English Commons members originally represented local groups, not the whole people

Evidence

These two interests began to separate after the middle of the twelfth century; royal jurisdiction then came to be executed by judicial commissions that rode large circuits, and their administration was obviously of a more general, locally unconstrained sort, while the interests of the community were protected by the growing significance of the local jury. Here the community, in its purely internal interests, played the role of the individual in our correlation; it was a social individual whose judicial life had once run its course along with that of the political state-collectivity, but which later gained a purer autonomy of being with which it then stood along side of, or in opposition to, the equally more purely elaborated law of the large collectivity. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 682 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The local community functioned as an individual against the state — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 682; Commons are internally contested, shifting coalitions rather than unanimous wholes. — Yael Arbell, The Circle of Commoning:…, 66

Related

• The local community functioned as an individual against the state (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• The local community functioned as an individual against the state #expands (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 682