Town^ Toivnsliip and Tithing. 147 



period tlie unit of representation- — and that not as a mere representative 

 district, but as a body politic; for at this period representation was never of 

 artificial divisions, but of corporate bodies. This is clearly a political or 

 constitutional f miction. Svich phrases as "by the consent of the saide 

 Township," and "with the consent of the hole Towne," in the sales of 

 church i^roperty mentioned above, imply organized and collective action — 

 an assembly or ' ' town meeting " of some sort. 



That the township lacked the higher judicial powers is admitted by Bishop 

 Stubbs, who says Qd. 90): "their assemblies are rather gemots or meetings, 

 than proper courts; for any contentious proceedings amongst men so closely 

 connected and so few in number, must have been carried immediately to the 

 hundred court." That the township did have a gemot or meeting, is proved 

 by the mention of a tunseipesmot in a charter of Richard I., and that this 

 meeting had certain definite powers of self-government, apart from its 

 function as a unit of representation, is shown, for exanaple, by the Costo- 

 mary of Tettenhall Eegis (English Gilds, p. 432), a body of regulations or 

 •• bye-laws" made by tlie tenants of the manor at their Leet or Law-day. 

 This Costomary is a complete body of laws for the government of the com- 

 munity; and in the body of these laws the word " town" is twice used to 

 designate the manor in its pubhc relations. 



" Art. 19. No man shall make yates or gapes in the common field, upon 

 the corne or grasse of his neighbors, but by the consent of [the] comonty; 

 and if he do, he shall give to the lord 2s., and to the comonty of the 

 towne 2s." 



"Art. 21. No man of oure to wiie shall enter upon the stubble of any 

 other towne while the corne is uj^on the ground, except it is upon his own 

 laud, and by the good will of all his neighbors, under payne of iijs. to the 

 lord." 



In the passages just cited we have "town" used as equivalent to 

 ' ' manor," just as in those previoiisly cited, it was used as equivalent to 

 "parish." The manor Avas the feudahzed township, that is, the township 

 converted into a fief, as the jjarish was the township regarded as an eccle- 

 siastical organization. And just as, in. the sixteenth century, the parish, 

 or ecclesiastical organization, superseded the township; so in the middle 

 ages the manorial or feudal organization superseded, or at any rate ob- 

 scured, the township, the original municipal division. This process of 

 feudalization, or converting a free townsliip into a seignorial estate, began 

 very early in the Anglo-Saxon i^eriod. Indeed, even on the assumption 

 that England was colonized by free peasants, organizing in free townships, 

 we must at the same time admit the probability of a considerable propor- 

 tion of seignorial townships, or manorial estates, side by side with the free 

 communities, and intermixed Avith them. And whatever may have been 

 the original status, it is certain that long before the Norman conquest, 



1 Per quutiior leyaliores homines de qualibet villata (Assize of Clarendon, 1.) 



