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From Hutton Webster's, Early European History (1917); edited for this on-line publication, by ELLOPOS
XIX. EUROPEAN NATIONS DURING THE LATER MIDDLE AGES
» Contents of this Chapter
Page 12
"MODEL PARLIAMENT" OF EDWARD I, 1295 A.D.
Simon de Montfort's Parliament included only his own supporters, and hence was not a truly national body. But it made a precedent for the future. Thirty years later Edward I called together at Westminster, now a part of London, a Parliament which included all classes of the people. Here were present archbishops, bishops, and abbots, earls and barons, two knights from every county, and two townsmen to represent each town in that county. After this time all these classes were regularly summoned to meet in assembly at Westminster.
HOUSE OF LORDS AND HOUSE OF COMMONS
The separation of Parliament into two chambers came in the fourteenth century. The House of Lords included the nobles and higher clergy, the House of Commons, the representatives from counties and cities. This bicameral arrangement, as it is called, has been followed in the parliaments of most modern countries.
POWERS OF PARLIAMENT
The early English Parliament was not a law-making but a tax-voting body. The king would call the two houses in session only when he needed their sanction for raising money. Parliament in its turn would refuse to grant supplies until the king had corrected abuses in the administration or had removed unpopular officials. This control of the public purse in time enabled Parliament to grasp other powers. It became an accepted principle that royal officials were responsible to Parliament for their actions, that the king himself might be deposed for good cause, and that bills, when passed by Parliament and signed by the king, were the law of the land. England thus worked out in the Middle Ages a system of parliamentary government which nearly all civilized nations have held worthy of imitation.
THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY: Table of Contents
url: www.ellopos.net/politics/european-history/default.asp
Cf. The Ancient Greece * The Ancient Rome
Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) * Western Medieval Europe * Renaissance in Italy
