book 3, ch.. 1, and book 4 chapter 1.

See, also, COMITIA CENTURIATA, and CONTIONES.

COMITIA TRIBUTA, The.

See ROME: B. C. 472-471.

COMMAGENE, Kingdom of.

A district of northern Syria, between Cilicia and the Euphrates, which acquired independence during the disorders which broke up the empire of the Seleucidæ, and was a separate kingdom during the last century B. C. It was afterwards made a Roman province. Its capital was Samosata.

COMMENDATION.

See BENEFICIUM

COMMERCIUM.

See MUNICIPIUM.

COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY, The French Revolutionary.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (MARCH-JUNE), and (JUNE-OCTOBER).

COMMITTEE ON THE CONDUCT OF THE WAR, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861-1862 (DECEMBER-MATCH: VIRGINIA).

COMMODUS, Roman Emperor, A. D. 180-192.

COMMON LAW, English.

"The municipal law of England, or the rule of civil conduct prescribed to the inhabitants of this kingdom, may with sufficient propriety be divided into two kinds; the 'lex non scripta,' the unwritten or common law; and the 'lex scripta,' the written or statute law. The 'lex non scripta,' or unwritten law, includes not only general customs, or the common law properly so called, but also the particular customs of certain parts of the kingdom; and likewise those particular laws that are by custom observed only in certain courts and jurisdictions. When I call these parts of our law 'leges non scriptre,' I would not be understood as if all those laws were at present merely oral, or communicated from the former ages to the present solely by word of mouth. ... But, with us at present, the monuments and evidences of our legal customs are contained in the records of the several courts of justice, in books of reports and judicial decisions, and in the treatises of learned sages of the profession, preserved and handed down to us from the times of highest antiquity. However, I therefore style these parts of our law 'leges non scriptre,' because their original institution and authority are not set down in writing, as Acts of Parliament are, but they receive their binding power, and the force of laws, by long and immemorial usage, and by their universal reception throughout the kingdom."

_Sir W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England. introduction, section 3._

ALSO IN: _H. S. Maine, Ancient Law, chapter 1._

_J. N. Pomeroy, Introduction to Municipal Law, sections. 37-42._

COMMON LOT, OR COMMON LIFE, Brethren of the.

See BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LOT.

"COMMON SENSE" (Paine's Pamphlet), The influence of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JANUARY-JUNE).

COMMONS, The.

See ESTATES, THE THREE.

COMMONS, House of.

See PARLIAMENT, THE ENGLISH, and KNIGHTS OF THE SHIRE.

COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND, Establishment of the.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (FEBRUARY).

COMMUNE, The.

The commonalty; the commons. In feudal usage, the term signified, as defined by Littré, the body of the bourgeois or burghers of a town who had received a charter which gave them rights of self-government. "In France the communal constitution was during this period (12th century) encouraged, although not very heartily, by Lewis VI., who saw in it one means of fettering the action of the barons and bishops and securing to himself the support of a strong portion of his people. In some cases the commune of France is, like the guild, a voluntary association, but its objects are from the first more distinctly political. In some parts of the kingdom the towns had risen against their lords in the latter half of the eleventh century, and had retained the fruits of their hard-won victories. {492} In others, they possessed, in the remaining fragments of the Karolingian constitution, some organisation that formed a basis for new liberties. The great number of charters granted in the twelfth century shows that the policy of encouraging the third estate was in full sway in the royal councils, and the king by ready recognition of the popular rights gained the affections of the people to an extent which has few parallels in French history. The French charters are in both style and substance very different from the English. The liberties which are bestowed are for the most part the same, exemption from arbitrary taxation, the right to local jurisdiction, the privilege of enfranchising the villein who has been for a year and a day received within the walls, and the power of electing the officers. But whilst all the English charters contain a confirmation of free and good customs, the French are filled with an enumeration of bad ones. ... The English have an ancient local constitution the members of which are the recipients of the new grant, and guilds of at least sufficient antiquity to render their confirmation typical of the freedom now guaranteed; French communia is a new body which, by the action of a sworn confederacy, has wrung from its oppressors a deliverance from hereditary bondage. ... The commune lacks too the ancient element of festive religious or mercantile association which is so conspicuous in the history of the guild. The idea of the latter is English, that of the former is French or Gallic. Yet notwithstanding these differences, the substantial identity of the privileges secured by these charters seems to prove the existence of much international sympathy. The ancient liberties of the English were not unintelligible to the townsmen of Normandy; the rising freedom of the German cities roused a corresponding ambition in the towns of Flanders; and the struggles of the Italian municipalities awoke the energies of the cities of Provence. All took different ways to win the same liberties. ... The German Hansa may have been derived from England; the communa of London was certainly derived from France. ... The communa of London, and of those other English towns which in the twelfth century aimed at such a constitution, was the old English guild in a new French garb: it was the ancient association, but directed to the attainment of municipal rather than mercantile privileges."

_William Stubbs, Constitutional History of England,