The document De Institutis Londoniae, which is considered to date from the time of Æðelræd, that is the commencement of the eleventh century, gives the fine for burhbryce to the king; and inflicts a further bót of thirty shillings, for the benefit of the city, if the king will grant it, “si rex hoc concedat nobis.” Inst. Lond. § 4. Thorpe, i. 301. Footnote 824: Cod. Dipl. No. 293. ----- Two points necessarily arrest our attention in considering the case of every city; the first of these is the internal organization, on which the freedom of the inhabitants itself depends: the second is the relation the city stands in to the public law, that is to say, its particular position toward the state. The Anglosaxon laws do contain a few provisions destined to regulate the intercourse between the townspeople and the country: for example we may refer to the laws which regulate the number of mints allowed to each city. In the tenth century it was settled that each burh might have one,—and from this very fact it is clear that “burh” was then a legal term having a fixed and definite meaning,—while a few cities were favoured with a larger number. The names of the places so distinguished are preserved, and from the regulations affecting them in this respect we may form a conclusion as to their comparative importance. Under Æðelstân we find the following arrangement:—At Canterbury were to be seven moneyers; four for the king, two for the bishop, one for the abbot. At Rochester three; two for the king, one for the bishop. At London eight. At Winchester six. At Lewes, Hampton, Wareham, Exeter and Shaftsbury, two moneyers to each town. At Hastings, Chichester, and at the other burhs, one to each town[825]. ----- Footnote 825: Leg. Æðelst. i. § 14. Thorpe, i. 206. ----- It is right to observe that all these places are in Æðelstán’s peculiar kingdom, south of the Thames, and that his legislation takes no notice of the Mercian, Eastanglian or Northumbrian territories. But half a century later, it was ordered that no man should have a mint save the king, and that any person who wrought money without the precincts of a burh, should be liable to the penalties of forgery. The inconvenience of this was however too great, and by the ‘Instituta Londoniae,’ each principal city (“summus portus”) was permitted to have three, and every other burh one moneyer[826]. ----- Footnote 826: Leg. Æðelr. iii. § 8, 16; iv. § 5, 9. Thorpe, i. 296, 298, 301, 303. -----