Municipal institutions were first introduced into Britain by the Romans. York was one of the first towns in England on which they were conferred. We can discover very little to aid us in tracing the progressive history of the municipal government of the ancient city of Chester until the time of Ranulph, the third Earl Palatine, and nephew of the Earl Hugh; but being a Roman colony, the inhabitants no doubt were regarded as Roman citizens, and as such entitled to the same privileges which Rome itself possessed. Pennant supposes that the Roman prætorium occupied the site on which St. Peter’s church is now built. In this tribunal, if the case be so, the civil law and power would be exercised in those days. “Before the city had any charter,” says King’s ‘Vale Royal,’ “they used by prescription divers liberties, and enjoyed a guild mercatory, that is, a brotherhood of merchants, and that whosoever was not admitted of that society, he could not use any trade or traffick within the city, nor be a tradesman therein. And the tenor of this guild mercatory did even run in these words:—‘Sicut hactenus usi fuerint;’ and was after confirmed under the Earl’s seal. And there were appointed two overseers, and those were appointed out of the chiefest of the citizens, and were greatly respected of the citizens as officers that had the special care of maintaining those privileges, before a mayor was ordained.” These officers were elected annually, and were denominated leave-lookers; they were accustomed to go round the city to see that its privileges were preserved, and sometimes used to take small sums, called _leave-lookerage_, for _leave_ for non-freemen to sell wares by retail. In the reign of Edward the Confessor, the government of the city was vested in twelve judges, selected from the vassals of the king, the earl, and the bishop.