Author

Zhang Naihe

Publisher

People's Publishing House (December 2014)

Book Description 

Franchises was a right originated by the king and retained by the subjects. It originally referred to the nobility’s rights granted by the king and later referred to subjects’ some particular rights granted by the king.This kind of rights can be given to natural person or corporate bodies, held by one or more people and involved in all areas of politics, economy and social life. Franchises can be divided into two types: traditional federal franchises and newly emerging subjects’ social and economic franchises. With the decline of traditional federal franchises, subjects’ franchises predominated in the early modern England. As a specific pattern of the rights, franchises reflected the relationship between the king and his subjects. The study of franchises not only helps to understand early modern English monarchy, but also benefits the exploration of the origin of many modern economic and social system, such as administrative licensing, franchising, legal person system, company system, patent system and copyright system.