a political unit was the bond of blood-relationship, real or assumed; but this was not the case with the city or borough. The city did not correspond with the tribe, as the mark corresponded with the clan. The aggregation of clans into tribes corresponded with the aggregation of marks, not into _cities_ but into _shires_. The multitude of compound political units, by the further compounding of which a nation was to be formed, did not consist of cities but of shires. The city was simply a point in the shire distinguished by greater density of population. The relations sustained by the thinly-peopled rural townships and hundreds to the general government of the shire were co-ordinate with the relations sustained to the same government by those thickly-peopled townships and hundreds which upon their coalescence were known as cities or boroughs. Of course I am speaking now in a broad and general way, and without reference to such special privileges or immunities as cities and boroughs frequently obtained by royal charter in feudal times. Such special privileges--as for instance the exemption of boroughs from the ordinary sessions of the county court, under Henry I.[11]--were in their nature grants from an external source, and were in nowise inherent in the position or mode of origin of the Teutonic city. And they were, moreover, posterior in date to that embryonic period of national growth of which I am now speaking. They do not affect in any way the correctness of my general statement, which is sufficiently illustrated by the fact that the oldest shire-motes, or county-assemblies, were attended by representatives from all the townships and hundreds in the shire, whether such townships and hundreds formed parts of boroughs or not.