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The full text of Manner of Holding Parliament at Wikisource
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The Modus Tenendi Parliamentum (Method of Holding Parliaments) is a 14th-century document that outlined an idealised version of English parliamentary procedure. Part of its significance lies in its very title: parliament was now "seen as both institutionally well defined and a proper subject for description and conscious reflection". [1] However, it also includes elements of fantasy, both in relation to the way it sets out the history of parliaments, and its aspirations for the roles of different groups in parliament. [2]
An ancient document which has exercised much debate over its antiquity and authorship, the Modus is no longer seen as a later forgery, despite the doubts of earlier antiquaries, such as John Selden (1584–1654) and William Prynne (1600–1669). Thomas Duffus Hardy (1804–78) was a prominent historian and archivist, whose final position was senior assistant keeper of the Public Record Office. [3] He edited the most complete version of the volume in 1846, and believed it was probably written "some time between the years 1294 and 1327", at or shortly after Edward I's Model Parliament of 1295. [4] Writing in 1934, William A Morris reviewed the conflicting views on the date of the Modus that were first offered in the seventeenth century and concluded that it must have been written during the reign of Edward II (1307-27), probably 1321. [5] M. V. Clarke says the book "was written in 1322 in order to expound and define the parliamentary theory and practice upheld by moderate men of that time". [6] That view on the date is also supported by W. C. Weber. [7] References within the Modus suggest that the writer had experience of parliament, as well as an understanding of the royal administration. V. H. Galbraith believed that someone who had such experience was the Yorkshireman, William Ayermin (also Airmyn, or Ayreminne) (died 1336). [8] Ayermin held a number of offices in the church and royal administration, including being Keeper of the Rolls of Chancery from 1316–24 and almost certainly also clerk of the parliament. [9]
The significance of the Modus lies in its descriptions of the procedures and organisation of Parliament and the growing importance of the Commons. Parliament had developed by the early 14th century to the point where it could promote the transmission of the crown's policies and intentions in a positive manner outwards from the centre, and representation was the best method of doing this; notably, the Commons were more representative than magnates or prelates, who only represented themselves. [10] Increasingly, the agreement of the Commons was necessary for the levy of all taxes: peers could give such consent personally, whereas the Commons were proxies for the bulk of the population. During the reign of Richard II, prominent members of the House of Lancaster wished to play up the importance of the Commons, compared to that of the Lords, prelates and magnates, and to legitimate processes in the Commons to depose a king who had lost the support of the people. The Modus was helpful to them in its emphasis on the representative power of the Commons: "We must understand that two Knights which come to the Parliament for the Shires and County out of which they come have a greater voice in Parliament to grant, than the greatest Earl in England". [11] Maddicott offers a concise summary of the document's significance: "About the precise functions and powers of the commons the author of the Modus was, so far as we can see, often wrong. But about their general weight and position he was not so far out ... It is not hard to envisage the sort of body which it had in mind playing its part in the deposition of a king". [12]
In a major political crisis in Ireland in 1418–19, the veteran statesman Christopher Preston, 2nd Baron Gormanston, was accused of treason, largely on account of his ownership of a copy of the document. He was quickly released and restored to favour, apparently after explaining that he had simply found it among his father's papers and thought it worth keeping. [13] This copy was itself copied onto the patent roll of the Irish Chancery. [14]
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The Dictum of Kenilworth, issued on 31 October 1266, was a pronouncement designed to reconcile the rebels of the Second Barons' War with the royal government of England. After the baronial victory at the Battle of Lewes in 1264, Simon de Montfort took control of royal government, but at the Battle of Evesham the next year Montfort was killed, and King Henry III restored to power. A group of rebels held out in the stronghold of Kenilworth Castle, however, and their resistance proved difficult to crush.
Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy was an English archivist and antiquary, who served as Deputy Keeper of the Public Record Office from 1861 to 1878.
Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster was an English nobleman of the first House of Lancaster of the royal Plantagenet Dynasty. He was Earl of Lancaster, Leicester, and Derby from 1296 to 1322, and Earl of Lincoln and Salisbury jure uxoris from 1311 to 1322. As one of the most powerful barons of England, Thomas was one of the leaders of the baronial opposition to his first cousin, King Edward II.
The Battle of Boroughbridge was fought on 16 March 1322 in England between a group of rebellious barons and the forces of King Edward II, near Boroughbridge, north-west of York. The culmination of a long period of antagonism between the King and Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, his most powerful subject, it resulted in Lancaster's defeat and execution, ending the Despenser War. This allowed Edward to re-establish royal authority and hold on to power for almost five more years.
The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England from the 13th century until 1707 when it was replaced by the Parliament of Great Britain. Parliament evolved from the great council of bishops and peers that advised the English monarch. Great councils were first called Parliaments during the reign of Henry III. By this time, the king required Parliament's consent to levy taxation.
Guy de Beauchamp, 10th Earl of Warwick was an English magnate, and one of the principal opponents of King Edward II and his favourite, Piers Gaveston. Guy was the son of William de Beauchamp, the first Beauchamp earl of Warwick, and succeeded his father in 1298. He distinguished himself at the Battle of Falkirk and subsequently, as a capable servant of the crown under King Edward I. After the succession of Edward II in 1307, however, he soon fell out with the new king and the king's favourite, Piers Gaveston. Warwick was one of the main architects behind the Ordinances of 1311, that limited the powers of the king and banished Gaveston into exile.
John Robert Lewendon Maddicott, is an English historian who has published works on the political and social history of England in the 13th and 14th centuries, and has also written a number of leading articles on the Anglo-Saxon economy, his second area of interest.
In the Kingdom of England, the Magnum Concilium was an assembly historically convened at certain times of the year when the English baronage and church leaders were summoned to discuss the affairs of the country with the king. In the 13th century, the Great Council was superseded by the Parliament of England, which had developed out of the council. The Great Council was last summoned by Charles I in 1640.
The Oxford Parliament (1258), also known as the Mad Parliament and the First English Parliament, assembled during the reign of Henry III of England. It is best known for the Provisions of Oxford, a set of constitutional reforms that forced the king to govern according to the advice of a council of barons.
William Hakewill (1574–1655) was an English legal antiquarian and M.P.
The Privy Council of England, also known as HisMajesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, was a body of advisers to the sovereign of the Kingdom of England. Its members were often senior members of the House of Lords and the House of Commons, together with leading churchmen, judges, diplomats and military leaders.
The Ordinances of 1311 were a series of regulations imposed upon King Edward II by the peerage and clergy of the Kingdom of England to restrict the power of the English monarch. The twenty-one signatories of the Ordinances are referred to as the Lords Ordainers, or simply the Ordainers. English setbacks in the Scottish war, combined with perceived extortionate royal fiscal policies, set the background for the writing of the Ordinances in which the administrative prerogatives of the king were largely appropriated by a baronial council. The Ordinances reflect the Provisions of Oxford and the Provisions of Westminster from the late 1250s, but unlike the Provisions, the Ordinances featured a new concern with fiscal reform, specifically redirecting revenues from the king's household to the exchequer.
Quinzaine is a word of French language derivation: 'a quinzaine' is to Fifteen as 'a dozen' is to Twelve, and 'a trental' is to Thirty. It has various contexts of use in English. 'La quinzaine' is used in French to indicate a two week period, just like 'huit jours' indicates a one week period even though two weeks are fourteen days and one week is 7 days. It is an old habit to add the current day as to say 'in two weeks plus today'. The English language equivalent is 'fortnight' which means fourteen days.
The Mise of Lewes was a settlement made on 14 May 1264 between King Henry III of England and his rebellious barons, led by Simon de Montfort. The settlement was made on the day of the Battle of Lewes, one of the two major battles of the Second Barons' War. The conflict between king and magnates was caused by dissatisfaction with the influence of foreigners at court and Henry's high level and new methods of taxation. In 1258 Henry had been forced to accept the Provisions of Oxford, which essentially left the royal government in the hands of a council of magnates, but this document went through a long series of revocations and reinstatements. In 1263, as the country was on the brink of civil war, the two parties had agreed to submit the matter to arbitration by the French king Louis IX. Louis was a firm believer in the royal prerogative, and decided clearly in favour of Henry. The outcome was unacceptable for the rebellious barons, and war between the two parties broke out almost immediately.
The House of Commons of England was the lower house of the Parliament of England from its development in the 14th century to the union of England and Scotland in 1707, when it was replaced by the House of Commons of Great Britain after the 1707 Act of Union was passed in both the English and Scottish parliaments at the time. In 1801, with the union of Great Britain and Ireland, that house was in turn replaced by the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
Henry Elsynge was a British parliamentary officer in the reigns of James I and Charles I. He served as Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London jointly with Robert Bowyer from 1604 to 1612, and was named to the office of Clerk of the Parliaments in 1621.
The Parliament of 1327, which sat at the Palace of Westminster between 7 January and 9 March 1327, was instrumental in the transfer of the English Crown from King Edward II to his son, Edward III. Edward II had become increasingly unpopular with the English nobility due to the excessive influence of unpopular court favourites, the patronage he accorded them, and his perceived ill-treatment of the nobility. By 1325, even his wife, Queen Isabella, despised him. Towards the end of the year, she took the young Edward to her native France, where she entered into an alliance with the powerful and wealthy nobleman Roger Mortimer, who her husband previously had exiled. The following year, they invaded England to depose Edward II. Almost immediately, the King's resistance was beset by betrayal, and he eventually abandoned London and fled west, probably to raise an army in Wales or Ireland. He was soon captured and imprisoned.
John Smith Roskell (1913–1998) was an English historian of the Middle Ages.
Maude Violet Clarke was an Irish historian.
