The Origins of the English Parliament, 924-1327

J. R. Maddicott

Oxford University Press, May 27, 2010 - History - 526 pages

The Origins of the English Parliament is a magisterial account of the evolution of parliament, from its earliest beginnings in the late Anglo-Saxon period. Starting with the national assemblies which began to meet in the reign of King Æthelstan, it carries the story through to the fully fledged parliament of lords and commons of the early fourteenth century, which came to be seen as representative of the whole nation and which eventually sanctioned the deposition of the king himself in 1327. Throughout, J. R. Maddicott emphasizes parliament's evolution as a continuous process, underpinned by some important common themes. Over the four hundred years covered by the book the chief business of the assembly was always the discussion of national affairs, together with other matters central to the running of the state, such as legislation and justice. It was always a resolutely political body. But its development was also shaped by a series of unforeseen events and episodes. Chief among these were the Norman Conquest, the wars of Richard I and John, and the minority of Henry III. A major turning-point was reached in 1215, when Magna Carta established the need for general consent to taxation - a vital step towards the establishment of parliament itself in the next generation. Covering an exceptionally long time span, The Origins of the English Parliament takes readers to the roots of the English state's central institution, showing how the more familiar parliament of late medieval and early modern England came into being and illuminating the close relationship between particular political episodes and the course of institutional change. Above all, it shows how the origins of parliament lie not in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, as has usually been argued, but in a much more distant past.

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User Review  - thcson - LibraryThing

This is a very detailed chronological account of the earliest English parliamentary institutions. Throughout the book the author emphasizes their bidirectional nature; regional representatives gained ...

Contents

• The Witan of the English People 9241066: 1
• English Council Feudal Counsel 10661189: 57
• The Making of the Community of the Realm 11891227: 106
• The First Age of Parliamentary Politics 12271258: 157
• Parliament and Baronial Reform 12581272: 233
• 6 Expansion Parliament and Nation 12721327: 277
• 7 English Exceptionalism? The Peculiarities of the English ParliamentConclusion: 376
• A List of Great Councils and Parliaments 12351257: 454
• Bibliography: 473
• Index: 505

About the author

John R. Maddicott taught at the University of Manchester and was a Fellow and Tutor in Medieval History at Exeter College, Oxford, from 1969 until 2006. A Fellow of the British Academy, he was also joint editor of the English Historical Review from 1990 to 2000. He gave the Ford Lectures at Oxford (from which this current book has developed) in 2004. He has published extensively on the political and social history of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with books on Thomas of Lancaster and Simon de Montfort, and has also written a number of leading articles on the Anglo-Saxon economy, his second area of interest.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Origins of the English Parliament, 924-1327; Ford lectures
• Author: J. R. Maddicott
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2010
• ISBN: 0199585504, 9780199585502
• Length: 526 pages
• Subjects: History / Europe / Great Britain / General; History / Europe / Medieval; Political Science / Constitutions; Political Science / General; Political Science / History & Theory; Political Science / Political Ideologies / Democracy