The people dwelt in the towns and cities, and only the nobles on large estates in the country with great buildings, strongholds, and sometimes churches, to accommodate themselves and their numerous retainers whom they were bound to protect. In the single province of Holland alone, the largest of the seven provinces of the republic, there existed, and had existed for more than a century prior to the Discovery of New Netherland, three hundred of these Patroonships, or fiefs as they were called,' to the mutual advantage of their owners and their tenants or vassals, as the then flourishing and powerful condition of the Dutch republic fully proves.

There was no clashing of interests between the nobles, the commoners, and the municipalities. Each held their rights and privileges from the same sovereign authority. The latter were in fact incorporated nobles, so to speak. The people of the towns, 'as the military features of the feudal system gradually weakened, demanded and obtained of the Sovereign authority. Count, King, or Emperor, the same rights and privileges as a body, which the nobles possessed individually. The Sovereign, as Lord Paramount, granted these as they were desired, for he was perfectly willing that the people of the towns should commute for specific annual sums the military and other feudal services to which he was entitled, just as the nobles did. The people, however, in the Dutch provinces, always claimed and demanded the right to fix the amount of these annual sums themselves. This was always granted, and they ever held