The city did not
correspond with the tribe, as the mark corresponded with the clan. The
aggregation of clans into tribes corresponded with the aggregation of
marks, not into _cities_ but into _shires_. The multitude of compound
political units, by the further compounding of which a nation was to be
formed, did not consist of cities but of shires. The city was simply a
point in the shire distinguished by greater density of population. The
relations sustained by the thinly-peopled rural townships and hundreds
to the general government of the shire were co-ordinate with the
relations sustained to the same government by those thickly-peopled
townships and hundreds which upon their coalescence were known as cities
or boroughs. Of course I am speaking now in a broad and general way, and
without reference to such special privileges or immunities as cities and
boroughs frequently obtained by royal charter in feudal times. Such
special privileges--as for instance the exemption of boroughs from the
ordinary sessions of the county court, under Henry I.[11]--were in their
nature grants from an external source, and were in nowise inherent in
the position or mode of origin of the Teutonic city. And they were,
moreover, posterior in date to that embryonic period of national growth
of which I am now speaking.
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