intimate contact both then and later between it and the Council.
COUNCIL AND PARLIAMENT
In the thirteenth century this central group of officials and advisers who remained constantly in the King’s presence was described by a variety of names; a chronicler will usually call it “the Council”; a law-writer such as Bracton, who is mainly interested in its judicial duties, will call it the King’s Court or Curia Regis. As for those occasional meetings when this body is enlarged by the addition of numerous magnates, the chroniclers will usually call them a “colloquy”, and such is at first the usual official term. In common speech, however, such meetings were often referred to as “parliaments”. For a time this word was popular rather than official; it could be used of any sort of conference or meeting; even a disorderly assembly could be called a parliament, and in 1267 Henry III forbade the assembly of parliaments or other meetings in breach of the peace. In early days, therefore, the word “parliament” does not mean an institution but an event.3 Any unusually large meeting of the King’s Council will be popularly described as a parliament. A variety of influences began to work in the direction of giving more definite shape to these occasional parliaments. As time goes on, the King’s Bench will become as closely confined within the common law forms of procedure as the Court of Common Pleas itself, and it will be necessary to provide some other means for the exercise of equity and discretion and for the handling of cases which fall outside of those limits. This task naturally fell to the Council, whose mission during a great part of the middle ages was to act as an extraordinary court of unlimited jurisdiction, both original and appellate.
These discretionary powers of the Council covered a wide variety of subjects. Some could be settled at the discretion of skilled official councillors, while others demanded the attention of a larger body of magnates; and so their work naturally falls into two groups—matters which could be handled by the Council continually attending the King, and matters upon which they preferred to take the advice of the magnates at large. An important discussion, whether of judicial matters or political might equally be called a parliament, whether it actually took place in the smaller Council or in the larger assembly surrounding it.
With the reign of Edward I we find a new series of rolls appear for the first time, and these are the Parliament Rolls.1 Much of the business on the early Parliament Rolls is of a judicial character, although not all of it is in the forms of the common law. By this time the King’s Bench had lost much of its early discretionary power and contented itself with working the common law system of writs and its own particular procedure; it was therefore Parliament which now undertook to wield some of the discretionary powers which the King’s Bench had resigned—and herein we see the origin of the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords. Indeed, in the fourteenth century a case might move backwards and forwards between the King’s Bench, the Council and a Parliament of the Council with the greatest ease.2 The judges of the King’s Bench were in frequent attendance, both at the continual Council and at Parliaments. But besides this common law business, the Council was continually receiving a large number of petitions from individuals, churches, cities, counties and others, which were of the utmost variety. Some simply prayed for relief which was already to be had in the regular law courts; others, if the Council approved them, were transferred to the law courts, and the Council’s endorsement served to supply any lack of jurisdiction which might otherwise have prevented them from giving a remedy; others merely demanded favours which the administration might grant or withhold, while others might raise very difficult questions upon which the Council would wish to take the advice of the magnates of the realm. Those petitions which the Council did not deal with alone were held over until one of the Parliaments, which were frequently held.
THE ADDITION OF THE COMMONS
At the same time a remarkable development was taking place which was to modify profoundly the political aspect of Parliament. The strong, centralised monarchy of the thirteenth century was never tired of devising means for keeping in closer contact with local institutions. The annual visits of the sheriffs to the Exchequer and the frequent visits of Justices in Eyre to the various counties were still not enough; what the Crown particularly desired was an independent check upon the activities of its local officers, and a means of treating directly with the people. Various experiments were therefore made in the course of the thirteenth century with this end in view. They were in fact simply an extension of machinery which had existed for many years. It was a familiar occurrence for every hundred, vill and borough to send representatives to the county court, where a general investigation would be made into local government and apparently even a vote of taxes might occasionally be made.1 Nothing was more simple than to extend this time-honoured system to the whole nation. Just as hundreds and vills appeared by representatives in the county court (more especially when the King’s Justices in Eyre were present) so it was possible to call upon the county courts (together with the more important boroughs) to send representatives to meet the King himself when he and his Council were holding a Parliament.2 Such representatives later on brought with them numerous grievances, which they laid before the Council in the form of petitions, and this accounts for a large number of petitions which appear upon the Parliament Rolls—to say nothing of many more which were never enrolled at all. By Edward I’s reign, therefore, a Parliament of the Council may consist of a number of elements. There may be a greater or less number of magnates and prelates; there may or may not be a collection of representatives of the various communities of the land (who will afterwards be called the Commons, or in French Communes); at the same time it was customary for the lower clergy also to be represented by proctors, and these (together with the prelates, who are also summoned to the parliament) will form the later convocation. But in the centre of all this, controlling and directing all the proceedings, is the King’s Council. It is the King’s Council which is the motive force in the Parliament; the lords, the commons and the clergy merely attend to answer the Council’s questions, to advise it upon points referred to them, and to present humble petitions for the redress of their grievances. It required a powerful monarchy to organise such an institution. It is a constant observation in the middle ages that it is only the strongest kings who can compel their subjects, be they lords or commons, to give them advice, to attend their courts, and to take part in the work of government. Centuries later Parliament will become an instrument, first in the hands of the lords and later of the commons, which can be turned against the King himself and his Council. But this is far in the future; Parliament was not intended to play that rôle when it first took rise. In its earliest days it was a sign of royal strength and not of royal weakness, and this can be seen from the fact that the weaker kings had great difficulty in collecting a Parliament at all.
The future of Parliament may be political, but its origin was legal and administrative. In its origin and throughout the middle ages it deserved its later title of the “High Court of Parliament”—and in this expression it must be remembered that the word “court” must be taken in the broadest mediaeval sense.
We have insisted that the real centre of Parliament in the middle ages was the King’s Council. Fleta expresses this idea when he says that “the king has his court in his council in his parliaments”,1 and even as late as the fifteenth century it is abundantly clear that the Council was still the moving force in Parliament; even at so late a date a chronicler will speak of a “Parliament of the Council”, and we constantly find official documents which say that “the King by the advice of his Council in Parliament” has taken certain action. Even at the present day the brilliant ceremonial with which the King opens Parliament bears witness to this fact. The proceedings take place in the House of Lords. The King on his throne is surrounded by the councillors standing on the steps of the throne; immediately in front are the judges (and in former times the law officers of the Crown); this little group of the King and his councillors and judges (who anciently were active members of his Council) is the core of the Parliament. At a greater distance are assembled the peers of the realm and the prelates, and so we see Fleta’s phrase visually expressed, “the King is in his Council in his Parliament”. Right at the bottom of the room is a bar, and outside of
