ABSTRACT
The profound changes which from the twelfth century onwards began to transform the relations of subject and lord were to extend over several centuries. Granted in theory by the lord, little local constitutions of this sort were yet as a rule the outcome of preliminary negotiations with the subjects, and such an agreement seemed all the more necessary because the text did not usually confine itself to recording ancient practice but frequently modified it on certain points. The majority of the German or English places with charters were simple “burgs” rather than towns in the modern sense. In the case of England, the absence of charters of rural customs can probably be explained by the strength of the manorial structure and its evolution in a direction entirely favourable to the arbitrary authority of the lord. The stabilization of obligations was accompanied by certain drastic modifications in the internal structure of the manor.
