single instance was an inclosure justified by virtue of its provisions. It thus remained a trap to lords of manors, and a source of controversy and expense. In the year 1893 Lord Thring, at the instance of the Commons Preservation Society, carried through parliament the Commons Law Amendment Act, which provided that in future no inclosure under the Statute of Merton should be valid, unless made with the consent of the Board of Agriculture, which was to consider the expediency of the inclosure from a public point of view.

Rural commons.

The movement to preserve commons as open spaces soon spread to the rural districts. Under the Inclosure Act of 1845 provision was made for the allotment of a part of the land to be inclosed for field gardens for the labouring poor, and for recreation. But those who were interested in effecting an inclosure often convinced the inclosure commissioners that for some reason such allotments would be useless. To such an extent did the reservation of such allotments become discredited that, in 1869, the commission proposed to parliament the inclosure of 13,000 acres, with the reservation of only one acre for recreation, and none at all for field gardens. This proposal attracted the attention of Henry Fawcett, who, after much inquiry and consideration, came to the conclusion that inclosures were, speaking generally, doing more harm than good to the agricultural labourer, and that, under such conditions as the commissioners were prescribing, they constituted a serious evil. With characteristic intrepidity he opposed the annual inclosure bill (which had come to be considered a mere form) and moved for a committee on the whole subject. The ultimate result was the passing, seven years later, of the Commons Act 1876. This measure, introduced by a Conservative government, laid down the principle that an inclosure should not be allowed unless distinctly shown to be for the benefit, not merely of private persons, but of the neighbourhood generally and the public. It imposed many checks upon the process, and following the course already adopted in the case of metropolitan commons, offered an alternative method of making commons more useful to the nation, viz. their management and regulation as open spaces. The effect of this legislation and of the changed attitude of the House of Commons towards inclosure has been almost to stop that process, except in the case of common fields or extensive mountain wastes.

Regulation.

We have alluded to the regulation of commons as open spaces. The primary object of this process is to bring a common under the jurisdiction of some constituted authority, which may make by-laws, enforceable in a summary way before the magistrates of the district, for its protection, and may appoint watchers or keepers to preserve order and prevent wanton mischief. There are several means of attaining this object. Commons within the metropolitan police district--the Greater London of the registrar-general--are in this respect in a position by themselves. Under the Metropolitan Commons Acts, schemes for their local management may be made by the Board of Agriculture (in which the inclosure commission is now merged) without the consent either of the owner of the soil or the commoners--who, however, are entitled to compensation if they can show that they are injuriously affected. Outside the metropolitan police district a provisional order for regulation may be made under the Commons Act 1876, with the consent of the owner of the soil and of persons representing two-thirds in value of all the interests in the common. And under an act passed in 1899 the council of any urban or rural district may, with the approval of the Board of Agriculture and without recourse to parliament, make a scheme for the management of any common within its district, provided no notice of dissent is served on the board by the lord of the manor or by persons representing one-third in value of such interests in the common as are affected by the scheme. There is yet another way of protecting a common. A parish council may, by agreement, acquire an interest in it, and may make by-laws for its regulation under the Local Government Act 1894. The acts of 1894 and 1899 undoubtedly proceed on right lines. For, with the growth of efficient local government, commons naturally fall to be protected and improved by the authority of the district.

Statistics.

It remains to say a word as to the extent of common land still remaining open in England and Wales. In 1843 it was estimated that there were still 10,000,000 acres of common land and common-field land. In 1874 another return made by the inclosure commission made a guess of 2,632,772. These two returns were made from the same materials, viz. the tithe commutation awards. As less than 700,000 acres had been inclosed in the intervening period, it is obvious that the two estimates are mutually destructive. In July 1875 another version was given in the Return of Landowners (generally known as the Modern Domesday Book), compiled from the valuation lists made for the purposes of rating. This return put the commons of the country (not including common fields) at 1,542,648 acres. It is impossible to view any of these returns as accurate. Those compiled from the tithe commutation awards are based largely on estimates, since there are many parishes where the tithes had not been commuted. On the other hand, the valuation lists do not show waste and unoccupied land (which is not rated), and consequently the information as to such lands in the Return of Landowners was based on any materials which might happen to be at the disposal of the clerk of the guardians. All we can say, therefore, is that the acreage of the remaining common land of the country is probably somewhere between 1,500,000 and 2,000,000 acres. It is most capriciously distributed. In the Midlands there is very little to be found, while in a county of poor soil, like Surrey, nearly every parish has its common, and there are large tracts of heath and moor. In 1866, returns were made to parliament by the overseers of the poor of the commons within 15 and within 25 m. of Charing Cross. The acreage within the larger area was put at 38,450 acres, and within the smaller at 13,301; but owing to the difference of opinion which sometimes prevails upon the question, whether land is common or not, and the carelessness of some parish authorities as to the accuracy of their returns, even these figures cannot be taken as more than approximately correct. The metropolitan police district, within which the Metropolitan Commons Acts are in force, approaches in extent to a circle of 15 miles' radius. Within this district nearly 12,000 acres of common land have been put under local management, either by means of the Commons Acts or under special legislation. London is fortunate in having secured so much recreation ground on its borders. But when the enormous population of the capital and its rapid growth and expansion are considered, the conclusion is inevitable, that not one acre of common land within an easy railway journey of the metropolis can be spared.

AUTHORITIES.--Marshall, _Elementary and Practical Treatise on Landed Property_ (London, 1804); F. W. Maitland, _Domesday Book and Beyond_ (Cambridge, 1897); _Borough and Township_ (Cambridge, 1898); F. Seebohm, _The English Village Community_ (London, 1883); Williams, Joshua, _Rights of Common_ (London, 1880); C. I. Elton, _A Treatise on Commons and Waste Lands_ (1868); T. E. Scrutton, _On Commons and Common Fields_ (1887); H. R. Woolrych, _Rights of Common_ (1850); G. Shaw-Lefevre, _English Commons and Forests_ (London, 1894); Sir W. Hunter, _The Preservation of Open Spaces_ (London, 1896); "The Movements for the Inclosure and Preservation of Open Lands," _Journal of the Royal Statistical Society_, vol. lx. part ii. (June 1897); _Returns to House of Commons_ (1843), No. 325; (1870), No. 326; (1874), No. 85; _Return of Landowners_ (1875); _Annual Reports of Inclosure Commission and Board of Agriculture_; Revised Statutes and Statutes at large. (R. H.*)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] For the commons (_communitates_) in a socio-political sense see REPRESENTATION and PARLIAMENT.

[2] There is an entry on the court rolls of the manor of Wimbledon of the division amongst the inhabitants of the vill of the crab-apples growing on the common.

COMMONWEALTH, a term generally synonymous with commonweal, i.e. public welfare, but more particularly signifying a form of government in which the general public have a direct voice. "The Commonwealth" is used in a special sense to denote the period in English history between the execution of Charles I. in 1649 and the Restoration in 1660. Commonwealth is also the official designation in America of the states of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Kentucky. The Commonwealth of Australia is the title of the federation of Australian colonies carried out in 1900.

COMMUNE (Med. Lat. _communia_, Lat. _communis_, common), in its most general sense, a group of persons acting together for purposes of self-government, especially in towns. (See BOROUGH, and COMMUNE, MEDIEVAL, below.) "Commune" (Fr. _commune_, Ital. _comune_, Ger. _Gemeinde_, &c.) is now the term generally applied to the smallest administrative division in many European countries. (See the sections dealing with the administration of these countries under their several headings.) "The Commune" is the name given to the period of the history of Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871, during which the commune of Paris attempted to set up its authority against the National Assembly at Versailles. It was a political movement, intended to replace the centralized national organization by one based on a federation of communes. Hence the "communists" were also called "federalists." It had nothing to do with the social theories of Communism (q.v.). (See FRANCE: _HISTORY_.)

COMMUNE, MEDIEVAL. Under this head it is proposed to give a short account of the rise and development of towns in central and western continental Europe since the downfall of the Roman Empire. All these, including also the British towns (for which, however, see BOROUGH), may be said to have formed one unity, inasmuch as all arose under similar conditions, economic, legal and political, irrespective of local peculiarities. Kindred economic conditions prevailed in all the former provinces of the Western empire, while new law concepts were everywhere introduced by the Germanic invaders. It is largely for the latter reason that it seems advisable to begin with an account of the German towns, the term German to correspond to the limits of the old kingdom of Germany, comprising the present empire, German Austria, German Switzerland, Holland and a large portion of Belgium. In their development the problem, as it were, worked out least tainted by foreign interference, showing at the same time a rich variety in detail; and it may also be said that their constitutional and economic history has been more thoroughly investigated than any other.

Like the others, the German towns should be considered from three points of view, viz. as jurisdictional units, as self-administrative units and as economic units. One of the chief distinguishing features of early as opposed to modern town-life is that each town formed a jurisdictional district distinct from the country around. Another trait, more in accordance with the conditions of to-day, is that local self-government was more fully developed and strongly marked in the towns than without. And, thirdly, each town in economic matters followed a policy as independent as possible of that of any other town or of the country in general. The problem is, how this state of things arose.

From this point of view the German towns may be divided into two main classes: those that gradually resuscitated on the ruins of former Roman cities in the Rhine and Danube countries, and those that were newly founded at a later date in the interior.[1] Foremost in importance among the former stand the episcopal cities. Most of these had never been entirely destroyed during the Germanic invasion. Roman civic institutions perished; but probably parts of the population survived, and small Christian congregations with their bishops in most cases seem to have weathered all storms. Much of the city walls presumably remained standing, and within them German communities soon settled.

In the 10th century it became the policy of the German emperors to hand over to the bishops full jurisdictional and administrative powers within their cities. The bishop henceforward directly or indirectly appointed all officers for the town's government. The chief of these was usually the _advocatus_ or _Vogt_, some neighbouring noble who served as the proctor of the church in all secular affairs. It was his business to preside three times a year over the chief law-court, the so-called _echte_ or _ungebotene Ding_, under the cognizance of which fell all cases relating to real property, personal freedom, bloodshed and robbery. For the rest of the legal business and as president of the ordinary court he appointed a _Schultheiss_, _centenarius_ or _causidicus_. Other officers were the _Burggraf_[2] or _praefectus_ for military matters, including the preservation of the town's defences, walls, moat, bridges and streets, to whom also appertained some jurisdiction over the craft-gilds in matters relating to their crafts; further the customs-officer or _teleonarius_ and the mint-master or _monetae magister_. It was not, however, the fact of their being placed under the bishop that constituted these towns as separate jurisdictional units. The chief feature rather is the existence within their walls of a special law, distinct in important points from that of the country at large. The towns enjoyed a special peace, as it was called, i.e. breaches of the peace were more severely punished if committed in a town than elsewhere. Besides, the inhabitants might be sued before the town court only, and to fugitives from the country who had taken refuge in the town belonged a similar privilege. This special legal status probably arose from the towns being considered in the first place as the king's fortresses[3] or burgs (see BOROUGH), and, therefore, as participating in the special peace enjoyed by the king's palace. Hence the terms "burgh," "borough" in English, _baurgs_ in Gothic, the earliest Germanic designations for a town; "burgher," "burgess" for its inhabitants. What struck the townless early Germans most about the Roman towns was their mighty walls. Hence they applied to all fortified habitations the term in use for their own primitive fortifications; the walls remained with them the main feature distinguishing a town from a village; and the fact of the town being a fortified place, likewise necessitated the special provisions mentioned for maintaining the peace.

The new towns in the interior of Germany were founded on land belonging to the founder, some ecclesiastical or lay lord, and frequently adjoining the cathedral close of one of the new sees or the lord's castle, and they were laid out according to a regular plan. The most important feature was the market-square, often surrounded by arcades with stalls for the sale of the principal commodities, and with a number of straight streets leading thence to the city gates.[4] As for the fortifications, some time naturally passed before they were completed. Furthermore, the governmental machinery would be less complex than in the older towns. The legal peculiarities distinguishing town and country, on the other hand, may be said to have been conferred on the new towns in a more clearly defined form from the beginning.

An important difference lay in the mode of settlement. There is evidence that in the quondam Roman towns the German newcomers settled much as in a village, i.e. each full member of the community had a certain portion of arable land allotted to him and a share in the common. Their pursuits would at first be mainly agricultural. The new towns, on the other hand, general economic conditions having meanwhile begun to undergo a marked change, were founded with the intention of establishing centres of trade. Periodical markets, weekly or annual, had preceded them, which already enjoyed the special protection of the king's ban, acts of violence against traders visiting them or on their way towards them being subject to special punishment. The new towns may be regarded as markets made permanent. The settlers invited were merchants (_mercatores personati_) and handicraftsmen. The land now allotted to each member of the community was just large enough for a house and yard, stabling and perhaps a small garden (50 by 100 ft. at Freiburg, 60 by 100 ft. at Bern). These building plots were given as free property or, more frequently, at a merely nominal rent (_Wurtzins_) with the right of free disposal, the only obligation being that of building a house. All that might be required besides would be a common for the pasture of the burgesses' cattle.

The example thus set was readily followed in the older towns. The necessary land was placed at the disposal of new settlers, either by the members of the older agricultural community, or by the various churches. The immigrants were of widely differing status, many being serfs who came either with or without their lords' permission. The necessity of putting a stop to belated prosecutions on this account in the town court led to the acceptance of the rule that nobody who had lived in a town undisturbed for the term of a year and a day could any longer be claimed by a lord as his serf. But even those who had migrated into a town with their lords' consent could not very well for long continue in serfdom. When, on the other hand, certain bishops attempted to treat all new-comers to their city as serfs, the emperor Henry V. in charters for Spires and Worms proclaimed that in these towns all serf-like conditions should cease. This ruling found expression in the famous saying: _Stadtluft macht frei_, "town-air renders free." As may be imagined, this led to a rapid increase in population, mainly during the 11th to 13th centuries. There would be no difficulty for the immigrants to find a dwelling, or to make a living, since most of them would be versed in one or other of the crafts in practice among villagers.

The most important further step in the history of the towns was the establishment of an organ of self-government, the town-council (_Rat_, _consilium_, its members, _Ratmänner_, _consules_, less frequently _consiliarii_), with one, two or more burgomasters (_Bürgermeister_, _magistri civium_, _proconsules_) at its head. (It was only after the Renaissance that the town-council came to be styled _senate_, and the burgomasters in Latin documents, _consules_.) As _units of local government_ the towns must be considered as originally placed on the same legal basis as the villages, viz. as having the right of taking care of all common interests below the cognizance of the public courts or of those of their lord.[5] In the towns, however, this right was strengthened at an early date by the _jus negotiale_. At least as early as the beginning of the 11th century, but probably long before that date, mercantile communities claimed the right, confirmed by the emperors, of settling mercantile disputes according to a law of their own, to the horror of certain conservative-minded clerics.[6] Furthermore, in the rapidly developing towns, opportunities for the exercise of self-administrative functions constantly increased. The new self-governing body soon began to legislate in matters of local government, imposing fines for the breach of its by-laws. Thus it assumed a jurisdiction, partly concurrent with that of the lord, which it further extended to breaches of the peace. And, finally, it raised funds by means of an excise-duty, _Ungeld_ (cf. the English _malatolta_) or _Accise_, _Zeise_. In the older and larger towns it soon went beyond what the bishops thought proper to tolerate; conflicts ensued; and in the 13th century several bishops obtained decrees in the imperial court, either to suppress the _Rat_ altogether, or to make it subject to their nomination, and more particularly to abolish the _Ungeld_, as detrimental to episcopal finances. In the long run, however, these attempts proved of little avail.

Meanwhile the tendency towards self-government spread even to the lower ranks of town society, resulting in the establishment of craft-gilds. From a very early period there is reason to believe merchants among themselves formed gilds for social and religious purposes, and for the furtherance of their economic interests. These gilds would, where they existed, no doubt also influence the management of town affairs; but nowhere has the _Rat_, as used to be thought, developed out of a gild, nor has the latter anywhere in Germany played a part at all similar in importance to that of the English gild merchant, the only exception being for a time the _Richerzeche_, or Gild of the Rich of Cologne, from early times by far the largest, the richest, and the most important trading centre among German cities, and therefore provided with an administration more complex, and in some respects more primitive, than any other. On the other hand, the most important commodities offered for sale in the market had been subject to official examination already in Carolingian times. Bakers', butchers', shoemakers' stalls were grouped together in the market-place to facilitate control, and with the same object in view a master was appointed for each craft as its responsible representative. By and by these crafts or "offices" claimed the right of electing their master and of assisting him in examining the goods, and even of framing by-laws regulating the quality of the wares and the process of their manufacture. The bishops at first resented these attempts at self-management, as they had done in the case of the town council, and imperial legislation in their interests was obtained. But each craft at the same time formed a society for social, beneficial and religious purposes, and, as these were entirely in accordance with the wishes of the clerical authorities, the other powers could not in the long run be withheld, including that of forcing all followers of any craft to join the gild (_Zunftzwang_). Thus the official inspection of markets, community of interests on the part of the craftsmen, and co-operation for social and religious ends, worked together in the formation of craft-gilds. It is not suggested that in each individual town the rise of the gilds was preceded by an organization of crafts on the part of the lord and his officers; but it is maintained that as a general thing voluntary organization could hardly have proceeded on such orderly lines as on the whole it did, unless the framework had in the first instance been laid down by the authorities: much as in modern times the working together in factories has practically been an indispensable preliminary to the formation of trade unions. Much less would the principle of forced entrance have found such ready acceptance both on the part of the authorities and on that of the men, unless it had previously been in full practice and recognition under the system of official market-control. The different names for the societies, viz. _fraternitas_, _Brüderschaft_, _officium_, _Amt_, _condictum_, _Zunft_, _unio_, _Innung_, do not signify different kinds of societies, but only different aspects of the same thing. The word _Gilde_ alone forms an exception, inasmuch as, generally speaking, it was used by merchant gilds only.[7]

From an early date the towns, more particularly the older episcopal cities, took a part in imperial politics. Legally the bishops were in their cities mere representatives of the imperial government. This fact found formal expression mainly in two ways. The _Vogt_, although appointed by the bishop, received the "ban," i.e. the power of having justice executed, which he passed on to the lesser officers, from the king or emperor direct. Secondly, whenever the emperor held a _curia generalis_ (or general assembly, or diet) in one of the episcopal cities, and for a week before and after, all jurisdictional and administrative power reverted to him and his immediate officers. The citizens on their part clung to this connexion and made use of it whenever their independence was threatened by their bishops, who strongly inclined to consider themselves lords of their cathedral cities, much as if these had been built on church-lands. As early as 1073, therefore, we find the citizens of Worms successfully rising against their bishop in order to provide the emperor Henry IV. with a refuge against the rebellious princes. Those of Cologne made a similar attempt in 1074. But a second class of imperial cities (_Reichsstädte_), much more numerous than the former, consisted of those founded on demesne-land belonging either to the Empire or to one of the families who rose to imperial rank. This class was largely reinforced, when after the extinction of the royal house of Hohenstaufen in the 13th century, a great number of towns founded by them on their demesne successfully claimed immediate subjection to the crown. About this time, during the interregnum, a federation of more than a hundred towns was formed, beginning on the Rhine, but spreading as far as Bremen in the north, Zürich in the south, and Regensburg in the east, with the object of helping to preserve the peace. After the death of King William in 1256, they resolved to recognize no king unless unanimously elected. This league was joined by a powerful group of princes and nobles and found recognition by the prince-electors of the Empire; but for want of leadership it did not stand the test, when Richard of Cornwall and Alphonso of Castile were elected rival kings in 1257.[8] In the following centuries the imperial cities in south Germany, where most of them were situated, repeatedly formed leagues to protect their interests against the power of the princes and the nobles, and destructive wars were waged; but no great political issue found solution, the relative position of the parties after each war remaining much what it had been before. On the part of the towns this was mainly due to lack of leadership and of unity of purpose. At the time of the Reformation the imperial towns, like most of the others, stood forward as champions of the new cause and did valuable service in upholding and defending it. After that, however, their political part was played out, mainly because they proved unable to keep up with modern conditions of warfare. It should be stated that seven among the episcopal cities, viz. Cologne, Mainz, Worms, Spires, Strassburg, Basel and Regensburg, claimed a privileged position as "Free Cities," but neither is the ground for this claim clearly established, nor its nature well defined. The general obligations of the imperial cities towards the Empire were the payment of an annual fixed tax and the furnishing of a number of armed men for imperial wars, and from these the above-named towns claimed some measure of exemption. Some of the imperial cities lost their independence at an early date, as unredeemed pledges to some prince who had advanced money to the emperor. Others seceded as members of the Swiss Confederation. But a considerable number survived until the reorganization of the Empire in 1803. At the peace in 1815, however, only four were spared, namely, Frankfort, Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck, these being practically the only ones still in a sufficiently flourishing and economically independent position to warrant such preferential treatment. But finally Frankfort, having chosen the wrong side in the war of 1866, was annexed by Prussia, and only the three seaboard towns remain as full members of the new confederate Empire under the style of _Freie und Hansestädte_. But until modern times most of the larger _Landstädte_ or mesne-towns for all intents and purposes were as independent under their lords as the imperial cities were under the emperor. They even followed a foreign policy of their own, concluded treaties with foreign powers or made war upon them. Nearly all the _Hanseatic towns_ belonged to this category. With others like Bremen, Hamburg and Magdeburg, it was long in the balance which class they belonged to. All towns of any importance, however, were for a considerable time far ahead of the principalities in administration. It was largely this fact that gave them power. When, therefore, from about the 15th century the princely territories came to be better organized, much of the _raison d'être_ for the exceptional position held by the towns disappeared. The towns from an early date made it their policy to suppress the exercise of all handicrafts in the open country. On the other hand, they sought an increase of power by extending rights of citizenship to numerous individual inhabitants of the neighbouring villages (_Pfalbürger_, a term not satisfactorily explained). By this and other means, e.g. the purchase of estates by citizens, many towns gradually acquired a considerable territory. These tendencies both princes and lesser nobles naturally tried to thwart, and the mediate towns or _Landstädte_ were finally brought to stricter subjection, at least in the greater principalities such as Austria and Brandenburg. Besides, the less favourably situated towns suffered through the concentration of trade in the hands of their more fortunate sisters. But the economic decay and consequent loss of political influence among both imperial and territorial towns must be chiefly ascribed to inner causes.

Certain leading political economists, notably K. Bücher (_Die Bevölkerung von Frankfurt a. M. im 14ten und 15ten Jahrhundert_, i., Tübingen, 1886; _Die Entstehung der Volkswirtschaft_, 5th ed., Tübingen, 1906), and, in a modified form, W. Sombart (_Der moderne Kapitalismus_, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1902), have propounded the doctrine of one gradual progression from an agricultural state to modern capitalistic conditions. This theory, however, is nothing less than an outrage on history. As a matter of fact, as far as modern Europe is concerned, there has twice been a progression, separated by a period of retrogression, and it is to the latter that Bücher's picture of the agricultural and strictly protectionist town (the _geschlossene Stadtwirtschaft_) of the 14th and 15th centuries belongs, while Sombart's notion of an entire absence of a spirit of capitalistic enterprise before the middle of the 15th century in Europe north of the Alps, or the 14th century in Italy, is absolutely fantastic.[9] The period of the rise of cities till well on in the 13th century was naturally a period of expansion and of a considerable amount of freedom of trade. It was only afterwards that a protectionist spirit gained the upper hand, and each town made it its policy to restrict as far as possible the trade of strangers. In this revolution the rise of the lower strata of the population to power played an important part.

The craft-gilds had remained subordinate to the _Rat_, but by-and-by they claimed a share in the government of the towns. Originally any inhabitant holding a certain measure of land, freehold or subject to the mere nominal ground-rent above-mentioned, was a full citizen independently of his calling, the clergy and the lord's retainers and servants of whatever rank, who claimed exemption from scot and lot, to use the English formula, alone excepted. The majority of the artisans, however, were not in this happy position. Moreover, the town council, instead of being freely elected, filled up vacancies in its ranks by co-optation, with the result that all power became vested in a limited number of rich families. Against this state of things the crafts rebelled, alleging mismanagement, malversation and the withholding of justice. During the 14th and 15th centuries revolutions and counter-revolutions, sometimes accompanied by considerable slaughter, were frequent, and a great variety of more democratic constitutions were tried. Zürich, however, is the only German place where a kind of _tyrannis_, so frequent in Italy, came to be for a while established. On the whole it must be said that in those towns where the democratic party gained the upper hand an unruly policy abroad and a narrow-minded protection at home resulted. An inclination to hasty measures of war and an unwillingness to observe treaties among the democratic towns of Swabia were largely responsible for the disasters of the war of the Swabian League in the 14th century. At home, whereas at first markets had been free and open to any comer, a more and more protective policy set in, traders from other towns being subjected more and more to vexatious restrictions. It was also made increasingly difficult to obtain membership in the craft-gilds, high admission fees and so-called masterpieces being made a condition. Finally, the number of members became fixed, and none but members' sons and sons-in-law, or members' widows' husbands were received. The first result was the formation of a numerous proletariate of life-long assistants and of men and women forcibly excluded from following any honest trade; and the second consequence, the economic ruin of the town to the exclusive advantage of a limited number. From the end of the 15th century population in many towns decreased, and not only most of the smaller ones, but even some once important centres of trade, sank to the level almost of villages. Those cities, on the other hand, where the mercantile community remained in power, like Nuremberg and the seaboard towns, on the whole followed a more enlightened policy, although even they could not quite keep clear of the ever-growing protective tendencies of the time. Many even of the richer towns, notably Nuremberg, ran into debt irretrievably, owing partly to an exorbitant expenditure on magnificent public buildings and extensive fortifications, calculated to resist modern instruments of destruction, partly to a faulty administration of the public debt. From the 13th century the towns had issued ("sold," as it was called) annuities, either for life or for perpetuity in ever-increasing number, until it was at last found impossible to raise the funds necessary to pay them.

One of the principal achievements of the towns lay in the field of _legislation_. Their law was founded originally on the general national (or provincial) law, on custom, and on special privilege. New foundations were regularly provided by their lord with a charter embodying the most important points of the special law of the town in question. This miniature code would thenceforth be developed by means of statutes passed by the town council. The codification of the law of Augsburg in 1276 already fills a moderate volume in print (ed. by Christian Meyer, Augsburg, 1872). Later foundations were frequently referred by their founders to the nearest existing town of importance, though that might belong to a different lord. Afterwards, if a question in law arose which the court of a younger town found itself unable to answer, the court next senior in affiliation was referred to, which in turn would apply to the court above, until at last that of the original mother town was reached, whose decision was final. This system was chiefly developed in the colonial east, where most towns were affiliated directly or indirectly either to Lübeck or to Magdeburg; but it was by no means unknown in the home country. A number of collections of such judgments (_Schöffensprüche_) have been published. It is also worth mentioning that it was usual to read the police by-laws of a town at regular intervals to the assembled citizens in a morning-speech (_Morgenspraehe_).[10]

To turn to _Italy_, the country for so many centuries in close political connexion with Germany, the foremost thing to be noted is that here the towns grew to even greater independence, many of them in the end acknowledging no overlord whatever after the yoke of the German kings had been shaken off. On the other hand, nearly all of them in the long run fell under the sway of some local tyrant-dynasty.

From Roman times the country had remained thickly studded with towns, each being the seat of a bishop. From this arose their most important peculiarity. For it was largely due to an identification of dioceses and municipal territories that the nobles of the surrounding country took up their headquarters in the cities, either voluntarily or because forced to do so by the citizens, who made it their policy thus to turn possible opponents into partisans and defenders. In Germany, on the other hand, nobles and knights were carefully shut out so long as the town's independence was at stake, the members of a princely garrison being required to take up their abode in the citadel, separated from the town proper by a wall. Only in the comparatively few cathedral cities this rule does not obtain. It will be seen that, in consequence of this, municipal life in Italy was from the first more complex, the main constituent parts of the population being the _capitani_, or greater nobles, the _valvassori_, or lesser nobles (knights) and the people (_popolo_). Furthermore, the bishops being in most cases the exponents of the imperial power, the struggle for freedom from the latter ended in a radical riddance from all temporal episcopal government as well. Foremost in this struggle stood the cities of Lombardy, most of which all through the barbarian invasions had kept their walls in repair and maintained some importance as economic centres, and whose _popolo_ largely consisted of merchants of some standing. As early as the 8th century the laws of the Langobard King Aistulf distinguished three classes of merchants (_negotiantes_), among whom the _majores et potentes_ were required to keep themselves provided with horse, lance, shield and a cuirass. The valley of the Po formed the main artery of trade between western Europe and the East, Milan being besides the point of convergence for all Alpine passes west of the Brenner (the St Gotthard, however, was not made accessible until early in the 13th century). Lombard merchants soon spread all over western Europe, a chief source of their ever-increasing wealth being their employment as bankers of the papal see.

The struggle against the bishops, in which a clamour for a reform of clerical life and a striving for local self-government were strangely interwoven, had raged for a couple of generations when King Henry V., great patron of municipal freedom as he was, legalized by a series of charters the _status quo_ (Cremona, 1114, Mantua, 1116). But under his weak successors the independence of the cities reached such a pitch as to be manifestly intolerable to an energetic monarch like Frederick I. Besides, the more powerful among them would subdue or destroy their weaker neighbours, and two parties were formed, one headed by Milan, the other by Cremona. Como and Lodi complained of the violence used to them by the former city. Therefore in 1158 a commission was appointed embracing four Roman legists as representatives of the emperor, as well as those of fourteen towns, to examine into the imperial and municipal rights. The claims of the imperial government, jurisdictional and other, were acknowledged, only such rights of self-government being admitted as could be shown to be grounded on imperial charters. But when it came to carrying into effect these Roncaglian decrees, a general rising resulted. Milan was besieged by the emperor and destroyed in 1162 in accordance with the verdict of her rivals. Nevertheless, after a defeat at Legnano in 1176, Frederick was forced to renounce all pretensions to interference with the government of the cities, merely retaining an overlordship that was not much more than formal (peace of Constance in 1183). All through this war the towns had been supported by Pope Alexander III. Similarly under Frederick II. the renewal of the struggle between emperor and pope dovetailed with a fresh outbreak of the war with the cities, who feared lest an imperial triumph over the church would likewise threaten their independence. The emperor's death finally decided the issue in their favour.

Constitutionally, municipal freedom was based on the formation of a commune headed by elected consuls, usually to the number of twelve, representing the three orders of _capitani_, _valvassori_ and _popolo_. Frequently, however, the number actually wielding power was much more restricted, and their position altogether may rather be likened to that of their Roman predecessors than to that of their German contemporaries. In all important matters they asked the advice and support of "wise men," _sapientes, discretiores, prudentes_, as a body called the _credenza_, while the popular assembly (_parlamentum, concio, consilium generale_) was the true sovereign. The consuls with the assistance of _judices_ also presided in the law-courts; but besides the consuls of the commune there were _consules de placitis_ specially appointed for jurisdictional purposes.

In spite of these multifarious safeguards, however, family factions early destroyed the fabric of liberty, especially as, just as there was an imperial, or Ghibelline, and a papal, or Guelph party among the cities as a whole, thus also within each town each faction would allege adherence to and claim support by one or other of the great world-powers. To get out of the dilemma of party-government, resort was thereupon had to the appointment as chief magistrate of a _podestà_ from among the nobles or knights of a different part of the country not mixed up with the local feuds. But the end was in most cases the establishment of the despotism of some leading family, such as the Visconti at Milan, the Gonzaga at Mantua, the della Scala in Verona and the Carrara in Padua.

In Tuscany, the historic rôle of the cities, with the exception of Pisa, begins at a later date, largely owing to the overlordship of the powerful margraves of the house of Canossa and their successors, who here represented the emperor. Pisa, however, together with Genoa, all through the 11th century distinguished itself by war waged in the western Mediterranean and its isles against the Saracens. Both cities, along with Venice, but especially the Genoese, also did excellent service in reducing the Syrian coast towns still in the hands of the Turks in the reigns of Kings Baldwin I. and Baldwin II. of Jerusalem, while more particularly Pisa with great constancy placed her fleet at the disposal of the Hohenstaufen emperors for warfare with Sicily.

Meanwhile communes with consuls at their head were formed in Tuscany much as elsewhere. On the other hand the Tuscan cities managed to prolong the reign of liberty to a much later epoch, no _podestà_ ever quite succeeding here in his attempts to establish the rule of his dynasty. Even when in the second half of the 15th century the Medici in Florence attained to power, the form at least of a republic was still maintained, and not till 1531 did one of them, supported by Charles V., assume the ducal title.

Long before the last stage, the rule of _signori_, was reached, however, the commune as originally constituted had everywhere undergone radical changes. As early as the 13th century the lower orders among the inhabitants formed an organization under officers of their own, side by side with that of the commune, which was controlled by the great and the rich; e.g. at Florence the people in 1250 rose against the turbulent nobles and chose a _capitano del popolo_ with twelve _anziani_, two from each of the six city-wards (_sestieri_), as his council. The _popolo_ itself was divided into twenty armed companies, each under a _gonfaloniere_. But later the _arti_ (craft-gilds), some of whom, however, can be shown to have existed under consuls of their own as early as 1203, attained supreme importance, and in 1282 the government was placed in the hands of their _priori_, under the name of the _signoria_. The Guelph nobles were at first admitted to a share in the government, on condition of their entering a gild, but in 1293 even this privilege was withdrawn. The _ordinamenti della giustizia_ of that year robbed the nobility of all political power. The lesser or lower _arti_, on the other hand, were conceded a full share in it, and a _gonfaloniere della giustizia_ was placed at the head of the militia. In the 14th century twelve _buoni uomini_ representing the wards (_sestieri_) were superadded, all these dignitaries holding office for two months only. And besides all these, there existed three competing chief justices and commanders of the forces called in from abroad and holding office for six months, viz. the _podestà_, the _capitano del popolo_, and the _esecutore della giustizia_. In spite of all this complicated machinery of checks and balances, revolution followed upon revolution, nor could an occasional reign of terror be prevented like that of the Signore Gauthier de Brienne, duke of Athens (1342-1343). It was not till after a rising of the lowest order of all, the industrial labourers, had been suppressed in 1378 (_tumulto dei Ciompi_, the wool-combers), that quieter times ensued under the wise leadership, first of the Albizzi and finally of the Medici.

The history of the other Tuscan towns was equally tumultuous, all of them save Lucca, after many fitful changes finally passing under the sway of Florence, or the grand-duchy of Tuscany, as the state was now called. Pisa, one time the mightiest, had been crushed between its inland neighbour and its maritime rival Genoa (battle of Meloria, 1282).

Apart in its constitutional development from all other towns in Italy, and it might be added, in Europe, stands Venice. Almost alone among Italian cities its origin does not go back to Roman times. It was not till the invasions of Hun and Langobard that fugitives from the Venetian mainland took refuge among the poor fishermen on the small islands in the lagoons and on the _lido_--the narrow stretch of coast-line which separates the lagoons from the Adriatic--some at Grado, some at Malamocco, others on Rialto. A number of small communities was formed under elected tribunes, acknowledging as their sovereign the emperor at Constantinople. Treaties of commerce were concluded with the Langobard kings, thus assuring a market for the sale of imports from the East and for the purchase of agricultural produce. Just before or after A.D. 700 the young republic seems to have thrown off the rule of the Byzantine _dux Histriae et Venetiae_ and elected a duke (_doge_) of its own, in whom was vested the executive power, the right to convoke the popular assembly (_concio_) and appoint tribunes and justices. Political unity was thus established, but it was not till after another century of civil war that Rialto was definitely chosen the seat of government and thus the foundation of the present city laid. After a number of attempts to establish a hereditary dukedom, Duke Domenico Flabianico in 1032 passed a law providing that no duke was to appoint his successor or procure him to be elected during his own lifetime. Besides this two councils were appointed without whose consent nothing of importance was to be done. After the murder by the people of Duke Vitale Michiel in 1172, who had suffered naval defeat, it was deemed necessary to introduce a stricter constitutional order. According to the orthodox account, some details of which have, however, recently been impugned,[11] the irregular popular meeting was replaced by a great council of from 450 to 480 members elected annually by special appointed electors in equal proportion from each of the six wards. One of the functions of this body was to appoint most of the state officials or their electors. There was also an executive council of six, one from each ward. Besides these, the duke, who was henceforward elected by a body of eleven electors from among the aristocracy, would invite persons of prominence (the _pregadi_) in order to secure their assent and co-operation, whenever a measure of importance was to be placed before the great council. Only under extraordinary circumstances the _concio_ was still to be called. The tenure of the duke's office was for life. The general tendency of constitutional development in Venice henceforward ran in an exactly opposite direction to that of all other Italian cities towards a growing restriction of popular rights, until in 1296 the great council was for all future time closed to all but the descendants of a limited number of noble families, whose names were in that year entered in the Golden Book. It still remained to appoint a board to superintend the executive power. These were the _avvogadori di commune_, and, since Tiepolo's conspiracy in 1310, the _Consiglio dei Dieci_, the Council of Ten, which controlled the whole of the state, and out of which there developed in the 16th century the state inquisition.

While in all prominent Italian cities the leading classes of the community were largely made up of merchants, in Venice the nobility was entirely commercial. The marked steadiness in the evolution of the Venetian constitution is no doubt largely due to this fact. Elsewhere the presence of large numbers of turbulent country nobles furnished the first germ for the unending dissensions which ruined such promising beginnings. In Venice, on the contrary, its businesslike habits of mind led the ruling class to make what concessions might seem needful, while both the masses and the head of the state were kept in due subjection to the laws. Too much stability, however, finally changed into stagnation, and decay followed. The foreign policy of Venice was likewise mainly dictated by commercial motives, the chief objectives being commercial privilege in the Byzantine empire and in the Frankish states in the East, domination of the Adriatic, occupation of a sufficient hinterland on the _terra firma_, non-sufferance of the rivalry of Genoa, and, finally, maintenance of trade-supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean through a series of alternating wars and treaties with Turkey, the lasting monument of which was the destruction of the Parthenon in 1685 by a Venetian bomb. At last the proud republic surrendered to Napoleon without a stroke.

The cities of southern Italy do not here call for special attention. Several of them developed a certain amount of independence and free institutions, and took an important part in trade with the East, notably so Amalfi. But after incorporation in the Norman kingdom all individual history for them came to an end.

Rome, finally, derived its importance from being the capital of the popes and from its proud past. From time to time spasmodic attempts were made to revive the forms of the ancient republic, as under Arnold of Brescia in the 12th and by Niccolò di Rienzo in the 14th century; but there was no body of stalwart, self-reliant citizens to support such measures: nothing but turbulent nobles on the one hand and a rabble on the other.

In no country is there such a clear grouping of the towns on geographical lines as in _France_, these geographical lines, of course, having in the first instance been drawn by historical causes. Another feature is the extent to which, in the unruly times preceding the civic movement, serfdom had spread among the inhabitants even of the towns throughout the greater part of the country, and the application of feudal ideas to town government. In some other respects the constitution of the cities in the south of France, as will be seen, has more in common with that of the Italian communes, and that of the northern French towns with those of Germany, than the constitutions of the various groups of French towns have among each other.

In the group of the _villes consulaires_, comprising all important towns in the south, the executive was, as in Italy, in the hands of a body of _consules_, whose number in most cases rose to twelve. They were elected for the term of one year and re-eligible only after an interval, and they were supported by a municipal council (_commune consilium, consilium magnum_ or _secretum_ or _generale_, or _colloquium_) and a general assembly (_parlamentum, concio, commune consilium, commune, universitas civium_), which, however, as a rule was far from comprising the whole body of citizens. Another feature which these southern towns had in common with their Italian neighbours was the prominent part played by the native nobility. The relations with the clergy were generally of a more friendly character than in the north, and in some cases the bishop or archbishop even retained a considerable influence in the management of the town's affairs. Dissensions among the citizens, or between the nobles and the bourgeois, frequently ended in the adoption of a _podestat_. And in several cities of the Languedoc, each of the two classes composing the population retained its separate laws and customs. It is matter of dispute whether vestiges of Roman institutions had survived in these parts down to the time when the new constitutions sprang into being; but all investigators are pretty well agreed that in no case did such remnants prove of any practical importance. Roman law, however, was never quite superseded by Germanic law, as appears from the _statuts municipaux_. In the improvement and expansion of these statutes a remarkable activity was displayed by means of an annual _correctio statutorum_ carried out by specially appointed _statutores_. In the north, on the other hand, the _carta communiae_, forming as it were the basis of the commune's existence, seems to have been considered almost as something sacred and unchangeable.

The constitutional history of the communes in northern France in a number of points widely differed from that of these _villes consulaires_. First of all the movement for their establishment in most cases was to a far greater degree of a revolutionary character. These revolutions were in the first place directed against the bishops; but the position both of the higher clergy and of the nobility was here of a nature distinctly more hostile to the aspirations of the citizens than it was in the south. As a result the clergy and the nobles were excluded from all membership of the commune, except inasmuch as that those residing in the town might be required to swear not to conspire against it. The commune (_communia, communa, communio, communitas, conjuratio, confoederatio_) was formed by an oath of mutual help (_sacramentum, juramentum communiae_). The members were described as _jurati_ (also _burgenses, vicini, amici_), although in some communes that term was reserved for the members of the governing body. None but men of free and legitimate birth, and free from debt and contagious or incurable disease were received. The members of the governing body were styled _jurés_ (_jurati_), _pairs_ (_pares_) or _échevins_ (_scabini_). The last was, however, as in Germany, more properly the title of the jurors in the court of justice, which in many cases remained in the hands of the lord. In some cases the town council developed out of this body; but in the larger cities, like Rouen, several councils worked and all these names were employed side by side. The number of the members of the governing body proper varies from twelve to a hundred, and its functions were both judicial and administrative. There was also known an arrangement corresponding to the German _alte und sitzende Rat_, viz. of retired members who could be called in to lend assistance on important occasions. The most striking distinction, however, as against the _villes consulaires_ was the elevation of the president of the body to the position of _maire_ or _mayeur_ (sometimes also called _prévôt_, _praepositus_). As elsewhere, at first none but the civic aristocracy were admitted to take part in the management of the town's affairs; but from the end of the 13th century a share had to be conceded to representatives of the crafts. Dissatisfaction, however, was not easily allayed; the lower orders applied for the intervention of the king; and that effectively put an end to political freedom. This tendency of calling in state help marks a most striking difference as against the policy followed by the German towns, where all classes appear to have been always far too jealous of local independence. The result for the nation was in the one case despotism, equality and order, in the other individual liberty and an inability to move as a whole. At an earlier stage the king had frequently come to the assistance of the communes in their struggle with their lords. By-and-by the king's confirmation came to be considered necessary for their lawful existence. This proved a powerful lever for the extension of the king's authority. It may seem strange that in France the towns never had recourse to those interurban leagues which played so important a part in Italian and in German history.

These two varieties, the _communes_ and the _villes consulaires_ together form the group of _villes libres_. As opposed to these stand the _villes franches_, also called _villes prévotales_ after the chief officer, _villes de bourgeoisie_ or _villes soumises_. They make up by far the majority of French towns, comprising all those situated in the centre of the kingdom, and also a large number in the north and the south. They are called _villes franches_ on account of their possessing a franchise, a charter limiting the services due by the citizens to their lord, but political status they had little or none. According to the varying extent of the liberties conceded them, there may be distinguished towns governed by an elective body and more or less fully authorized to exercise jurisdiction; towns possessing some sort of municipal organization, but no rights of jurisdiction, except that of simple police; and, thirdly, those governed entirely by seignorial officers. To this last class belong some of the most important cities in France, wherever the king had power enough to withhold liberties deemed dangerous and unnecessary. On the other hand, towns of the first category often come close to the _villes libres_. A strict line of demarcation, however, remains in the mutual oath which forms the basis of the civic community in both varieties of the latter, and in the fact that the _ville libre_ stands to its lord in the relation of vassal and not in that of an immediate possession. But however _complètement assujettie_ Paris might be, its organization, naturally, was immensely more complex than that of hundreds of smaller places which, formally, might stand in an identical relationship to their lords. Like other _villes franches_ under the king, Paris was governed by a _prévôt_ (provost), but certain functions of self-government for the city were delegated to the company of the _marchands de l'eau, mercatores aquae_, also called _mercatores ansati_, that is, the gild of merchants whose business lay down the river Seine, in other words, a body naturally exclusive, not, however, to the citizens as such. At their head stood a _prévôt des marchands_ and four _eschevins de la marchandise_. Other _prud'hommes_ were occasionally called in, and from 1296 _prévôt_ and _échevins_, appointed twenty-four councillors to form with themselves a _parloir aux bourgeois_. The crafts of Paris were organized in _métiers_, whose masters were appointed, some by the _prévôt de Paris_, and some by certain great officers of the court. In the tax rolls of A.D. 1292 to 1300 no fewer than 448 names of crafts occur, while the _Livre des métiers_ written in 1268 by Étienne de Boileau, then _prévôt de Paris_, enumerates 101 organized bodies of tradesmen or women and artisans. Among the duties of these bodies, as elsewhere, was the _guet_ or night-watch, which necessitated a military organization under _quartiniers, cinquantainiers_ and _dixainiers_. This gave them a certain power. But both their revolutions, under the _prévôt des marchands_, Étienne Marcel, after the battle of Maupertuis, and again in 1382, were extremely short-lived, and the only tangible result was a stricter subjection to the king and his officers.

An exceptional position among the cities of France is taken up by those of _Flanders_, more particularly the three "Great Towns," Bruges, Ghent and Ypres, whose population was Flemish, i.e. German. They sprang up at the foot of the count's castles and rose in close conjunction with his power. On the accession of a new house they made their power felt as early as 1128. Afterwards the counts of the house of Dampierre fell into financial dependence on the burghers, and therefore allied themselves with the rising artisans, led by the weavers. These, however, proved far more unruly, bloody conflicts ensued, and for a considerable period the three great cities ruled the whole of Flanders with a high hand. Their influence in the foreign relations of the country was likewise great, it being in their interest to keep up friendly relations with England, on whose wool the flourishing state of the staple industry of Flanders depended. It is a remarkable fact that the historical position taken up by these cities, which politically belonged to France, is much more akin to the part played by the German towns, whereas Cambrai, whose population was French, is the only city politically situated in Germany, where a commune came to be established.

In the _Spanish peninsula_, the chief importance of the numerous small towns lay in the part they played as fortresses during the unceasing wars with the Moors. The kings therefore extended special privileges (_fueros_) to the inhabitants, and they were even at an early date admitted to representation in the Cortes (parliament). Of greater individual importance than all the rest was Barcelona. Already in 1068 Count Berengarius gave the city a special law (_usatici_) based on its ancient usages, and from the 14th century its commercial code (_libro del consolat del mar_) became influential all over southern Europe.

The constitutions of the _Scandinavian_ towns were largely modelled on those of Germany, but the towns never attained anything like the same independence. Their dependence on the royal government most strongly comes out in the fact of their being uniformly regulated by royal law in each of the three kingdoms. In Sweden particularly, German merchants by law took an equal share in the government of the towns. In Denmark their influence was also great, and only in Norway did they remain in the position of foreigners in spite of their famous settlement at Bergen. The details, as well as those of the German settlement at Wisby and on the east coast of the Baltic, belong rather to the history of the Hanseatic League (q.v.). Denmark appears to be the only one of the three kingdoms where gilds at an early date played a part of importance.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The only book dealing with the subject in general, viz. K. D. Hüllmann, _Städtewesen des Mittelalters_ (4 vols., Bonn, 1826-1828), is quite antiquated. For Germany it is best to consult Richard Schröder, _Lehrbruch der deutschen Rechtsgeschichte_ (5th ed., Leipzig, 1907), §§ 51 and 56, where a bibliography as complete as need be is given, both of monographs dealing with various aspects of the question, and of works on the history of individual towns. The latter alone covers two large octavo pages of small print. As a sort of complement to Schröder's chapters may be considered, F. Keutgen, _Urkunden zur städtischen Verfassungsgeschichte_ (Berlin, 1901 = _Ausgewählte Urkunden zur deutschen Verfassungsgeschichte_, by G. von Below and F. Keutgen, vol. i.), a collection of 437 select charters and other documents, with a very full index. The great work of G. L. von Maurer, _Geschichte der Städteverfassung von Deutschland_ (4 thick vols., Erlangen, 1869-1871), contains an enormous mass of information not always treated quite so critically as the present age requires. There is an excellent succinct account for general readers by Georg von Below, "Das ältere deutsche Städtewesen und Bürgertum," _Monographien zur Weltgeschichte_, vol. vi. (Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1898, illustrated). A number of the most important recent monographs have been mentioned above. As fpr Italy, the most valuable general work for the early times is still Carl Hegel, _Geschichte der Städteverfassung von Italien seit der Zeit der römischen Herrschaft bis zum Ausgang des zwölften Jahrhunderts_ (2 small vols., Leipzig, 1847, price second-hand, M. 40), in which it was for the first time fully proved that there is no connexion between Roman and modern municipal constitutions. For the period from the 13th century it will perhaps be best to consult W. Assmann, _Geschichte des Mittelalters_, 3rd ed., by L. Viereck, dritte Abteilung, _Die letzten beiden Jahrhunderts des Mittelalters: Deutschland, die Schweiz, und Italien_, by R. Fischer, R. Scheppig and L. Viereck (Brunswick, 1906). In this volume, pp. 679-943 contain an excellent account of the various Italian states and cities during that period, with a full bibliography for each. Among recent critical contributions to the history of individual towns, the following works deserve to be specially mentioned: Robert Davidsohn, _Geschichte von Florenz_ (Berlin, 1896-1908); down to the beginning of the 14th century; the same, _Forschungen zur Geschichte von Florenz_ (vols. i.-iv., Berlin, 1896-1908); Heinrich Kretschmayr, _Geschichte von Venedig_ (vol. i., Gotha, 1905, to 1205). For France, there are the works by Achille Luchaire, _Les Communes françaises à l'époque des Capétiens directs_ (Paris, 1890), and Paul Viollet, "Les Communes françaises au moyen âge," _Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres_, tome xxxvi. (Paris, 1900). There are, of course, also accounts in the great works on French institutions by Flach, Glasson, Viollet, Luchaire, but perhaps the one in Luchaire's _Manuel des institutions françaises, période des Capétiens directs_ (Paris, 1892) deserves special recommendation. Another valuable account for France north of the Loire is that contained in the great work by Karl Hegel, _Städte und Gilden der germanischen Völker im Mittelaller_ (2 vols., Leipzig, 1891; see _English Historical Review_, viii. 120-127). Of course, there are also numerous monographs, among which the following may be mentioned: Édouard Bonvalot, _Le Tiers État d'après la charte de Beaumont et ses filiales_ (Paris, 1884); and A. Giry, _Les Êtablissements de Rouen_ (2 vols., Paris, 1883-1885); also a collection of documents by Gustave Fagniez, _Documents relatifs à l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en France_ (2 vols., Paris, 1898, 1900). Some valuable works on the commercial history of southern Europe should still be mentioned, such as W. Heyd, _Geschichte des Levantehandels im Mittelalter_ (2 vols., Stuttgart, 1879; French edition by Furcy Raynaud, 2 vols., Paris, 1885 seq., improved by the author), recognized as a standard work; Adolf Schaube, _Handelsgeschichte der romanischen Völker des Mittelmeergebietes bis zum Ende der Kreuzzüge_ (Munich and Berlin, 1906); Aloys Schulte, _Geschichte des mittelalterlichen Handels und Verkehrs zwischen Westdeutschland und Italien mit Ausschluss Venedigs_ (2 vols., Leipzig, 1900); L. Goldschmidt, _Universalgesdiichte des Handelsrechts_ (vol. i., Stuttgart, 1891). As for the Scandinavian towns, the best guide is perhaps the book by K. Hegel, _Städte und Gilden der germanischen Völker_, already mentioned; but see also Dietrich Schäfer, "Der Stand der Geschichtswissenschaft im skandinavischen Norden," _Internationale Wochenschrift_, November 16, 1907. (F. K.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] As to the former, see S. Rietschel, _Die Civitas auf deutschem Boden bis zum Ausgange der Karolingerzeit_ (Leipzig, 1894); and, for the newly founded towns, the same author, _Markt und Stadt in ihrem rechtlichen Verhältnis_ (Leipzig, 1897).

[2] About the _Burggraf_, see S. Rietschel, _Das Burggrafenamt und die hohe Gerichtsbarkeit in den deutschen Bischofsstädten während des früheren Mittelalters_ (Leipzig, 1905).

[3] As to the towns as fortresses, see also F. Keutgen, _Untersuchungen über den Ursprung der deutschen Stadtverfassung_ (Leipzig, 1895); and "Der Ursprung der deutschen Stadtverfassung" (_Neue Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum_, &c, N.F. vol. v.).

[4] See S. Rietschel, _Markt und Stadt_, and J. Fritz, _Deutsche Stadtanlagen_ (Strassburg, 1894).

[5] G. von Below, _Die Entstehung der deutschen Stadtgemeinde_ (Düsseldorf, 1889); and _Der Ursprung der deutschen Stadtverfassung_ (Düsseldorf, 1892).

[6] F. Keutgen, _Urkunden zur städtischen Verfassungsgeschichte_, No. 74 and No. 75 (Berlin, 1901).

[7] F. Keutgen, _Ämter und Zünfte_ (Jena, 1903).

[8] J. Weizsäcker, _Der rheinische Bund_ (Tübingen, 1879).

[9] G. v. Below, _Der Untergang der mittelalterlichen Stadtwirtschaft; Über Theorien der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung der Völker_; F. Keutgen, "Hansische Handelsgesellschaften, vornehmlich des 14ten Jahrhunderts," in _Vierteljahrsschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte_, vol. iv. (1906).

[10] On this whole subject see Richard Schröder, _Lehrbuch der deutschen Rechtsgeschichte_ (5th ed., Leipzig, 1907), § 56, "Die Stadtrechte." Also Charles Gross, _The Gild Merchant_ (Oxford, 1890), vol. i. Appendix E, "Affiliation of Medieval Boroughs."

[11] H. Kretschmayr, _Geschichte von Venedig_, vol. i. (Gotha, 1905).

COMMUNISM, the name loosely given to schemes of social organizations depending on the abolition of private property and its absorption into the property of a community as such. It is a form of what is now generally called socialism (q.v.), the terminology of which has varied a good deal according to time and place; but the expression "communism" may be conveniently used, as opposed to "socialism" in its wider political sense, or to the political and municipal varieties known as "collectivism," "state socialism," &c., in order to indicate more particularly the historical schemes propounded or put into practice for establishing certain ideally arranged communities composed of individuals living and working on the basis of holding their property in common. It has nothing, of course, to do with the Paris Commune, overthrown in May 1871, which was a political and not an economic movement. Communistic schemes have been advocated in almost every age and country, and have to be distinguished from mere anarchism or from the selfish desire to transfer other people's property into one's own pockets. The opinion that a communist is merely a man who has no property to lose, and therefore advocates a redistribution of wealth, is contrary to the established facts as to those who have historically supported the theory of communism. The Corn-law Rhymer's lines on this subject are amusing, but only apply to the baser sort:--

"What is a Communist! One that hath yearnings For equal division of unequal earnings. Idler or bungler, or both, he is willing To fork out his penny and pocket your shilling."

This is the communist of hostile criticism--a criticism, no doubt, ultimately based on certain fundamental facts in human nature, which have usually wrecked communistic schemes of a purely altruistic type in conception. But the great communists, like Plato, More, Saint-Simon, Robert Owen, were the very reverse of selfish or idle in their aims; and communism as a force in the historical evolution of economic and social opinion must be regarded on its ideal side, and not merely in its lapses, however natural the latter may be in operation, owing to the defects of human character. As a theory it has inspired not only some of the finest characters in history, but also much of the gradual evolution of economic organization--especially in the case of co-operation (q.v.); and its opportunities have naturally varied according to the state of social organization in particular countries. The communism of the early Christians, for instance, was rather a voluntary sharing of private property than any abnegation of property as such. The Essenes and the Therapeutae, however, in Palestine, had a stricter form of communism, and the former required the surrender of individual property; and in the middle ages various religious sects, followed by the monastic orders, were based on the communistic principle.

Communistic schemes have found advocates in almost every age and in many different countries. The one thing that is shared by all communists, whether speculative or practical, is deep dissatisfaction with the economic conditions by which they are surrounded. In Plato's _Republic_ the dissatisfaction is not limited to merely economic conditions. In his examination of the body politic there is hardly any part which he can pronounce to be healthy. He would alter the life of the citizens of his state from the very moment of birth. Children are to be taken away from their parents and nurtured under the supervision of the state. The old nursery tales, "the blasphemous nonsense with which mothers fool the manhood out of their children," are to be suppressed. Dramatic and imitative poetry are not to be allowed. Education, marriage, the number of births, the occupations of the citizens are to be controlled by the guardians or heads of the state. The most perfect equality of conditions and careers is to be preserved; the women are to have similar training with the men, no careers and no ambition are to be forbidden to them; the inequalities and rivalries between rich and poor are to cease, because all will be provided for by the state. Other cities are divided against themselves. "Any ordinary city, however small, is in fact two cities, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich, at war with one another" (_Republic_, bk. iv. p. 249, Jowett's translation). But this ideal state is to be a perfect unit; although the citizens are divided into classes according to their capacity and ability, there is none of the exclusiveness of birth, and no inequality is to break the accord which binds all the citizens, both male and female, together into one harmonious whole. The marvellous comprehensiveness of the scheme for the government of this ideal state makes it belong as much to the modern as to the ancient world. Many of the social problems to which Plato draws attention are yet unsolved, and some are in process of solution in the direction indicated by him. He is not appalled by the immensity of the task which he has sketched out for himself and his followers. He admits that there are difficulties to be overcome, but he says in a sort of parenthesis, "Nothing great is easy." He refuses to be satisfied with half measures and patchwork reforms. "Enough, my friend! but what is enough while anything remains wanting?" These sentences indicate the spirit in which philosophical as distinguished from practical communists from the time of Plato till to-day have undertaken to reconstruct human society.

Sir Thomas More's _Utopia_ has very many of the characteristics of _The Republic_. There is in it the same wonderful power of shaking off the prejudices of the place and time in which it was written. The government of Utopia is described as founded on popular election; community of goods prevailed, the magistrates distributed the instruments of production among the inhabitants, and the wealth resulting from their industry was shared by all. The use of money and all outward ostentation of wealth were forbidden. All meals were taken in common, and they were rendered attractive by the accompaniment of sweet strains of music, while the air was filled by the scent of the most delicate perfumes. More's ideal state differs in one important respect from Plato's. There was no community of wives in Utopia. The sacredness of the family relation and fidelity to the marriage contract were recognized by More as indispensable to the well-being of modern society. Plato, notwithstanding all the extraordinary originality with which he advocated the emancipation of women, was not able to free himself from the theory and practice of regarding the wife as part and parcel of the property of her husband. The fact, therefore, that he advocated community of property led him also to advocate community of wives. He speaks of "the _possession and use_ of women and children," and proceeds to show how this possession and use must be regulated in his ideal state. Monogamy was to him mere exclusive possession on the part of one man of a piece of property which ought to be for the benefit of the public. The circumstance that he could not think of wives otherwise than as the property of their husbands only makes it the more remarkable that he claimed for women absolute equality of training and careers. The circumstance that communists have so frequently wrecked their projects by attacking marriage and advocating promiscuous intercourse between the sexes may probably be traced to the notion which regards a wife as being a mere item among the goods and chattels of her husband. It is not difficult to find evidence of the survival of this ancient habit of mind. "I will be master of what is mine own," says Petruchio. "She is my goods, my chattels."

The Perfectionists of Oneida, on the other hand, held that there was "no intrinsic difference between property in persons and property in things; and that the same spirit which abolished exclusiveness in regard to money would abolish, if circumstances allowed full scope to it, exclusiveness in regard to women and children" (Nordhoff's _Communistic Societies of the United States_). It is this notion of a wife as property that is responsible for the wild opinions communists have often held in favour of a community of wives and the break-up of family relations. If they could shake off this notion and take hold of the conception of marriage as a contract, there is no reason why their views on the community of property should lead them to think that this contract should not include mutual fidelity and remain in force during the life of the contracting parties. It was probably not this conception of the marriage relation so much as the influence of Christianity which led More to discountenance community of wives in Utopia. It is strange that the same influence did not make him include the absence of slavery as one of the characteristics of his ideal state. On the contrary, however, we find in Utopia the anomaly of slavery existing side by side with institutions which otherwise embody the most absolute personal, political and religious freedom. The presence of slaves in Utopia is made use of to get rid of one of the practical difficulties of communism, viz. the performance of disagreeable work. In a society where one man is as good as another, and the means of subsistence are guaranteed to all alike, it is easy to imagine that it would be difficult to ensure the performance of the more laborious, dangerous and offensive kinds of labour. In Utopia, therefore, we are expressly told that "all the uneasy and sordid services" are performed by slaves. The institution of slavery was also made supplementary to the criminal system of Utopia, as the slaves were for the most part men who had been convicted of crime; slavery for life was made a substitute for capital punishment.

In many respects, however, More's views on the labour question were vastly in advance of his own time. He repeats the indignant protest of the _Republic_ that existing society is a warfare between rich and poor. "The rich," he says, "desire every means by which they may in the first place secure to themselves what they have amassed by wrong, and then take to their own use and profit, at the lowest possible price, the work and labour of the poor. And so soon as the rich decide on adopting these devices in the name of the public, then they become law." One might imagine these words had been quoted from the programme of The International (q.v.), so completely is their tone in sympathy with the hardships of the poor in all ages. More shared to the full the keen sympathy with the hopeless misery of the poor which has been the strong motive power of nearly all speculative communism. The life of the poor as he saw it was so wretched that he said, "Even a beast's life seems enviable!" Besides community of goods and equality of conditions, More advocated other means of ameliorating the condition of the people. Although the hours of labour were limited to six a day there was no scarcity, for in Utopia every one worked; there was no idle class, no idle individual even. The importance of this from an economic point of view is insisted on by More in a passage remarkable for the importance which he attaches to the industrial condition of women. "And this you will easily apprehend," he says, "if you consider how great a part of all other nations is quite idle. First, women generally do little, who are the half of mankind." Translated into modern language his proposals comprise universal compulsory education, a reduction of the hours of labour to six a day, the most modern principles of sanitary reform, a complete revision of criminal legislation, and the most absolute religious toleration. The romantic form which Sir Thomas More gave to his dream of a new social order found many imitators. The _Utopia_ may be regarded as the prototype of Campanella's _City of the Sun_, Harrington's _Oceana_, Bacon's _Nova Atlantis_, Defoe's _Essay on Projects_, Fénelon's _Voyage dans l'Île des Plaisirs_, and other works of minor importance.

All communists have made a great point of the importance of universal education. All ideal communes have been provided by their authors with a perfect machinery for securing the education of every child. One of the first things done in every attempt to carry communistic theories into practice has been to establish a good school and guarantee education to every child. The first impulse to national education in the 19th century probably sprang from the very marked success of Robert Owen's schools in connexion with the cotton mills at New Lanark. Compulsory education, free trade, and law reform, the various movements connected with the improvement of the condition of women, have found their earliest advocates among theoretical and practical communists. The communists denounce the evils of the present state of society; the hopeless poverty of the poor, side by side with the self-regarding luxury of the rich, seems to them to cry aloud to Heaven for the creation of a new social organization. They proclaim the necessity of sweeping away the institution of private property, and insist that this great revolution, accompanied by universal education, free trade, a perfect administration of justice, and a due limitation of the numbers of the community, would put an end to half the self-made distress of humanity.

The various communistic experiments in America are the most interesting in modern times, opportunities being naturally greater there for such deviations from the normal forms of regulations as compared with the closely organized states of Europe, and particularly in the means of obtaining land cheaply for social settlements with peculiar views. They have been classified by Morris Hillquit (_History of Socialism in the United States_, 1903) as (1) sectarian, (2) Owenite, (3) Fourieristic, (4) Icarian.

1. The oldest of the sectarian group was the society of the Shakers (q.v.), whose first settlement at Watervliet was founded in 1776. The Harmony Society or Rappist Community was introduced into Pennsylvania by George Rapp (1770-1847) from Württemberg in 1804, and in 1815 they moved to a settlement (New Harmony) in Indiana, returning to Pennsylvania again in 1824, and founding the village of Economy, from which they were also known as Economites. Emigrants from Württemberg also founded the community of Zoar in Ohio in 1817, being incorporated in 1832 as the Society of Separatists of Zoar; it was dissolved in 1898. The Amana (q.v.) community, the strongest of all American communistic societies, originated in Germany in the early part of the 18th century as "the True Inspiration Society," and some 600 members removed to America in 1842-1844. The Bethel (Missouri) and Aurora (Oregon) sister communities were founded by Dr Keil (1812-1877) in 1844 and 1856 respectively, and were dissolved in 1880 and 1881. The Oneida Community (q.v.), created by John Humphrey Noyes (1811-1886), the author of a famous _History of American Socialisms_ (1870), was established in 1848 as a settlement for the Society of Perfectionists. All these bodies had a religious basis, and were formed with the object of enjoying the free exercise of their beliefs, and though communistic in character they had no political or strictly economic doctrine to propagate.

2. The Owenite communities rose under the influence of Robert Owen's work at New Lanark, and his propaganda in America from 1824 onwards, the principal being New Harmony (acquired from the Rappists in 1825); Yellow Springs, near Cincinnati, 1824; Nashoba, Tennessee, 1825; Haverstraw, New York, 1826; its short-lived successors, Coxsackie, New York, and the Kendal Community, Canton, Ohio, 1826. All these had more or less short existences, and were founded on Owen's theories of labour and economics.

3. The Fourierist communities similarly were due to the Utopian teachings of the Frenchman Charles Fourier (q.v.), introduced into America by his disciple Albert Brisbane (1809-1890), author of _The Social Destiny of Man_ (1840), who was efficiently helped by Horace Greeley, George Ripley and others. The North American Phalanx, in New Jersey, was started in 1843 and lasted till 1855. Brook Farm (q.v.) was started as a Fourierist Phalanx in 1844, after three years' independent career, and became the centre of Fourierist propaganda, lasting till 1847. The Wisconsin Phalanx, or Ceresco, was organized in 1844, and lasted till 1850. In Pennsylvania seven communities were established between 1843 and 1845, the chief of which were the Sylvania Association, the Peace Union Settlement, the Social Reform Unity, and the Leraysville Phalanx. In New York state the chief were the Clarkson Phalanx, the Sodus Bay Phalanx, the Bloomfield Association, and the Ontario Union. In Ohio the principal were the Trumbull Phalanx, the Ohio Phalanx, the Clermont Phalanx, the Integral Phalanx, and the Columbian Phalanx; and of the remainder the Alphadelphia Phalanx, in Michigan, was the best-known. It is pointed out by Morris Hillquit that while only two Fourierist Phalanxes were established in France, over forty were started in the United States.

4. The Icarian communities were due to the communistic teachings of another Frenchman, Étienne Cabet (q.v.) (1788-1856), the name being derived from his social romance, _Voyage en Icarie_ (1840), sketching the advantages of an imaginary country called Icaria, with a co-operative system, and criticizing the existing social organization. It was his idea, in fact, of a Utopia. Robert Owen advised him to establish his followers, already numerous, in Texas, and thither about 1500 went in 1848. But disappointment resulted, and their numbers dwindled to less than 500 in 1849; some 280 went to Nauvoo, Illinois; after a schism in 1856 some formed a new colony (1858) at Cheltenham, near St Louis; others went to Iowa, others to California. The last branch was dissolved in 1895.

See also the articles SOCIALISM; OWEN; SAINT-SIMON; FOURIER, &c.; and the bibliography to SOCIALISM. The whole subject is admirably covered in Morris Hillquit's work, referred to above; and see also Noyes's _History of American Socialisms_ (1870); Charles Nordhoff's _Communistic Societies of the United States_ (1875); and W. A. Hinds's _American Communities_ (1878; 2nd edition, 1902), a very complete account.

COMMUTATION (from Lat. _commutare_, to change), a process of exchanging one thing for another, particularly of one method of payment for another, such as payment in money for payment in kind or by service, or of payment of a lump sum for periodical payments; for various kinds of such substitution see ANNUITY; COPYHOLD and TITHES. The word is also used similarly of the substitution of a lesser sentence on a criminal for a greater. In electrical engineering, the word is applied to the reversal of the course of an electric current, the contrivance for so doing being known as a "commutator" (see DYNAMO). In America, a "commutation ticket" on a railway is one which allows a person to travel at a lower rate over a particular route for a certain time or for a certain number of times; the person holding such a ticket is known as a "commuter."

COMNENUS, the name of a Byzantine family which from 1081 to 1185 occupied the throne of Constantinople. It claimed a Roman origin, but its earliest representatives appear as landed proprietors in the district of Castamon (mod. _Kastamuni_) in Paphlagonia. Its first member known in Byzantine history is Manuel Eroticus Comnenus, an able general who rendered great services to Basil II. (976-1025) in the East. At his death he left his two sons Isaac and John in the care of Basil, who gave them a careful education and advanced them to high official positions. The increasing unpopularity of the Macedonian dynasty culminated in a revolt of the nobles and the soldiery of Asia against its feeble representative Michael VI. Stratioticus, who abdicated after a brief resistance. Isaac was declared emperor, and crowned in St Sophia on the 2nd of September 1057. For the rulers of this dynasty see ROMAN EMPIRE, LATER, and separate articles.

With Andronicus I. (1183-1185) the rule of the Comneni proper at Constantinople came to an end. A younger line of the original house, after the establishment of the Latins at Constantinople in 1204, secured possession of a fragment of the empire in Asia Minor, and founded the empire of Trebizond (q.v.), which lasted till 1461, when David Comnenus, the last emperor, was deposed by Mahommed II.

For a general account of the family and its alleged survivors see article "Komnenen," by G. F. Hertzberg, in Ersch and Gruber's _Allgemeine Encyklopädie_, and an anonymous monograph, _Précis historique de la maison impériale des Comnènes_ (Amsterdam, 1784); and, for the history of the period, the works referred to under ROMAN EMPIRE, LATER.

COMO (anc. _Comum_), a city and episcopal see of Lombardy, Italy, the capital of the province of Como, situated at the S. end of the W. branch of the Lake of Como, 30 m. by rail N. by W. of Milan. Pop. (1881) 25,560; (1905) 34,272 (town), 41,124 (commune). The city lies in a valley enclosed by mountains, the slopes of which command fine views of the lake. The old town, which preserves its rectangular plan from Roman times, is enclosed by walls, with towers constructed in the 12th century. The cathedral, built entirely of marble, occupies the site of an earlier church, and was begun in 1396, from which period the nave dates: the façade belongs to 1457-1486, while the east of the exterior was altered into the Renaissance style, and richly decorated with sculptures by Tommaso Rodari in 1487-1526. The dome is an unsuitable addition of 1731 by the Sicilian architect Filippo Juvara (1685-1735), and its baroque decorations spoil the effect of the fine Gothic interior. It contains some good pictures and fine tapestries. In the same line as the façade of the cathedral are the Broletto (in black and white marble), dating from 1215, the seat of the original rulers of the commune, and the massive clock-tower. The Romanesque church of S. Abondio outside the town was founded in 1013 and consecrated in 1095; it has two fine campanili, placed at the ends of the aisles close to the apse. It occupies the site of the 5th-century church of SS. Peter and Paul. Near it is the Romanesque church of S. Carpoforo. Above it is the ruined castle of Baradello. The churches of S. Giacomo (1095-1117) and S. Fedele (12th century), both in the town, are also Romanesque, and the apses have external galleries. The Palazzo Giovio contains the Museo Civico. Como is a considerable tourist resort, and the steamboat traffic on the lake is largely for travellers. A climate station is established on the hill of Brunate (2350 ft.) above the town to the E., reached by a funicular railway. The Milanese possess many villas here. Como is an industrial town, having large silk factories and other industries (see LOMBARDY). It is connected with Milan by two lines of railway, one via Monza (the main line, which goes on to Chiasso--Swiss frontier--and the St Gotthard), the other via Saronno and also with Lecco and Varese.

Of the Roman Comum little remains above ground; a portion of its S.E. wall was discovered and may be seen in the garden of the Liceo Volta, 88 ft. within the later walls: later fortifications (but previous to 1127), largely constructed with Roman inscribed sepulchral urns and other fragments, had been superimposed on it. Thermae have also been discovered (see V. Barelli in _Notizie degli scavi_, 1880, 333; 1881, 333; 1882, 285). The inscriptions, on the other hand, are numerous, and give an idea of its importance. The statements as to the tribe which originally possessed it are various. It belonged to Gallia Cisalpina, and first came into contact with Rome in 196 B.C., when M. Claudius Marcellus conquered the Insubres and the Comenses. In 89 B.C., having suffered damage from the Raetians, it was restored by Cn. Pompeius Strabo, and given Latin rights with the rest of Gallia Transpadana. Shortly after this 3000 colonists seem to have been sent there; 5000 were certainly sent by Caesar in 59 B.C., and the place received the name Novum Comum. It appears in the imperial period as a _municipium_, and is generally spoken of as Comum simply. The place was prosperous; it had an important iron industry; and the banks of the lake were, as now, dotted with villas. It was also important as the starting-point for the journey across the lake in connexion with the Splugen and Septimer passes (see CHIAVENNA). It was the birthplace of both the elder and the younger Pliny, the latter of whom founded baths and a library here and gave money for the support of orphan children. There was a _praefectus classis Comensis_ under the late empire, and it was regarded as a strong fortress. See Ch. Hulsen in Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyclopädie_, Suppl. Heft i. (Stuttgart, 1903), 326.

Como suffered considerably from the early barbarian invasions, many of the inhabitants taking refuge on the Isola Comacina off Sala, but recovered in Lombard times. It was from that period that the _magistri Comacini_ formed a privileged corporation of architects and sculptors, who were employed in other parts of Italy also, until, at the end of the 11th century, individuals began to come more to the front (G. T. Rivoira, _Origini del l'architettura Lombarda_, Rome, 1901, i. 127 f.). Como then became subject to the archbishops of Milan, but gained its freedom towards the end of the 11th century. At the beginning of the 12th century war broke out between Como and Milan, and after a ten years' war Como was taken and its fortifications dismantled in 1127. In 1154, however, it took advantage of the arrival of Barbarossa, and remained faithful to him throughout the whole war of the Lombard League. After frequent struggles with Milan, it fell under the power of the Visconti in 1335. In 1535, like the rest of Lombardy, it fell under Spanish dominion, and in 1714 under Austrian. Thenceforth it shared the fortunes of Milan, becoming in the Napoleonic period the chief town of the department of the Lario. Its silk industry and its position at the entrance to the Alpine passes gave it some importance even then. It bore a considerable part in the national risings of 1848-1859 against Austrian rule. (T. As.)

COMO, Lake of (the _Lacus Larius_ of the Romans, and so sometimes called Lario to the present day, though in the 4th century it is already termed _Lacus Comacinus_), one of the most celebrated lakes in Lombardy, Northern Italy. It lies due N. of Milan and is formed by the Adda that flows through the Valtelline to the north end of the lake (here falls in the Maira or Mera, coming from the Val Bregaglia) and flows out of it at its south-eastern extremity, on the way to join the Po. Its area is 55½ sq. m., it is about 43 m. from end to end (about 30½ m. from the north end of Bellagio), it is from 1 to 2½ m. in breadth, its surface is 653 ft. above the sea, and its greatest depth is 1365 ft. A railway line now runs along its eastern shore from Colico to Lecco (24½ m.), while on its western shore Menaggio is reached by a steam tramway from Porlezza on the Lake of Lugano (8 m.). Colico, at the northern extremity, is by rail 17 m. from Chiavenna and 42 m. from Tirano, while at its southern end Como (on the St Gotthard line) is 32 m. from Milan, and Lecco about the same distance. The lake fills a remarkable depression which has been cut through the limestone ranges that enclose it, and once doubtless extended as far as Chiavenna, the Lake of Mezzola being a surviving witness of its ancient bed. Towards the south the promontory of Bellagio divides the lake into two arms. That to the south-east ends at Lecco and is the true outlet, for the south-western arm, ending at Como, is an enclosed bay. During the morning the _Tivano_ wind blows from the north, while in the afternoon the _Breva_ wind blows from the south. But, like other Alpine lakes, the Lake of Como is exposed to sudden violent storms. Its beauties have been sung by Virgil and Claudian, while the two Plinys are among the celebrities associated with the lake. The shores are bordered by splendid villas, while perhaps the most lovely spot on it is Bellagio, built in an unrivalled position. Among the other villages that line the lake, the best-known are Varenna (E.) and Menaggio (W.), nearly opposite one another, while Cadenabbia (W.) faces Bellagio. (W. A. B. C.)

COMONFORT, IGNACIO (1812-1863), a Mexican soldier and politician, who, after occupying a variety of civil and military posts, was in December 1855 made provisional president by Alvarez, and from December 1857 was for a few weeks constitutional president. (See MEXICO.)

COMORIN, CAPE, a headland in the state of Travancore, forming the extreme southern point of the peninsula of India. It is situated in 8° 4' 20" N., 77° 35' 35" E., and is the terminating point of the western Ghats. The village of Comorin, with the temple of Kanniyambal, the "virgin goddess," on the coast at the apex of the headland, is a frequented place of pilgrimage.

COMORO ISLANDS, a group of volcanic islands belonging to France, in the Indian Ocean, at the northern entrance of the Mozambique Channel midway between Madagascar and the African continent. The following table of the area and population of the four largest islands gives one of the sets of figures offered by various authorities:--

+-------------------+-------------+--------------+ | | Area sq. m. | Population. | +-------------------+-------------+--------------+ | Great Comor | 385 | 50,000 | | Anjuan or Johanna | 145 | 12,000 | | Mayotte | 140 | 11,000 | | Moheli | 90 | 9,000 | | +-------------+--------------+ | Total | 760 | 82,000 | +-------------------+-------------+--------------+

There are besides a large number of islets of coral formation. Particulars of the four islands named follow.

1. Great Comoro, or Angazia, the largest and most westerly, has a length of about 38 m., with a width of about 12 m. Near its southern extremity it rises into a fine dome-shaped volcanic mountain, Kartola (Karthala), which is over 8500 ft. high, and is visible for more than 100 m. Up to about 6000 ft. it is clothed with dense vegetation. Eruptions are recorded for the years 1830, 1855 and 1858; and another eruption occurred in 1904. In the north the ground rises gradually to a plateau some 2000 ft. above the sea; from this plateau many regularly shaped truncated cones rise another 2000 ft. The centre of the island consists of a desert field of lava streams, about 1600 ft. high. The chief towns are Maroni (pop. about 2000), Itzanda and Mitsamuli; the first, situated at the head of a bay in 11° 40' S., being the seat of the French administrator.

2. Anjuan, or Johanna, next in size, lies E. by S. of Comoro. It is some 30 m. long by 20 at its greatest breadth. The land rises in a succession of richly wooded heights till it culminates in a central peak, upwards of 5000 ft. above the sea, in 12° 14' S., 44° 27' E. The former capital, Mossamondu, on the N.W. coast, is substantially built of stone, surrounded by a wall, and commanded by a dilapidated citadel; it is the residence of the sultan and of the French administrator. There is a small but safe anchorage at Pomony, on the S. side, formerly used as a coal depot by ships of the British navy.

3. Mayotte, about 21 m. long by 6 or 7 m. broad, is surrounded by an extensive and dangerous coral reef. The principal heights on its extremely irregular surface are: Mavegani Mountain, which rises in two peaks to a maximum of 2164 ft., and Uchongin, 2100 ft. The French headquarters are on the islet of Zaudzi, which lies within the reef in 12° 46' S., 45° 20' E. There are substantial government buildings and store-houses. On the mainland opposite Zaudzi is Msapéré, the chief centre of trade. Mayotte was devastated in 1898 by a cyclone of great severity.

4. Moheli or Mohilla lies S. of and between Anjuan and Grand Comoro. It is 15 m. long and 7 or 8 m. at its maximum breadth. Unlike the other three it has no peaks, but rises gradually to a central ridge about 1900 ft. in height. Fomboni (pop. about 2000) in the N.W. and Numa Choa in the S.W. are the chief towns.

All the islands possess a very fertile soil; there are forests of coco-nut palms, and among the products are rice, maize, sweet-potatoes, yams, coffee, cotton, vanilla and various tropical fruits, the papaw tree being abundant. The fauna is allied to that of Madagascar rather than to the mainland of Africa; it includes some land birds and a species of lemur peculiar to the islands. Large numbers of cattle and sheep, the former similar to the small species at Aden, are reared as well as, in Great Comoro, the zebra. Turtles are caught in abundance along the coasts, and form an article of export. The climate is in general warm, but not torrid nor unsuitable for Europeans. The dry season lasts from May to the end of October, the rest of the year being rainy. The natives are of mixed Malagasy, Negro and Arab blood. The majority are Mahommedans. The European inhabitants, mostly French, number about 600. There are some 200 British Indians, traders, in the islands. The external trade of the islands has developed since the annexation of Madagascar to France, and is of the value of about £100,000 a year. Sugar refineries, distilleries of rum, and sawmills are worked in Mayotte by French settlers. Cane sugar and vanilla are the chief exports. The islands are regularly visited by vessels of the Messageries Maritimes fleet, and a coaling station for the French navy has been established.

The islands were first visited by Europeans in the 16th century; they are marked on the map of Diego Ribero made in 1527. At that time, and for long afterwards, the dominant influence in, and the civilization of, the islands was Arab. According to tradition the islands were first peopled by Arab voyagers driven thither by tempests. The petty sultans who exercised authority were notorious slave traders. A Sakalava chief who had been driven from Madagascar by the Hovas took refuge in Mayotte _c._ 1830, and, with the aid of the sultan of Johanna, conquered the island, which for a century had been given over to civil war. French naval officers having reported on the strategic value of Mayotte, Admiral de Hell, governor of Réunion, sent an officer there in 1841, and a treaty was negotiated ceding the island to France. Possession was taken in 1843, the sultan of Johanna renouncing his claims in the same year. In 1886 the sultans of the other three islands were placed under French protection, France fearing that otherwise the islands would be taken by Germany. The French experienced some difficulty with the natives, but by 1892 had established their position. The islands, as regulated by the decree of the 9th of April 1908, are under the supreme authority of the governor-general of Madagascar. The local administration is in the hands of an official who himself governs Mayotte but is represented in the other islands by administrators. On the council which assists the governor are two nominated native notables. In 1910 the sultan of Great Comoro ceded his sovereign rights to France. In Anjuan the native government is continued under French supervision. The budgets of the four islands in 1904 came to some £30,000, that of Mayotte being about half the total. The chief sources of revenue are poll and house taxes, and, in Mayotte, a land tax.

The _Iles Glorieuses_, three islets 160 m. N.E. of Mayotte, with a population of some 20 souls engaged in the collection of guano and the capture of turtles, were in 1892 annexed to France and placed under the control of the administrator of Mayotte.

See _Notice sur Mayotte et les Comores_, by Emile Vienne, one of the memoirs on the French colonies prepared for the Paris Exhibition of 1900; _Le Sultanat d'Anjouan_, by Jules Repiquet (Paris, 1901), a systematic account of the geography, ethnology and history of Johanna; _Les colonies françaises_ (Paris, 1900), vol. ii. pp. 179-197, in which the story of the archipelago is set forth by various writers; an account of the islands by A. Voeltzkow in the _Zeitschrift_ of the Berlin Geog. Soc. (No. 9, 1906), and _Carte des Iles Comores_, by A. Meunier (Paris, 1904).

COMPANION (through the O. Fr. _compaignon_ or _compagnon_, from the Late Lat. _companio_,--_cum_, with, and _panis_, bread,--one who shares meals with another; the word has been wrongly derived from the Late Lat. _compagnus_, one of the same _pagus_ or district), a mess-mate or "comrade" (a term which itself has a similar origin, meaning one who shares the same _camera_ or room). "Companion" is particularly used of soldiers, as in the expression "companion in arms," and so is the title of the lowest rank in a military or other order of knighthood; the word is also used of a person who lives with another in a paid position for the sake of company, and is looked on rather as a friend than a servant; and of a pair or match, as of pictures and the like. Similar in ultimate origin but directly adapted from the Fr. _chambre de la compagne_, and Ital. _camera della compagna_, the storeroom for provisions on board ship, is the use of "companion" for the framed windows over a hatchway on the deck of a ship, and also for the hooded entrance-stairs to the captain's cabin.

COMPANY, one of a number of words like "partnership," "union," "gild," "society," "corporation," denoting--each with its special shade of meaning--the association of individuals in pursuit of some common object. The taking of meals together was, as the word signifies (_cum_, with, _panis_, bread,) a characteristic of the early company. Gild had a similar meaning: but this characteristic, though it survives in the Livery company (see LIVERY COMPANIES), has in modern times disappeared. The word "company" is now monopolized--in British usage--by two great classes of companies--(1) the joint stock company, constituted under the Companies (Consolidation) Act 1908, which consolidated the various acts from 1862 to 1907, and (2) the "public company," constituted under a special act to carry on some work of public utility, such as a railway, docks, gasworks or waterworks, and regulated by the Companies Clauses Acts 1845 and 1863.

1. _Joint Stock Companies._

The joint stock company may be defined as an association of persons incorporated to promote by joint contributions to a common stock the carrying on of some commercial enterprise. Associations formed not for "the acquisition of gain" but to promote art, science, religion, charity or some other useful or philanthropic object, though they may be constituted under the Companies (Consolidation) Act 1908, seldom call themselves companies, but adopt some name more appropriate to express their objects, such as society, club, institute, college or chamber. The joint stock company has had a long history which can only be briefly sketched here. The name of "joint stock company" is--or was--used to distinguish such a company from the "regulated company," which did not trade on a joint stock but was in the nature of a trade gild, the members of which had a monopoly of foreign trade with particular countries or places (see Adam Smith, _Wealth of Nations_, bk. v. ch. i. pt. iii.).

The earliest kind of joint stock company is the chartered (see CHARTERED COMPANIES). The grant of a charter is one of the exclusive privileges of the crown, and the crown has from time to time exercised it in furtherance of trading enterprise. Examples of such grants are the Merchant Adventurers of England, chartered by Richard II. (1390); the East India Co., chartered by Queen Elizabeth (1600); the Bank of England, chartered by William and Mary (1694); the Hudson's Bay Co.; the Royal African Co.; the notorious South Sea Co.; and in later times the New Zealand Co., the North Borneo Co., and the Royal Niger Co. Chartered companies had, however, several disadvantages. A charter was not easily obtainable. It was costly. The members could not be made personally liable for the debts of the company: and once created--though only for defined objects--such a company was invested with entire independence and could not be kept to the conditions imposed by the grant, which was against public policy. A new form of commercial association was wanted, free from these defects, and it was found in the common law company--the lineal ancestor of the modern trading company. The common law company was not an incorporated association: it was simply a great partnership with transferable shares. Companies of this kind multiplied rapidly towards the close of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century, but they were regarded with strong disfavour by the law, for reasons not very intelligible to modern notions; the chief of these reasons being that such companies purported to act as corporate bodies, raised transferable stock, used charters for purposes not warranted by the grant, and were--or were supposed to be--dangerous and mischievous, tending (in the words of the preamble of the Bubble Act) to "the common grievance, prejudice and inconvenience of His Majesty's subjects or great numbers of them in trade, commerce or other lawful affairs." They were too often--and this no doubt was the real ground of the prejudice against them--utilized by unprincipled persons to promote fantastic and often fraudulent schemes. Matthew Green, in his poem "The Spleen," notes how

"Wrecks appear each day, And yet fresh fools are cast away."

The result was that by the act (6 Geo. I. c. 18) commonly known as the Bubble Act (1719) such companies were declared to be common nuisances and indictable as such. But the act, though it remained on the statute book for more than one hundred years and was not formally repealed till 1825, proved quite ineffectual to check the growth of joint stock enterprise, and the legislature, finding that such companies had to be tolerated, adopted the wiser course of regulating what it could not repress. One great inconvenience of these common law trading companies arose from their being unincorporated. They were formed of large fluctuating bodies of individuals, and a person dealing with them did not know with whom he was contracting or whom he was to sue. This evil the legislature sought to rectify by empowering the crown to grant to companies by letters patent without incorporation the privilege of suing and being sued by a public officer. Ten years afterwards--in 1844--a more important line of policy was adopted, and all companies with some exceptions were enabled to obtain a certificate of incorporation without applying for a charter or special act. The act of 1862 carried this policy one step farther by prohibiting all associations of more than twenty persons from carrying on business without registering under the act. These were all useful amendments, but they were amendments of form rather than substance. The real vitality of joint stock enterprise lies in the co-operative principle, and the natural growth and expansion of this fruitful principle was checked until the middle of the 19th century by the notorious risks attaching to unlimited liability. In the case of an ordinary partnership, though their liability is unlimited (or was until the Limited Partnerships Act 1907), the partners can generally tell what risks they are incurring. Not so the shareholders of a company. They delegate the management of their business to a board of directors, and they may easily find themselves committed by the fraud or folly of its members to engagements which in the days of unlimited liability meant ruin. Failures like those of Overend and Gurney, and of the Glasgow Bank, caused widespread misery and alarm. It was not until limited liability had been grafted on the stock of the co-operative system that the real potency of the principle of industrial co-operation became apparent. We owe the adoption of the limited liability principle to the clear-sightedness of Lord Sherbrooke--then Mr Robert Lowe--and to the vigorous advocacy of Lord Bramwell. We owe it to Lord Bramwell also that the principle was made a feasible one. The practical difficulty was how to bring home to persons dealing with the company notice that the liability of the shareholders was limited. Lord Bramwell solved the problem by a happy suggestion--"write it on my tombstone," he said humorously to a friend. This was that the company should add to its name the word "Limited "--paint it up on its premises, and use it on all invoices, bills, promissory notes and other documents. The proposal was adopted by the Legislature and has worked successfully. While limited companies have been multiplying at the rate of over 4000 a year, the unlimited company has become practically an extinct species. The growth of limited companies is, indeed, one of the most striking phenomena of our day. Their number may be estimated at quite 40,000. Their paid-up capital amounts to the stupendous sum of £1,850,000,000 and, what is even more significant, as the 1st Viscount Goschen remarks in his _Essays and Addresses_, is that "the number of shareholders has grown in a much greater ratio than the colossal growth of the aggregate capital. The profits and risks of nearly every kind of business have been spread from year to year over fresh thousands of individuals, and the middle class with moderate incomes are more and more participating in that accumulation of wealth from business of every description which formerly built up the fortunes of individual traders or of bankers or of single families."

It is with the limited company then--the company limited by shares--as the normal type and incomparably the most important, that this article mainly deals.

_Companies Limited by Shares._--The Companies Act 1862, was intended to constitute a comprehensive code of law applicable to joint stock trading companies for the whole of the United Kingdom. Recognizing the mischief above alluded to--of trading concerns being carried on by large and fluctuating bodies, the act begins by declaring that no company, association or partnership, consisting of more than twenty persons, or ten in the case of banking, shall be formed after the commencement of the act for the purpose of carrying on any business which has for its object the acquisition of gain by the company, association or partnership, or by the individual members thereof, unless it is registered as a company under the act, or is formed in pursuance of some other act of parliament or of letters patent, or is a company engaged in working mines within and subject to the jurisdiction of the Stannaries. Broadly speaking, the meaning of the act is that all commercial undertakings, as distinguished from literary or charitable associations, shall be registered. "Business" has a more extensive signification than "trade." Having thus cleared the ground the act goes on to provide in what manner a company may be formed under the act. The machinery is simple, and is described as follows:--

"Any seven or more persons associated for any lawful purpose may, by subscribing their names to a memorandum of association and otherwise complying with the requisitions of this act in respect of registration, form an incorporated company with or without limited liability" (§ 6). It is not necessary that the subscribers should be traders nor will the fact that six of the subscribers are mere dummies, clerks or nominees of the seventh affect the validity of the company; so the House of Lords decided in _Salomon_ v. _Salomon & Co._, 1897, A. C. 22.

Memorandum of Association.

The document to be subscribed--the Memorandum of Association--corresponds, in the case of companies formed under the Companies Act 1862, to the charter or deed of settlement in the case of other companies. The form of it is given in the schedule to the act, and varies slightly according as the company is limited by shares or guarantee, or is unlimited. (See the 3rd schedule to the Consolidation