Edward I Parliaments

Edward I and his Parliaments

Edward I investing his son as Prince of Wales

The Crisis of 1297-1298

Philip IV of France attacked the main English possession in France, Gascony in 1294. Wales revolted in 1294-95 and there was war in Scotland in 1296-97. Edward had to respond militarily to all these threats and war was expensive.

	Edward I was financing his wars in Gascony with loans from the Italian bankers Riccardi of Lucca (who incidentally were also lending money to Philip IV of France at the same time.) This source of money collapsed when Edward and Philip both confiscated their assets (Philip also imprisoned their representatives.)
Italian bankers of the 1300s

	Philip IV also came into conflict with Boniface VIII over lay taxation of the clergy. As part of the dispute, in 1296 Boniface VIII issued the bull Clericis Laicos, forbidding clergy to pay taxes to civil authorities. It also interfered with Edward I's war finances.
	Edward tried various ways to maintain the campaign in France, including pressing the nobility into military service and seizing the England's wool exports. These measures met with stubborn opposition.
	By 1297, Edward I was unpopular and his subjects on the point of revolt. While he was absent in Flanders, Edward's advisors backed off. They withdrew the heavy customs dues - Edward had increased the duty on wool six fold - confirmed Magna Carta, and agreed not to levy new taxes without consent of the realm.

The Rise of Parliament

Parliament c. 1400

From the earliest times, the kings of England had assembled nobles and other important subjects to advise them. The Anglo-Saxon witan or witanagemot is named as endorsing the laws of King Ine and King Alfred amongst others.

The Norman and Angevin kings also called "small councils" of their immediate advisors, and "great councils" of all the major barons, churchmen and government officials.

Simon de Montfort summoned assemblies that included not only bishops and noblemen but also knights of the shire and burgesses from the towns. De Montfort's appeal to the wider community of the realm was continued by Henry III and Edward I.

The transition from the king's council to parliament as such was gradual and does not seem to have been very important to contemporaries (although later historians have debated at length the precise composition and origins of parliament in the 13th Century.)

"The significance of parliament lay not so much in the particular acts as in the concentration of them in a formal and public occasion. These periodical stock-takings were expressions of the cohesion between king, prelates, barons, ministers of state, judges and, when they were represented, the local communities."

(Powicke, The Thirteenth Century)

Edward I sometimes summoned only the nobility to his councils, but increasingly during the 1300s the representatives of the shires and towns were also called. Members of the lower clergy were also sent for on occasion.
The "Model Parliament" (1295) contained councilors, bishops, abbots, priors, proctors chosen by the lower clergy, barons, burgesses and knights.

Parliament was useful for endorsing laws (statutes; acts of parliament), considering important legal decisions, and approving taxation.

The most important business of the Lent Parliament of 1305 was the ordinance of trailbaston. This was aimed especially against highwaymen and other violent criminals. The king had ample authority to institute such measures without parliament, but its endorsement gave it added force.

Medieval muggers

The role of Parliament in voting taxation grew in importance. Strong kings like Edward were not in particular need of the political support offered by the community of the realm, but did need the financial support (especially for war) that it afforded.

Acton Burnell Castle,
site of Parliament in 1283.

Parliament was not yet settled at Westminster, nor did it have fixed terms. It met when and where the king wanted it.
In 1283, for example, when Edward I was in the Welsh Borders pursuing his campaigns against Wales, Parliament was summoned there.

The early parliaments of Edward I also differed from later ones in that the firm division of two houses - Lords and Commons - had not yet been institutionalized. (In the 1295 Model Parliament, for example, the clergy met separately from the nobility and the knights, and they met separately from the burgesses.) In the course of the fourteenth century the Lords (now including bishops and abbots as well as secular nobles) and Commons (knights and burgesses) began regularly deliberate as two distinct bodies.

Nobles were summoned by writs under the Great Seal to attend parliament, but it was only established in the course of the 14th and early 15th centuries exactly which noblemen had a right to sit.

	Parliament became primarily a lay assembly. Bishops and abbots (as feudal tenants) continued to sit in the Lords, but from 1283 the lesser clergy were represented in Convocation (first in the Province of Canterbury; then also at York) where the bishops also sat (in the "Upper House.") Representatives of the lesser clergy ceased to go to parliament in the course of the 1300s.
	From its earliest sessions, the representatives of the counties and towns were empowered to make decisions without referring back to their communities. This made Parliament a powerful and flexible body for deciding policy.
	In England (unlike on the Continent), nobles paid taxes just as commoners did. The most powerful and prosperous landowners in the country therefore had an interest in keeping the burden of taxation low, and the English lower classes never suffered such oppressive taxation as their European counterparts.
	From its earliest days, parliament was an institution that both voted taxes and redressed the grievances of subjects: English kings had to ensure at least a minimum level of contentment in exchange for consent to taxation.