"Commonalty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... States-General.—No one exactly knew the limits of the powers of the States-General when it met in 1789. Nobles, clergy, and the deputies who represented the commonalty, all formed the assembly at Versailles; and though the king would have kept apart these last, who were called the Tiers Etat, or third estate, they refused to withdraw from the great hall of Versailles. The Count of Mirabeau, the younger son of a noble family, who ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Gaul there are two orders of those men who are of any rank and dignity: for the commonalty is held almost in the condition of slaves, and dares to undertake nothing of itself and is admitted to no deliberation. The greater part, when they are pressed either by debt, or the large amount of their tributes, or the oppression of the more powerful, give themselves up in vassalage ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... already alluded to the old Eastern tale of "The Fish and the Ring," invented some thousands of years since. It has survived to our own day, and is still related and believed by the commonalty to the east of London. In the church at Stepney is a tomb to the memory of Lady Rebecca Berry, who died 1696, in whose coat-of-arms a fish and an annulet appear. She has hence been supposed the heroine of a once popular ballad, the scene of which is laid in Yorkshire; it is entitled, ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... borne full sway in matters of police. The third battle was in 1357. This was the famous riot of St. Scholastica's day—satis periculosa—which resulted in the excommunication of the Mayor, while he and the commonalty of the town of Oxford were laid under an interdict by John, Bishop of Lincoln. The Mayor, who was a vintner and drawn into the quarrel through it having arisen in his tavern, is stated in one account to have been originally in the service of the University—protected by the Privilege—and ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... Holy Cross.—Founded in the year 1392 by the "Bailiffs and Commonalty" of the town of Birmingham (answering to our aldermen and councillors), and licensed by the Crown, for which the town paid L50, the purpose being to "make and found a gild and perpetual fraternity of brethren and sustern (sisters), ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
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