By 1600 there were some hundreds of these British
incorporations -- usually, but not always, known as
boroughs or cities. They possessed widely varying juris-
dictions and even wider variation in internal structure.
Some few of the more ancient among them claimed rights
and privileges by prescription; but, in the overwhelming
majority of cases, such rights and privileges had been in-
corporated in a formal document or charter. While a few
of these charters were seignorial in origin, for the most
part they represented direct grants from the Crown. The
majority appertained to areas which to-day would scarcely
be termed urban. In a few places there had taken place an
elaborate structural development often interwoven with
the old guild. Such, in brief, were the British municipal
corporations when the initial settlements were made in
America.

Of more importance to the understanding of the colonial
incorporations were the developments in England be-
tween 1600 and 1775. ⁴ This was the period in which the
municipal corporation crossed the Atlantic and found
permanent footing on American shores.

The Stuarts continued and extended the policy of the
Tudors, in so far as control of the boroughs was sought as
an instrument to consolidate power in royal hands. Under
James I this policy revealed no new major developments;
and under Charles I many of the boroughs, particularly

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