used as the town hall, the guild ordinances were the town ordinances, and
the corporation became the government of the borough, and as such chose
persons to represent it in Parliament, when summoned by the king's writ to
send burgesses to Westminster.

London is a corporation by prescription and not by virtue of any
particular charter, and to this day its city hall is called by the ancient
name, Guild Hall. But with the growth of wealth and population the
original fraternity divided into craft organizations (so long ago, indeed,
that no record of its existence remains), and each trade organized a
guild, with a hall of its own; and thus it came to pass that the twelve
livery companies--the Mercers, the Grocers, the Goldsmiths, the Drapers,
the Fishmongers, and the rest--became the government of the capital of
England.

All mediaeval institutions tended to aristocracy and monopoly, and,
accordingly, after the merchant guilds had split into these corporate
trade unions, boroughs waxed exclusive, and membership, instead of being
an incident of citizenship, grew to confer citizenship itself; thus the
franchise, being confined to freemen, and freedom or membership having
come to depend on birth, marriage, election, or purchase, the
constituencies which returned a majority of the House of Commons grew so
petty and corrupt as to threaten the existence of parliamentary government
itself, and the abuse at last culminated in the agitation which produced
the Reform Bill.

When legal forms had taken shape, the land upon which a town stood was not
unusually granted to the mayor and commonalty by metes and bounds,
[Footnote: See Charter of Plymouth, granted 1439. _History of
Plymouth_, p. 50. The incorporation was by statute.] to them and their