Index:
1. Three Summonses to the Parliament of 1295 (click
here)
2. the Good Parliament of 1376 (click here)
3. Parliamentary Developments in the Fourteenth Century (click
here)
I. Three Summonses to the parliament of 1295
Remember that in 1295, parliament was still very much an ad hoc,
temporary institution. The king called together whomever he wished, whenever
he wished, to discuss whatever topics he wished. We would do well
to remember that parliament was originally simply an extension of the royal
council (that is, the group of advisors, yes-men, and warriors who surrounded
a given monarch). Edward I (1272-1307) is significant in the history of
parliament for beginning to call together certain of his subjects on a
quasi-regular basis. He is also important for establishing the form of
the English parliament: he regularly called people in three groups, nobles,
churchmen, and ‘commons' (ie., simple knights and townsmen), and subsequent
kings found this arrangement so useful that this became the standard formula
for the composition of parliament with one important exception (the churchmen
split off from Parliament in the 14th century since the king found it easier
to deal with them separately, in a group known as the Convocation) . By
1400 this left Parliament composed of two groups which eventually (many
centuries later) became known as the House of Lords and the House of Commons.
Remember, moreover, that the ‘Commons' were not peasants: they were men
of the countryside and towns who possessed wealth and local influence,
but no title. The following three summonses have been taken from
the On-Line
Medieval Sourcebook and have been modernized slightly by Richard Barton.
A. Sample Summons of a Bishop to Parliament (1295)
The King to the venerable father in Christ Robert, by the same grace
archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England, greeting. Since
a most just law, established by the careful providence of sacred princes,
exhorts and decrees us that what affects all ought to be approved by all,
so too is it evident that common danger should be met by means provided
in common. You know sufficiently well, and it is now, as we believe,
divulged through all regions of the world, how the king of France fraudulently
and craftily deprives us of our land of Gascony, by withholding it unjustly
from us. Now, however, not satisfied with the before-mentioned fraud
and injustice, having gathered together for the conquest of our kingdom
a very great fleet, and an abounding multitude of warriors, with which
he has made a hostile attack on our kingdom and its inhabitants, he now
proposes to destroy the English language altogether from the earth, if
his power should correspond to the detestable proposition of the contemplated
injustice, which God forbid. Therefore, since darts seen beforehand
do less injury [ie., ‘forewarned is forearmed'], and since your particular
interest, as well as that of the rest of the citizens of our realm, is
concerned in this affair, we command you and strictly enjoin you by the
fidelity and love in which you are bound to us that on the next Sunday
after the feast of St. Martin, in the approaching winter, you be present
in person at Westminster; [and we command that you] cite beforehand the
dean and chapter of your church, the archdeacons and all the clergy of
your diocese, causing the same dean and archdeacons in their own persons,
and the said chapter by one suitable proctor, and the said clergy by two,
to be present along with you, having full and sufficient power from the
same chapter and clergy. [You should all be present in order] to consider,
ordain and provide, along with us and with the rest of the prelates and
principal men and other inhabitants of our kingdom, how the dangers and
threatened evils of this kind are to be met. Witness the king at
Wangham, the thirtieth day of September. (Summonses just like this were
sent out to the two archbishops and eighteen bishops, and, with the omission
of certain inappropriate phrases, to seventy abbots)
B. Sample Summons of a Baron to Parliament (1295)
The king to his beloved and faithful relative, Edmund, Earl of Cornwall,
greetings. Because we wish to have a consultation and meeting with
you and with the rest of the principal men of our kingdom concerning efforts
to remedy the dangers which in these days are threatening our whole kingdom,
we command you and strictly enjoin you in the fidelity and love in which
you are bound to us that on the next Sunday after the feast of St. Martin,
in the approaching winter, you be present in person at Westminster, in
order to consider, ordain and do -- along with us, the prelates,
the rest of the principal men and other inhabitants of our kingdom
-- whatever may be necessary to meet dangers of this kind.
Witness the king at Canterbury, the first of October.
[Similar summonses were sent to seven earls and forty-one barons]
C. Summons of Representatives of Shires and Towns to Parliament (1295)
The king to the sheriff of Northamptonshire. We intend to have
a consultation and meeting with the earls, barons and other principal men
of our kingdom with regard to providing remedies against the dangers which
are in these days threatening our kingdom. On that account we have
commanded them to be with us on the next Sunday after the feast of St.
Martin in the approaching winter, at Westminster, in order to consider,
ordain, and do whatever may be necessary for the avoidance of these dangers.
Therefore, we strictly require you to cause two knights from the aforesaid
county, two citizens from each city in the same county, and two burgesses
from each borough, [chosen from] those who are especially discreet and
capable of laboring, to be elected without delay, and to cause them to
come to us at the aforesaid said time and place.
Moreover, the said knights are to have full and sufficient power
for themselves and for the community of the aforesaid county, and the said
citizens and burgesses for themselves and the communities of the aforesaid
cities and boroughs separately, then and there for doing what shall then
be ordained according to the common counsel in the premises; so that the
aforesaid business shall not remain unfinished in any way for defect of
this power. And you shall have there the names of the knights, citizens
and burgesses and this writ.
Witness the king at Canterbury on the third day of October.
[These texts are part of the Internet Medieval Source Book, an on-line
site operated by Paul Halsall at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/ed1-summons.html.
The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts
related to medieval and Byzantine history. Permission is granted
for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes
and personal use. They have been scanned from summonses in E. P. Cheyney,
trans., University of Pennsylvania. Dept. of History: Translations and
Reprints from the Original Sources of European history, published for the
Dept. of History of the University of Pennsylvania., Philadelphia, University
of Pennsylvania Press [1897]. Vol. 1, No. 6, pp. 33-35. Language has been
modernized slightly by Richard Barton]
In the year of our lord 1376
a parliament was held at London by command of the king; it began about
the octave of St. George and lasted almost continuously for nine weeks.
There the king urgently demanded a subsidy from the common people.
But the knights of the shire, divinely inspired, as it is believed,
diligently treated together on this matter and refused to answer
these requests without the counsel of the magnates. Therefore the
knights petitioned that there should be sent to them certain bishops, by
whose advice they might be informed so as to reply more circumspectly to
the requests of the king. [I skip ahead .... The bishops come
and listen to the knights (ie., the ‘commons'). They suggest that
the commons enlist the support of four barons who can aid them in presenting
their demands to the king. The barons are duly elected and sworn to be
faithful to the commons. The barons then refuse to proceed without more
security, and four earls are brought in.]
. . . When, therefore, the above nobles had
consulted with the knights concerning the royal request [for a subsidy],
it was agreed amongst them that they should unanimously refuse the royal
requests until certain abuses and defects had been corrected, and until
certain persons who seemed to have impoverished the king and the kingdom,
to have vilely tarnished his fame and greatly to have diminished
his power, should have been eliminated, and their excesses properly punished
according to their kind.
When they had done this,
a natural question arose amongst them as to which knight should speak on
behalf of the king, the kingdom and the common people. For they feared
certain deceitful persons amongst the king's secretaries who had obtained
full grace and favor with the king, and who would, they knew, prepare
traps for them, on account of the fact that they had for the first time
planned to bring their defects into the open.
But whilst they were disturbed
about such things, God lifted up the spirit of a certain knight of their
company whose name was Peter de la Mare, pouring into his heart abundant
wisdom from His treasures, and an unhoped-for eloquence. God gave
him also such great perseverance and constancy that he was neither terrified
by the threats of his adversaries nor confused by the plotting of the envious;
but he was always ready to suffer all things for truth and justice
. . . . Thus the trustworthy Peter began to speak, trusting in the help
of God. He stood with his colleagues before the Lords, of whom the greatest
was John Duke of Lancaster [the king's son and the leader of the royal
government], whose deeds always stood out in discord with his name;
for he always, as it is believed, lacked both human and divine grace.
"Lords," said Peter, "and
magnates, by whose faith and industry the government of the kingdom
ought to be carried out. I will by no means try to conceal from your
wisdom how weighed down the common people have been by the burden of taxes,
now paying a fifteenth, now a tenth, or even yielding a ninth to the king's
use. All of which they would bear cheerfully if the king or the kingdom
seemed to get any advantage or profit from it. It would also have been
tolerable to the people if all that money had been spent in forwarding
our military affairs, even though these had been unsuccessful. But it is
obvious that the king has received no advantage from it nor the kingdom
any return from it. And so, because the public was never told how such
great sums of money were spent, the common people are demanding a statement
of accounts from those who received the money, for it is not credible that
the king should need such an infinitely large sum if his ministers were
loyal."
The judges, having nothing
to say to Peter when he made these statements, kept silent. Then
because nearly all the magnates and common people held the Duke and his
accomplices in suspicion, the Duke declined to reply at that time, and
dismissed the council, so that the matters might be treated elsewhere ....
The Duke took counsel with his followers: he is said to have uttered
boastful words. "What," he said, "are these degenerate knights of wax trying
to do? Do they think they are the kings or princes of this land? From where
have they got their pride and arrogance? I think they are ignorant of my
power. I will appear before them early tomorrow in such glorious
a manner; I will raise up such a great force amongst them; and I will terrify
them with such severity, that neither they nor anybody like them will dare
in future to provoke my majesty." But one of his men-at-arms is said to
have replied to the Duke, who was glorifying and deceiving himself in this
way with these empty promises, [in this way]: "Lord, do not let your magnificence
conceal from you by whom, and how strongly, these knights are supported.
They are not common people as you have said, but men powerful and strenuous
in arms. They have the backing of the lords and, first of all, of prince
Edward your brother who gives them sound advice and aid. Also all the Londoners
and the common people are so closely connected with them that they will
not permit them to be overwhelmed with insults or molested with any injury
however slight. These knights, if they are insulted, will be driven
to undertake all the most extreme steps against your person and your friends;
whereas otherwise they might perhaps set out to do very little."
So the Duke, driven by the
sharp prick of his conscience and terrified by the replies of his followers,
as we have indicated before, put aside the harshness of his mind when he
entered the assembly of the knights on the following day. Beyond the hopes
of any, he showed himself so gracious and favorable to them that he swung
them all over in admiration and surprise ..... craftily pretending modesty,
he seemed to offer encouragement, saying that he knew well how honorable
the desires of the knights were, as they labored to improve the conditions
of the realm. Whatever they thought ought to be corrected, they should
set forth, and he would apply the remedy they chose. The knights expressed
their thanks to him, although they knew that he was insincere. Then, entering
parliament, and standing before his judges they formally accused Latimer,
the king's chamberlain, by the mouth of Peter de la Mare, of being useless
to the king and to the kingdom. Therefore they most urgently petitioned
that he should be deprived of his office; he was said often to have deceived
the king and to have been false---let me not say traitorous---to his lord
the king.
When they had put forward
these and a host of other charges, they begged the judges that they
would justly provide the remedy of correction for their great excesses.
The duke knew that such ill deeds deserved the penalty of death. Nevertheless,
he perceived that, if he pronounced sentence of death against them, their
goods would fall to the use of the king and not of himself. He chose to
delay the pronouncement of the sentence . . . because he ardently
desired their money and because, what is worse, he was a partner in their
crimes. He dismissed the assembly for the time being, in order to examine
the case elsewhere --- Would that he would justly judge it! --- And he
went away. . . Meanwhile, the appointed day of judgement for Latimer and
Lyons arrived. Replying to the complaint that he had evaded the laws of
the kingdom, contrary to the provisions of statute, Lord Latimer
replied that his actions had the approval of the king and his ministers.
And Sir Peter responded that this was nonetheless against the statutes
made in parliament, and that statutes so made in parliament must
be followed as written, and could only be changed in parliament by another
statute. To show that Latimer had not followed the statutes as written,
Sir Peter took a book of statutes he had with him, opened it, and read
the statutes before all the lords and commoners present, which showed that
indeed Latimer had not followed the laws as made in previous parliaments.
The Duke reflected on the
charges presented against Latimer and Lyons [another ‘corrupt' official].
He weighed their quality and their number (for more than sixty notable
defects were presented against them, on the greater part of which
they were convicted before the duke and the judges). And although,
as it is said, he had received a great sum of money from them, now-wishing
to quiet the people whom he knew to be inflamed against him, and fearing
the majesty of the prince [that is, his older brother Edward, the so-called
"Black Prince"], whom he well knew to favor the people and the knights
--- he deprived Latimer by judicial sentence of his office. The latter
had been chamberlain of the king. He also confiscated all his profits
for the use of the king, so that he should be content with his ancestral
heritage. Since Latimer was a peer of the realm the Duke did not
wish him to be kept in a public prison, so he ordered Latimer to be kept
under safe custody until they should learn the wish of the king concerning
him.
It was further decreed,
by a common decree of parliament, that Latimer should in future be held
as infamous, and that he should in no way be admitted to the council of
the king or of the kingdom. But this vigor dissolved away immediately after
the untimely death of Prince Edward [the Black Prince]. For after that
death the Duke could do whatever he desired and willed. Thus he afterwards
did all things like a judge who neither feared God nor man. [I skip
ahead - the Duke tries to get parliament to agree that he should be named
the heir to the throne after the Black Prince. The commons reply that so
long as King Edward III lived, and so long as the Black Prince's ten-year
old son was alive, there was no need to think about this matter.] .....
After this reply, the commons
were directed that, if they thought there were other matters still
needing correction, they were to report them, in the usual manner, before
the Duke. They replied that first the things they had deposed before him
ought to be duly carried out. . . Therefore the above knights of the shire,
on behalf of the community and through the mouth of Peter de la Mare, petitioned
that the duke and his fellow judges would provide remedy and correction
for such great excesses.
After these things had happened,
and when the end of the parliament was already approaching, the knights
began to consider the king's mental incapacity and the free opportunity
which some of his familiars had to appropriate the [wealth of the] kingdom..
So that these men should not be able to do whatever they wished by pretext
of the king's wish, the knights petitioned in the name of the people that
twelve men, peers of the realm and faithful, discreet and devoid
of greed, should continually be in the councils of the king and of the
kingdom. At least six of them should be with the king at all times, for
the less important business. When anything weighty was to be discussed,
all twelve should be present. The commons were motivated by the greed of
certain Englishmen, to whom the king had given too much power in
managing the affairs of the kingdom; for these men, everything was for
sale, namely the faith and justice which they owed to the king and to the
people. For this reason the knights petitioned the lords as described
above. The duke, judging their petition to be just (but only in word, for
he resolved something different in his secret heart), adjudged it to be
granted, directing that those lords should be elected by the people. They
were elected accordingly.
And it was decreed in this
parliament that if any of the said lords was discovered to have received
gifts, or to have been disloyal in the obedience he showed either to the
king or to the community, he should forthwith be removed from the government
and be held infamous for all time; he should pay the king five times
what he had accepted, and his body should be at the mercy of the
king. And in order that all these decisions might achieve enduring
strength, they were sent from the knights of parliament to the king. .
. [The knights] begged his assent and confirmation of all the statutes
in the aforesaid parliament, and asked that this parliament might be ratified
according to the custom of parliament and should be classified by the king
under the name of parliament. All of which the king promised that he would
hold agreeable and determined. And here ended the parliament which has
been described above.
[From: Thomas Walsingham, Chronicon Angliae, trans. E. M. Thompson (London:
Rolls Series, 1874), pp. 68-101. Scanned and modernized by J.S. Arkenberg,
Dept. of History, Cal. State Fullerton. Further modernized and truncated
by Richard Barton. This text is part of the Internet Medieval
Source Book, an on-line site operated by Paul Halsall at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1376goodparliament.html.
The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted
texts related to medieval and Byzantine history. Permission is granted
for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational
purposes and personal use.]
III. Parliamentary Developments in the Fourteenth Century
The expense and duration of the Hundred Years War, and the
initial ease with which the King could manipulate parliaments to grant
him exceptional taxation (called Aids or Subsidies) to conduct the war,
meant that a number of important constitutional developments took place
in the 14th century. As more and more parliaments were called, and
the king asked for more and more money, the Commons [knights and townsmen]
came to be less and less willing to grant the king's every wish.
By 1400, what had once been an impromptu meeting of selected subjects called
to help out their king had become instead a formal institution with rules
of conduct, officers, and, as we see here, a growing sense of its own role
in government. Consider the implications of these brief accounts
on the power of the king. Assuming both had been accepted by the
crown (and neither was), what would the king's position have been?
What powers would the Commons have held?
1. The Commons Petition the King for Audit of Accounts, 1341
Item, the Knights and Commons of the land request that for the common
profit of all, certain knights be deputed by Commission to hear the accounts
of all those who have received the Loans of our lord King, or other Aids
granted to him; ... and that Rolls and other [written] remembrances, obligations
and other things made by those [gathering royal income] be delivered to
the Chancery, there to be enrolled and put into common memory.
2. Commons' Demand for Redress of Grievances before Supplying Funds
(1401)
Item, on the same Sunday, the said Commons reminded our Lord King that
in many Parliaments prior to this one, their common petitions had not been
answered before the Commons had made its grant of an Aid or Subsidy to
the king; and concerning this matter, they asked the Lord King that for
the greater ease and comfort of the said Commons it might please the king
to grant the Commons that they should know the [King's] answers to their
petitions before proceeding to make any such grant. ... [the King then
consulted with the Lords] And, leaving them, the King [said he did]
not at all want to change the good Customs and Usages made and established
in ancient times past.
[very rough translations made from the chancery French by Richard Barton, from texts in Eleanor C. Lodge and Gladys A. Thornton, English Constitutional Documents, 1307-1485 (Cambridge, 1935), pp. 138, 159-160.]