Feudal society next saw the rise of a new element within it: the privileged towns. At this time many towns acquired privileges, the movement beginning towards the end of the 11th century; they were sanctioned by a formal concession from the lord to whom the town was subject, the concession being embodied in a charter or in a record of customs (_coutume_). Some towns won for themselves true political rights, for instance the right of self-administration, rights of justice over the inhabitants, the right of not being taxed except by their own consent, of maintaining an armed force, and of controlling it themselves. Others only obtained civil rights, e.g. guarantees against the arbitrary rights of justice and taxation of the lord or his provost. The chief forms of municipal organization at this time were the _commune juree_ of the north and east, and the _consulat_, which came from Italy and penetrated as far as Auvergne and Limousin. The towns with important privileges formed in feudal society as it were a new class of lordships; but their lords, that is to say their burgesses, were inspired by quite a new spirit. The crown courted their support, taking them under its protection, and championing the causes in which they were interested (see COMMUNE). Finally, it is in this period, under Philip Augustus, that the great fiefs began to be effectually reannexed to the crown, a process which, continued by the kings up to the end of the _ancien regime_, refounded for their profit the territorial sovereignty of France. Great officers of the crown and peers of France. The crown maintained the machinery of feudalism, the chief central instruments of which were the great officers of the crown, the seneschal, butler, constable and chancellor, who were to become irremovable officials, those at least who survived. But this period saw the rise of a special college of dignitaries, that of the Twelve Peers of France, consisting of six laymen and six ecclesiastics, which took definitive shape at the beginning of the 13th century. We cannot yet discern with any certainty by what process it was formed, why those six prelates and those six great feudatories in particular were selected rather than others equally eligible. But there is no doubt that we have here a result of that process of feudal organization mentioned above; the formation of a similar assembly of twelve peers occurs also in a certain number of the great fiefs. Besides the part which they played at the consecration of kings, the peers of France formed a court in which they judged one another under the presidency of the king, their overlord, according to feudal custom. But the _cour des pairs_ in this sense was not separate from the _curia regis_, and later from the parlement of Paris, of which the peers of France were by right members. From this time, too, dates another important institution, that of the _maitres des requetes_. Growth of the royal power.