The city of Philadelphia, while not ungovernable, was set up very much like a medieval corporation, not a modern government. That this was the case dates back to the very beginning of the 1700s, when representatives of the colony writ large were fighting William Penn for concessions he didn’t want to allow.

“They felt like he had proprietary overreach,” explains Jessica Choppin Roney, associate professor in the College of Liberal Arts at Temple University and author of “Governed by a Spirit of Opposition: The Origins of American Political Practice in Colonial Philadelphia.”

“He wanted taxes; they called them ‘quit-rents.’ (A kind of rent or land tax.) He wanted all these things that they didn’t want to give him,” Roney says. “They were trying to carve out power against him. They were literally like, ‘He’s got to sail. It’s October, he’s going to lose the wind, he’s got to leave.’ And he knows this. He’s got to get back to England, or he may lose the colony altogether. So, he’s very pressed to leave. Before he goes, they sort of force him to sign these charters.”

The city was set up like a medieval guild, much like the way cities were established in the 14th and 15th centuries from the local lord. There were rules by which a person could become a freeman in the city, allowed rights and privileges that were different from what people in rural communities had, says Roney. This is the model they know and the model they use.

“So, it’s literally the mayor’s job to walk around the city from time to time and weigh the bread to make sure that if I pay whatever the loaf of bread costs, I’m getting the correct amount back,” she adds. “And it’s a lot more of that kind of work. It’s not really legislating for a community or holding hearings. There’s an important mayor’s court, there’s an important regulatory role that the city government has, but it’s not really law-giving, and it’s not really got much in the way of a tax base. So, the local government is not set up to govern. And they do actually pass laws, but here’s the thing: They never publish them. So, what is the point of passing a law and not telling anybody what it is?”

There’s no mechanism for relief for the poor because the churches take care of that. The churches also play an important role in record-keeping. This form of antiquated government was doomed from the start.

Along comes the 1720s, and many of these antiquated ways of doing things began to go by the wayside – thanks to the rise of Benjamin Franklin and his “Junto” of 12 farsighted men, as outlined in Episode 2 of “In Pursuit,” together with deep insights into the Penn family, Lenape land, the infamous Walking Purchase, immigration, development and concepts of ownership.

The entire point of the Junto was to have deep discussions about what was going on in the community and what could be done to improve things, Roney says. Out of that body arose such advancements as establishment of the library company, fire companies and fire insurance, and ultimately forming an extralegal militia, taking over the poor rolls, and many other ideas to improve the community in ways the existing arrangement is not set up to do.

Central to the Junto and other voluntary organizations was the idea, she says, of improvement for the individual and the community at large through evidence and communicating ideas. “So, it’s meant to be practical,” Roney says.

Central to this way of thinking was Franklin, she adds – but it’s not that cut and dried.

“He couldn’t have done what he did in Philadelphia in Boston because Boston had a strong congregational church system,” Roney says. “It had a strong town government arrangement. It had a lot of structures in place that did a lot of work that his voluntary associations would come to do in Philadelphia.”

Philadelphia was ripe for change and improvement, she says, and Franklin was just the man to bring those ideas to fruition.

“He has an outsized role in what happened with voluntary associations, but there are other really important factors,” she says. “One is the Quakers and their very equalitarian form of governance that makes all this possible and that provides a lot of the structure for those early voluntary associations, including the fire companies, including the library company. But it’s also the heterogeneity of the city – it’s not all one church; it’s not all one ethnicity. And for all these reasons, it’s a perfect mix. Philadelphia needed Franklin, but Franklin needed Philadelphia, too.”

So, what does that mean for the existing government-cum-medieval guild structure? Roney suggests that they’re still trying to figure out what a government is and what it’s supposed to do.

“I think we’re still doing that to this day,” she concludes, “but in that era, it’s a very new place and they don’t have a lot of grooves carved into the ground telling them this is how you have to do it. So, they’re making it up as they go along.”

“Episode 2: Land” will be screened on Friday, Oct. 16, from 6-8:30 p.m, at Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting, 20 E. Mermaid Lane, in Chestnut Hill.