[a. F. commune (It. and med.L. commūna, Pr. comuna, comunia):—late L. commūnia, neut. pl. of commūnis common, treated as sb. fem. (cf. bible).]
(For Commun(e as early form of COMMON, see the latter.)
1. Hist. As a rendering of med.L. communa, communia, F. commune, It. comuna in various historical and technical uses: a. the body of commons, the commonalty; b. a municipal corporation; c. a community.
1818. Hallam, Mid. Ages (1872), III. 33. In the memorable assertion of legislative right by the commons in the second of Henry V. … they affirm that the commune of the land is, and ever has been, a member of parliament.
1837. Sir F. Palgrave, Merch. & Friar, ii. (1844), 75. The lower or lowest sort of the people, ‘calling themselves the Communia.’
1867. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (ed. 3), I. iv. 257. The peasantry of Normandy … ‘made a commune.’
1875. Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. xi. 419. In London … the communa did not obtain regal recognition until 1191.
1876. Green, Short Hist., ii. 89. Nor were the citizens as yet united together in a commune or corporation.
2. In France, a territorial division governed by a maire and municipal council; it is the smallest division for general administrative purposes, and is as a rule a section of a canton; towns and cities (except Paris) however form only one.
1792. Pref. Explan. New Terms, in Ann. Reg., p. xvi. Communities or Communes. Sub-divisions of districts.
1800. trans. Lagrange’s Chem., I. 375. In the department of la Haute-Vienne, in the canton and commune of Saint Leonard.
1837. Penny Cycl., VIII. 412/1. The larger towns of France, with the exception of Paris, form but one commune. Ibid., 412/2. The average of France is nearly fifteen communes to a canton.
1863. Kinglake, Crimea (1876), I. xiv. 303. Forty thousand communes were suddenly told that they must make swift choice between Socialism and anarchy … and … a virtuous dictator.
b. Applied to similar administrative divisions in other countries; also to translate Ger. Gemeinde; also, a name for a division in the socialistic organization of St. Simon.
1832. Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), II. 62. Each [St. Simonian] division, as commune, village, town, or nation, is to have a ‘réglement d’ordre’ for industry.
1841. W. Spalding, Italy & It. Isl., III. 113. For the election of deputies from the provinces, the council of every commune proposes two candidates.
1845. S. Austin, Ranke’s Hist. Ref., III. 79. Gemeinde.—We have no word that expresses the double sense, ecclesiastical and civil, of this. I have therefore been obliged to resort to the French word Commune.
1861. Vac. Tour, 110. A commune in Servia is composed of two or three neighbouring villages; or a single village, if sufficiently large, may be of itself a commune.
c. The Commune (of Paris): (a) a name assumed by a body which usurped the municipal government of Paris, and in this capacity played a leading part during the Reign of Terror, till suppressed in 1794; (b) the government on communalistic principles established in Paris by an insurrection for a short time in the spring of 1871; (c) the revolutionary principles and practices embodied in the latter, and advocated by its adherents, the communards.
1792. Helen M. Williams, Lett. fr. France, I. ii. (Jod.). This wretch, Henriot, had been one of the executioners on the second of September, and was appointed by the commune of Paris, on the 31st of May, to take the command of the national guard.
1840. Penny Cycl., XVII. 255/1. (Paris) The Convention … restricted the power of the terrible committees, abolished the commune of Paris, and reduced the clubs to subordination.
1871. Graphic, 310/1.
1880. Daily News, 13 Dec. M. Rochefort … inciting the Commune to demolish her house.
