Universal History - From the Creation of the World to the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century #263328

In the next place, the towns or boroughs, which were then tied down by a sort of vassalage and clientship to the nobles, began now to purchase their immunity; and, instead Of being entirely governed by these nobles, to whom the magistrates were no more than servants and stewards, while they exercised themselves the supreme civil and criminal authority, and imposed what taxes or ex actions they thought fit, the towns now acquired a right of choosing their own magistrates, who were responsible to the public; they freed them selves from those arbitrary impositions, and were governed by their own municipal statutes, subor dinate to the public laws Of the kingdom'. Thus the municipal government began, in many Of the towns Of Europe, to take the place Of the feudal.