The two great classes of towns were the villes libres (free towns) and the villes franches, or villes de bourgeoisie (franchise, or chartered, towns). The free towns enjoyed a large measure of independence. In relation to their lords they occupied essentially the position of vassals, with the legislative, financial, and judicial privileges which by the twelfth century all great vassals had come to have. The burghers elected their own officers, constituted their own courts, made their own laws, levied taxes, and even waged war. The leading types of free cities were the communes of northern France (governed by a provost and one or more councils, often essentially oligarchical) and the consulates of southern France and northern Italy (distinguished from the communes by the fact that the executive was made up of "consuls," and by the greater participation of the local nobility in town affairs). A typical free town of the commune type, was Laon, in the region of northern Champagne. In 1109 the bishop of Laon, who was lord of the city, consented to the establishment of a communal government. Three years later he sought to abolish it, with the result that an insurrection was stirred up in which he lost his life. King Louis VI. intervened and the citizens were obliged to submit to the authority of the new bishop, though in 1328 fear of another uprising led this official to renew the old grant. The act was ratified by Louis VI. in the text (a) given below.
The other great class of towns—the franchise towns—differed from the free towns in having a much more limited measure of political and economic independence. They received grants of privileges, or "franchises," from their lord, especially in the way of restrictions of rights of the latter over the persons and property of the inhabitants, but they remained politically subject to the lord and their government was partly or wholly under his control. Their charters set a limit to the lord's arbitrary authority, emancipated such inhabitants as were not already free, gave the citizens the right to move about and to alienate property, substituted money payments for the corvée, and in general made old regulations less burdensome; but as a rule no political rights were conferred. Paris, Tours, Orleans, and other more important cities on the royal domain belonged to this class. The town of Lorris, on the royal domain a short distance east of Orleans, became the common model for the type. Its charter, received from Louis VII. in 1155, is given in the second selection (b) below.
Sources—(a) Text in Vilevault and Bréquigny, Ordonnances des Rois de France de la Troisième Race ["Ordinances of the Kings of France of the Third Dynasty">[, Paris, 1769, Vol. XI., pp. 185-187.
(b) Text in Maurice Prou, Les Coutumes de Lorris et leur Propagation aux XIIe et XIIIe Siècles ["The Customs of Lorris and their Spread in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries">[, Paris, 1884, pp. 129-141.
(a)
1. Let no one arrest any freeman or serf for any offense without due process of law.[470]
2. But if any one do injury to a clerk, soldier, or merchant, native or foreign, provided he who does the injury belongs to the Provisions of the charter of Laon same city as the injured person, let him, summoned after the fourth day, come for justice before the mayor and jurats.[471]
7. If a thief is arrested, let him be brought to him on whose land he has been arrested; but if justice is not done by the lord, let it be done by the jurats.[472]
12. We entirely abolish mortmain.[473]