29), that, on the contrary, it was the _justitiarius_ who should "evidently" be identified with the portreeve (see p. 350, _supra_). Perhaps the assumption of a portreeve's existence springs from forgetfulness or misapprehension of the condition of London at the time. Its corporate unity, we must always remember, had not yet been developed. As Dr. Stubbs so truly observes, London was only "a bundle of communities, townships, parishes, and lordships, of which each has its own constitution."[1029] I cannot indeed agree with him in his view that the result of the charter of Henry I. was to replace this older system by a new "shire organization."[1030] For my contention is that our great historian not only misdates the charter in question, but also misunderstands it (though not so seriously as others), and that it made no difference in the "organization" at all. But I would cordially endorse these his words:— "No new incorporation is bestowed: the churches, the barons, the citizens retain their ancient customs; the churches their sokens, the barons their manors, the citizens their township organization, and possibly their guilds. The municipal unity which they possess is of the same sort as that of the county and hundred."[1031] And he further observes that the City "clearly was organized under a sheriff like any other shire." Thus the local government of the day was to be found in the petty courts of these various "communities," and not in any central corporation. The only centralizing element was the sheriff, and his office was not so much to "govern," as to satisfy the financial claims of the Crown in ferm, taxes, and profits of jurisdiction. There was, of course, the general "folkmote" over which, with the bishop, he would preside, but the true corporate organisms were those of the several communities. The sheriff and the folkmote could no more mould these self-governing bodies into one coherent whole, than they could, or did, accomplish this in the case of an ordinary shire. Here we have a somewhat curious parallel between such a polity as is here described and that of the present metropolis outside the City. There, too, we have the local communities, with their quasi-independent vestries, etc., and the Metropolitan Board of Works is a substitute for their "folkmote" or "shiremote."[1032] But, to revert to the days of Henry I., the Anglo-Saxon system of government, its strength varying in intension conversely with its sphere in extension, possessed the toughest vitality in its lowest and simplest forms. Thus the original territorial system might never have led to a corporate unity. But what the sheriff and the folkmote could not accomplish, the mayor and the _communa_ could and did. The territorial arrangement was overthrown by the rising power of commerce. To quote once more from Dr. Stubbs's work: