In Parliament the towns often obtained justice and the maintenance of their franchises against the officers of the king.

The collection of kingly ordinances at this time abounds with instances of the kind.

These judges, besides, these bailiffs, these provosts, these seneschals, and all these officers of the king or of the great suzerains, formed before long a numerous and powerful class.

Now the majority amongst them were burghers, and their number and their power were turned to the advantage of burgherdom, and led day by day to its further extension and importance.

Of all the original sources of the third estate, this it is, perhaps, which has contributed most to bring about the social preponderance of that order.
Just when burgherdom, but lately formed, was losing in many of the communes a portion of its local liberties, at that same moment it was seizing by the hand of Parliaments, provosts, judges, and administrators of all kinds, a large share of central power.