In the government, executive, legislative, and judicial powers were distinguished, but not strictly separated. The executive power was vested in one man, or in several men, who were assisted by a kind of privy council. This council superintended various matters of public concern, such as weights, measures, highways, and fines. There was also a larger council, to which, as well as to public office generally, only the enfranchised citizens were eligible. These privileged persons were never more than a small fraction of the population; in Florence, for instance, barely three thousand, even in her populous days. Finally, there was a _parliament_ or assembly of all the free citizens, which met on the _piazza_, and shouted approval or disapproval to such questions as were submitted to it. In the earlier days the joint executives were called _consuls_. Their places were not easy. If they were fair to all, they displeased their own party; if unfair to the opposite party, they were liable to retaliation. The difficulties of partisanship led to the appointment of a new officer, the _podesta_. The name and idea came from the governors put in the Imperial cities by Barbarossa. The _podesta_, who was elected by the citizens, supplanted the consuls in all their more important functions; he became the head of both the civil and the military service, a kind of governor. He was a nobleman, chosen, in the hope of avoiding local partisanship, from some other Italian city. The citizens, if Guelf, of course chose a Guelf; if Ghibelline, a Ghibelline. When the _podesta's_ term of office, which was usually six months or a year, began, he came to the city bringing two knights, several judges, councillors, and notaries, a seneschal and attendants, and in the _piazza_ took his oath of office,--to observe the laws, to do justice, and to wrong no man. His duties, and often his movements, were carefully prescribed; sometimes he was not allowed to enter any house in the city other than the palace prepared for him. At the end of his term he was obliged to linger for a time, in order to give anybody who might be aggrieved an opportunity to lodge a complaint against him and obtain redress. Such was the ordinary form of communal government; but the constitutions varied in different cities, and in each city shifted every few years, as class feeling, partisan enmity, or new men suggested changes.