general not heavy, they were liable to tallages at the discretion of their lords. This burthen continued for two centuries, with no limitation, except that the barons were latterly forced to ask permission of the king before they set a tallage on their tenants, which was commonly done when he imposed one upon his own.[39] Still the towns became considerably richer; for the profits of their traffic were undiminished by competition, and the consciousness that they could not be individually despoiled of their possessions, like the villeins of the country around, inspired an industry and perseverance which all the rapacity of Norman kings and barons was unable to daunt or overcome. [Sidenote: Towns let in fee-farm.] One of the earliest and most important changes in the condition of the burgesses was the conversion of their individual tributes into a perpetual rent from the whole borough. The town was then said to be affirmed, or let in fee-farm, to the burgesses and their successors for ever.[40] Previously to such a grant the lord held the town in his demesne, and was the legal proprietor of the soil and tenements; though I by no means apprehend that the burgesses were destitute of a certain estate in their possessions. But of a town in fee-farm he only kept the superiority and the inheritance of the annual rent, which he might recover by distress.[41] The burgesses held their lands by burgage-tenure, nearly analogous to, or rather a species of, free socage.[42] Perhaps before the grant they might correspond to modern copyholders. It is of some importance to observe that the lord, by such a grant of the town in fee-farm, whatever we may think of its previous condition, divested himself of his property, or lucrative dominion over the soil, in return for the perpetual rent; so that tallages subsequently set at his own discretion upon the inhabitants, however common, can hardly be considered as a just exercise of the rights of proprietorship. [Sidenote: Charters of incorporation.]