Anglo-Saxon Institutions. 449-1066 29
tion. Governmentally and economically they were little
alien units springing up in the rural hundreds and shires.
They must be taken into account in connection with
Anglo-Saxon local government; and they become ever
more important in governmental history. One is at once
faced by the question of origins. What was the thing
which made a place urban and the lack of which left it a
village or township? At first, he is inclined to think of
population as being the essential thing: when a community
reaches a certain size, it should be declared a borough and
receive the organisation and rights of one. But such a
conscious process could only take place after a consider-
able number of boroughs existed and people knew what
was meant by one. What was the origin of the first
boroughs?
During the Roman period, there were cities in Britain,
as elsewhere in the Roman empire; and these cities suffered
the same devastations from the incoming barbarians as
the other cities of the empire north of the Alps. Much
that was material survived and, in several places, there
was undoubtedly a continuous population; but it is im-
probable that the government of these cities lasted through
the century and a half of Anglo-Saxon invasion and con-
quest. English municipal institutions had their origin in
the Anglo-Saxon period.
When the first English boroughs emerge from the dark-
ness of the past, the things that distinguish them from
the ordinary townships are few. But it is clear that a
differentiation had begun: certain communities had
started to travel a different road from that of the ma-
jority; and, though the divergence was at first small, we
know that many of these humble boroughs at length be-
came true municipalities, and, on the way, set the example
to other communities that sought to adopt their forms
and attain their privileges. But the trouble is to account
for the first distinguishing traits of the borough. Prob-
ably these did not spring from the same causes in all
cases, and, at present, it is not possible to distinguish