Municipal organization retained the essential features of the preceding era, such as the local assembly and the various officials, of whom the most important were the judges. The latter came to be called _alcaldes_ (from an Arabic term meaning “the judges”),--an example of Moslem influence. In many cities, there were representatives of the king, called _merinos_ and other names. Communication with the king was also maintained by the use of messengers, now of the king, now of the city. The actual monarchical authority was so slight that the towns often acted with complete independence. Like the nobles they made forays against the Moslems on their own account, or fought one another, or with very good reason attacked neighboring, lawless nobles. For these wars they often formed leagues, or brotherhoods (_hermandades_), of towns (or occasionally leagues which included some nobles), for which special ordinances were drawn up without previously consulting the king. Some of the towns of the north coast were so independent that they joined in the wars between France and England, against the latter. Often the towns changed their own charters without royal permission, although this was not done in open defiance of the king, but, rather, in secret and fraudulently. The privileges of the towns in respect to taxation (although, indeed, they paid the bulk of what the king received from his free, Christian subjects) have already been mentioned.[22] Taxes were also collected within the towns for local purposes. In addition to revenues from direct contributions the towns also imposed obligations of personal service on their citizens, and owned lands which formed perhaps their most important source of wealth. These lands were of two kinds, the _propios_ (estates “belonging to” a municipality and utilized to assist in defraying public expenses), which were worked directly or rented by the town, and the _comunales_, or land common, for the use of all, subject to local regulations. In seigniorial towns, especially in those acknowledging an ecclesiastical lord, great progress was made toward an approximation of the rights enjoyed by the royal towns and cities. They had already gained economic independence, but now wished to attain to political freedom as well. They fought against the lord’s practice of arbitrarily choosing their principal magistrates; next, they endeavored to gain for their own assembly the exclusive right of choice; then they tried to increase the powers of the locally chosen officials as compared with those appointed by the lord; and, all along, they aimed to acquire more authority for their assemblies, or for the council which came to represent them,--for example, the right to fix wages. By the opening of the thirteenth century local autonomy had been gained at Santiago de Compostela, and many other seigniorial towns (both noble and ecclesiastical) had achieved equal, or nearly equal, good fortune. [Sidenote: The administration of justice.]