be removed, and recorr UM cosU ngainst the 



ox" bmHniy, enlarging, or rvpMRMf 

 town halls or council house*, polio* offlees, borough jails, or houses of 

 ootVMtMO, are imparted to th* council* of borough* by the AcU 

 7 Will IV. * 1 Viet. e. 78, and 5 t 6 Viet. c. 53 * c, 8. They are 

 powered to borrow money Mid to purchase land lor such purpose*. 

 Bridges within the nmiU a< the borough, and which ore repaired at ite 

 ux|inji, are placed under the management of the council. 



The number of AcU affecting Bare or lew directly manidpal 

 oorporaliooi in England and Wale*, commencing with the Manidpal 

 Keform Act (5 ft 6 Will IV. e. 78) ap to the preMot time is not lees 

 than sixty ; and the reader muat be referred to apecial treatiee* upon 

 the subject for more minute information. (See Blackst, ' Comm., 

 voL L, p. 515, Mr. Kerr'a ed. ; Rawlinson* ' Municipal Corporation 

 Act ; ' Merrineld'i ' Burge-e* 1 Manual.') 



In Ireland the municipal system was amended by the Act 3 ft 4 

 Viet c. 108 (1840), the provisions of which reeemble in many reepecta 

 those of the English Municipal Reform Act In Scotland, by the AcU 

 S ft 4 Will IV. co. 7* ft 77, the constitution of the common councils 

 in such burghs a* had formerly possessed bodies of this kind was 

 reformed, and councils were conferred upon such burghs ag had 



I >r- '. i ! \ i "I ' M- 



MlTMCiriUM, a term which property denotes, according to iU 

 etymology (mmHit and eafio), the capacity of enjoying righU with the 

 liability to duties. It is however used in the ancient Itoman writers 

 to express a class or body, the members of which are called Municipes. 



Municipium, as a collective name for a number of individuals, had 

 different significations at different periods of Roman history. In iU 

 oldest sense, it signified those inhabitants of Italian towns which had a 

 league or treaty with the Roman sUte, by which the citizens of such 

 towns, though not Roman citizens, enjoyed, when at Rome, all the 

 privileges of Roman citizens, except the suffrage and the eligibility to 

 the honours of the state (magistratus), and were also subject to the 

 burdens of Roman citizens ; the Fundani, Formiani, Cumani, Acerrani, 

 Lanuvini, and Tuseulani, are mentioned as examples. A Roman 

 jurist (Servius. the son) says that municipes originally signified those 

 who became citizens, their own state remaining perfectly distinct from 

 and unconnected with the Roman state, and who were not allowed to 

 attain to the dignities of the Roman state. (Fest. Epit., 'Municipium.') 



A second class of municipes is denned to be those whose State had 

 become a part of or was blended with the Roman state, as was the 

 case with the inhabitanU of Caere, Aricia, and Anagnia. (Festus, 

 ' Municipium.') But this would appear to be a misapplication or 

 improper application of the term, inasmuch as this class of municipes 

 comprehended those who ceased to have a State of their own, but were 

 incorporated with the Roman state on such terms as the latter chose 

 to grant. 



A third class is defined (but the definition is somewhat obscure) to 

 comprehend those towns which received the Roman citizenship, and at 

 the same time became municipia : Tiber, Prteneste, and other towns 

 are cited as examples. Niebuhr observes that the places mentioned in 

 this third class were either " all Latin colonies or Italian towns, such 

 as by the Julian Law, or by those which followed and gave it a wider 

 application, became mnnicipia in the later general sense." It seems to 

 be clear from this definition that municipium must here be understood 

 not in the sense which it has in the first definition, but in the later 

 sense of a town called a municipium. For the first part of the defini- 

 tion gives to the mnnicipes of this class the full Roman citizenship ; 

 and the second part adds (what might very well have been understood 

 without the addition) that the towns included in this definition must 

 have bad a local administration. These towns in effect became integral 

 parU of the Roman state, having before been separate, and as a neces- 

 sary consequence their local administration, which must still have 

 subsisted, became subject to the general Roman law, instead of being 

 independent of it. Such towns were the municipia uf the Imperial 

 period. The definition of municipes by 1'aulus is, "those who are 

 natives of the same municipium." Ulpian, who also (D. 50, i. 1.) gives 

 the same definition of municipes, refers to the vriyinal signification of 

 the term : " muneris partidpes recepti in civiutem ut munera nobiscum 

 faccrent-" He adds : " but now, by an abuse of the term, municiped 

 is the name given to the citizens of any particular town, as for example, 

 a Campanns or PutooUnus. He who is born of a Campanian father 

 and mother Is therefore a Campanian : if his mother be of Puteoli, he 

 is still a Campanian municcps, unless by some special privilege (privi- 

 Vigliiiii) he is a municeps of his mother's city, a favour which is granted 

 to some cities." 



It appears then that the municipium, as an ancient Roman institu- 

 tion, may be defined generally as the communication of the rights of 

 Roman citizens (and as a consequence, their liabilities) to Italian towns 

 by treaty or agreement. It thus resembles the isopolity (feroiroAiTla) 

 of the Ureckn. It is easy to conceive that the righU thus conferred 

 might be either the complete righU of Roman citizenship or only part 

 of such righu. After the freedom of the city was extended to all 

 Italy, and 

 dlfferwo*- 



1 subsequently to the provinces, there was no essential 

 between a colonia and a municipium, though the origin of 



_ a municipium, though the origin 



their connection with the Roman state was very different. [CoLOKT.] 

 Thus, under the emperors, all the inhabitanU of the same town, 



whether it was a colonial or a municipium, mi^ht with propriety be 

 called municipes, notwithstanding the criticism of Qellius (xvi. I'll. 



Under the emperors we find various towns in the provinces, as in 

 Spain and Britain, which were erected into municipia. The member* 

 of these towns were Roman citizens, and administered the attain of 

 their own community, subject to the general laws by which all Roman 

 citizens were bound. A municipium had a corporate character, under 

 which all the nraaicipes, that is, all the members of the city, were 

 comprehended. It would appear aa if the decurione* were sometimes 

 considered as the corporate body representing the municipium. The 

 municipium could sue and be sued, and could acquire and hold property. 



The decoriones were the senate or council of a municipium ; and the 

 two chief *s|i,b>iiliii were called duumviri. The municipia had also 

 other local magistrate* ; and many of them had a mint, as we see from 

 their extant coins. Thus the later municipia of the empire were in 

 all respecU like modern corporate towns, of which they were un- 

 doubtedly the origin and the type. 



It follows from what has been said, that an Italian town was origin- 

 ally called munici]>iiiiii. or the inhabitanU municipes, solely with 

 reference to the ]>articipatioii of the townsmen in the privileges of 

 Roman citizens, and th:it under the republic such municipia were in 

 all respects independent of Roman law in their internal organisation. 

 The municipia included in the third definition, and the later municipia 

 erected under the emperors, were improperly BO called, inasmuch as 

 the inhabitants of these towns became, or were, Roman citizens, and in 

 all respects subject to Roman law. 



The original signification of municipium in the old Roman constitu- 

 tion is discussed by Niebuhr (' Roman Hist.,' vol. ii.) in an insti 

 chapter, which contains all the necessary reference*. It is not easy, 

 however, to assent to all this writer's opinions. 



l',,r a more extensive inquiry into this subject, the reader may 

 consult F. Roth, ' De re iinmici]>ali Romanorum ;' Savigny, 'Gesch. de 

 R. R. im Mittelalter,' t. i. c. 2 ; and Heineccii ' AntiquiUt Roman. 

 Syntig. A pp.,' lib. i., cap. v. 



MUNIMENTS. Thig word is a derivation from wxnio, which sig- 

 nifies " I defend," and originally designated those writings in which 

 are recorded the transactions of former times, out of which existing 

 relations, in respect of political righU, social righto, or property, arise. 

 Hence, by showing their origin, they defend the possession of them by 

 those who have rightfully inherited them. 



But MHNimrHtt has, in the course of ages, acquired a somewhat 

 different sense ; and from betokening the documents themselves, it is 

 sometimes used to denote the dtpotitorit* of these documents. 



Still, by those who aim at speaking with precision, it denotes the 

 written documents themselves. It is also rarely used in reference to 

 any small collection of such documents, or when the interest to be 

 defended is small. In such cases the correlative expressions ai , 

 dtedt, or eridtnat, which means however precisely the same thing, only 

 on a smaller scale. But when we apeak of the 'documents by which 

 the righU of a person are defended in whom a large estate has centred, 

 or who inherits an ancient title, or vast manorial or ecclesiastical 

 privileges, then the word of greater dignity, muniment*, is often used ; 

 and still more when the evidence* are spoken of which show the right 

 of the crown of any kingdom to iU possessions, or the right of crown 

 or people as sustained by written documents. 



Private collections of evidences rarely contain anything that is of 

 earlier date than the reign of Edward I. The public unmiments of Un- 

 English nation are believed to excel those of any other nation, both 

 in number, preservation, and the remoteness of the period at which 

 series or classes begin. Yet there is little previous to the reign of 

 liicliard I. There is no series commencing before that reign, except 

 that of the Pipe Rolls, the Great Roll of the Exchequer, in which 

 were entered, year by year, the receipts of the crown, ami many of its 

 payments. This series begins in the second year of King Henry II.. 

 and from that remote period to the year 1836, when this mode of 

 keeping the account ceased, there is scarcely a roll wanting in th 

 whole series. For the time previous to the beginning of that 

 one roll, which belongs to the reign of Henry I., only exisU of this 

 series; and the only other record of great importance before tl. 

 of Henry II. is that called ' Domesday Book,' a survey of nearly the 

 f the kingdom, made by William the Conqueror, a book which 

 is still sometimes appealed to in determining righU of the crown, or of 

 a subject against the crown, or of one subject against anoth. r. 



For the particular classes of public muniments, their depositories, 

 preservation, and other information concerning them, see RECORDS, 



1'l'BI.IC. 



MUNTZ METAL. [Piuss.] 



MI'KliEK. In the earlier periods of English jurisprudence, murder, 



m, was a term used to describe the secret destruction of life, 



witnessed and known by none besides the slayer and any accomplices 



that he might have ; so that the hue and cry, which the law required 



to be made after malefactors, could not be raised. 



Murdrum was also the name of an amercement or pecuniary penalty 

 imposed, until the reign of Edward III., upon the county or district 

 in which such a secret killing had taken place. One of the modes of 

 escaping from this penalty was, a presentment of Englishry ; in other 

 words, a finding by the coroner's inquest, upon the statement of the 

 relations of the deceased, that ho was an KngliAmnn the sole object 



