OF MODERN CORPORATIONS. Ye 
of the South ; in Rochelle it consisted of seventy- 
five members, in Rouen of one hundred; this 
body, representing the whole of the citizens, 
chose from its own number the jurati, and 
proposed to the king three citizens, of 
whom he nominated one to the office of mayor. 
Rarely was any distinction made in eligibility to 
office, in favour of the higher class of the citi- 
zens, or of patrician families, and the instances 
which occur are chiefly in Flanders and Brabant. 
In Louvain, the old families had almost entirely 
excluded the artizans from a share in the admi- 
nistration, in consequence of which, in 1378, 
the latter, headed by the woollen weavers, ex- 
pelled them from the city. The personal privi- 
leges which the inhabitants of the cities gained 
by their erection into a community were, free- 
dom from illegal seizure of their person, inherit- 
ance without seizure by the lord, and exemption 
from dues and talliages beyond a moderate and 
stipulated sum. It was an important conse- 
quence, in reference to the political character 
which the towns afterwards assumed, that when 
they thus withdrew themselves from under the 
dominion of the bishop or the count, the king 
considered them as coming immediately under 
his own jurisdiction as head of the state.* This 
* «Reputabat rex, civitates omnes suas esse in quibus com- 
muniz essent.’ Bouquet xii. 304. 
