representaient

Updated: May 21, 2025

When the count went up to the general yearly placitum of the king, as the representative of the civitas, according to the laws of Charlemagne he was to be accompanied by a certain number of the scabini; and these seem to have accompanied him not solely in the character of legal advisers, but also in a certain measure as representatives of the cities in which lay their jurisdiction: they are by no means what the exaggeration of Sismondi calls "des magistrats populaires ... qui representaient la bourgeoisie"; but they certainly stood for the interests of the people, in a greater degree than any of the ruling powers we have as yet considered.

William Klapp Williams - The Communes of Lombardy from the VI. to the X. Century: An Investigation of the Causes Which Led to the Development: Of Municipal Unity Among the Lombard Communes.