ABSTRACT
The origin of towns—As in the case of the manor, which was the Norman name for the Saxon “townships,” the town, in the modem sense of the word, had its origin from the primitive settlement known as the mark (p. 6). The only difference between a town and a manor originally lay in the number of its population, and in the fact that the town was a more defensible place than the “town-ship,” or rural manor, probably having a mound or moat surrounding it, instead of the hedges which ran round the villages. In itself it was merely a manor or group of manors; as Professor Freeman puts it, “one part of the district where men lived closer together than elsewhere.” The town had at first a constitution like that of a primitive village in the mark, but its inhabitants had gradually gained certain rights and functions of a special nature. These rights and privileges had been received from the lord of the manor on which the town had grown up; for towns, especially provincial towns, were at first only dependent manors, which gained safety and solidity under the protection of some great noble, prelate, or the king himself, who finally would grant the town thus formed a charter.
