degrading, and, in process of time, opened an ever-widening sphere for the industry and progress of freemen.  Thus a people began to exist.  It was, however; a miserable people, with personal, but no civil rights whatever.  Their condition, although better than servitude, was almost desperate.  They were taxed beyond their ability, while priest and noble were exempt.  They had no voice in the apportionment of the money thus contributed.  There was no redress against the lawless violence to which they were perpetually exposed.  In the manorial courts, the criminal sat in judgment upon his victim.  The functions of highwayman and magistrate were combined in one individual.

By degrees, the class of freemen, artisans, traders, and the like, becoming the more numerous, built stronger and better houses outside the castle gates of the “land’s master” or the burghs of the more powerful nobles.  The superiors, anxious to increase their own importance, favored the progress of the little boroughs.  The population, thus collected, began to divide themselves into guilds.  These were soon afterwards erected by the community into bodies corporate; the establishment of the community, of course, preceding, the incorporation of the guilds.  Those communities were created by charters or Keuren, granted by the sovereign.  Unless the earliest concessions of this nature have perished, the town charters of Holland or Zeland are nearly a century later than those of Flanders, France, and England.

The oldest Keur, or act of municipal incorporation, in the provinces afterwards constituting the republic, was that granted by Count William the First of Holland and Countess Joanna of Flanders, as joint proprietors of Walcheren, to the town of Middelburg.  It will be seen that its main purport is to promise, as a special privilege to this community, law, in place of the arbitrary violence by which mankind, in general, were governed by their betters.

“The inhabitants,” ran the Charter, “are taken into protection by both counts.  Upon fighting, maiming, wounding, striking, scolding; upon peace-breaking, upon resistance to peace-makers and to the judgment of Schepens; upon contemning the Ban, upon selling spoiled wine, and upon other misdeeds fines are imposed for behoof of the Count, the city, and sometimes of the Schepens.......To all Middelburgers one kind of law is guaranteed.  Every man must go to law before the Schepens.  If any one being summoned and present in Walcheren does not appear, or refuses submission to sentence, he shall be banished with confiscation of property.  Schout or Schepen denying justice to a complainant, shall, until reparation, hold no tribunal again.......A burgher having a dispute with an outsider (buiten mann) must summon him before the Schepens.  An appeal lies from the Schepens to the Count.  No one can testify but a householder.  All alienation of real estate must take place before the Schepens.  If an outsider has a complaint against a burgher, the Schepens and Schout must arrange it.  If either party refuses submission to them, they must ring the town bell and summon an assembly of all the burghers to compel him.  Any one ringing the town bell, except by general consent, and any one not appearing when it tolls, are liable to a fine.  No Middelburger can be arrested or held in durance within Flanders or Holland, except for crime.”