There can, I should conceive, be little pretence for affecting to doubt that the burgesses of Domesday-book, of the various early records cited by Madox and others, and of the writs of summons to Edward's parliament, were inhabitants of tenements within the borough. But it may remain to be proved that any were entitled to the privileges or rank of burgesses, who held less than an estate of freehold in their possessions. The burgage-tenure, of which we read in Littleton, was evidently freehold; and it might be doubtful whether the lessees of dwellings for a term of years, whose interest, in contemplation of law, is far inferior to a freehold, were looked upon as sufficiently domiciled within the borough to obtain the appellation of burgesses. It appears from Domesday that the burgesses, long before any incorporation, held lands in common belonging to their town; they had also their guild or market-house, and were entitled in some places to tolls and customs. These permanent rights seem naturally restrained to those who possessed an absolute property in the soil. There can surely be no question as to mere tenants at will, liable to be removed from their occupation at the pleasure of the lord; and it is perhaps unnecessary to mention that the tenancy from year to year, so usually present, is of very recent introduction. As to estates for a term of years, even of considerable duration, they were probably not uncommon in the time of Edward I.; yet far outnumbered, as I should conceive, by those of a freehold nature. Whether these lessees were contributory to the ancient local burthens of scot and lot, as well as to the tallages exacted by the king, and tenths afterwards imposed by parliament in respect of movable estate, it seems not easy to determine; but if they were so, as appears more probable, it was not only consonant to the principle, that no freeman should be liable to taxation without the consent of his representatives, to give them a share in the general privilege of the borough, but it may be inferred with sufficient evidence from several records, that the privilege and the burthen were absolutely commensurate; men having been specially discharged from contributing to tallages, because they did not participate in the liberties of the borough, and others being expressly declared subject to those impositions, as the condition of their being admitted to the rights of burgesses.[69] It might however be conjectured that a difference of usage between those boroughs, where the ancient exclusive rights of burgage tenants were maintained, and those where the equitable claim of taxable inhabitants possessing only a chattel interest received attention, might ultimately produce those very opposite species of franchise, which we find in the scot and lot borough, and in those of burgage-tenure. If the franchise, as we now denominate it, passed in the thirteenth century for a burthen,