under a portreeve or sheriff of their own, and not to be exposed to the arbitrary will of a noble or bishop who might claim to exercise the comitial authority within their precincts. Such a free organization was capable of placing a city upon terms of equality with other constituted powers; and hence we can easily understand the position so frequently assumed by the inhabitants of London. As late as the tenth century, and under Æðelstán, a prince who had carried the influence of the crown to an extent unexampled in any of his predecessors, we find the burghers treating as power to power with the king, under their portreeves and bishop: engaging indeed to follow his advice, if he have any to give which shall be for their advantage; but nevertheless constituting their own sworn gyldships or commune, by their own authority, on a basis of mutual alliance and guarantee, as to themselves seemed good[801]. ----- Footnote 799: The “Ingang burhware” may possibly be only a selected portion of the population; as, for example, the richer inhabitants, a special burgher’s club. The argument in the text is no way affected by the pre-eminence of some particular association among the rest, and an “Ingang burhware,” even if a distinct thing, only proves the existence of a “burhwaru” besides. However it is probable that there was a general disposition to admit as many members as possible into associations whose security and influence would greatly depend upon their numbers. Footnote 800: The word _communa_ occurs at almost every page of the ‘Liber de antiquis Legibus,’ to express the whole commonalty of the city of London. Glanville himself uses _communa_ and _gyldae_ as equivalent terms. “Item si quis nativus quiete per unum annum et unum diem in aliquâ villâ privilegiatâ manserit, ita quod in eorum _communiam_, scilicet _gyldam_, tanquam civis receptus fuerit, eo ipso a villenagio liberabitur.” Lib. v. cap. 5. The reader may consult with advantage Thierry’s history of the Communes in France, in his ‘Lettres sur l’histoire de France,’ a work which has not received in this country an attention at all commensurate to its merits, or comparable to that bestowed upon his far less sound production the ‘Conquête de l’Angleterre par les Normands.’ At the same time it would be an error to apply the example of the French Communes to our own or those of Flanders, which had frequently a very different origin. See Warnkönig, Hist. de Flandre, par Gheldolf: Bruxelles, 1835, particularly vol. ii. with its valuable appendixes. Footnote 801: This truly interesting and important document will be found in an appendix to this Book. In fact the principle of all society during the Saxon period is that of free association upon terms of mutual benefit,—a noble and a grand principle, to the recognition of which our own enlightened period is as yet but slowly returning. -----