Irish
Parliament of 1264:
The
first Irish parliament or just another parliament?
Niall
C.E.J. O’Brien
Introduction
As we approach the year
2015 and the eight hundred year anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta,
which to many people signifies the start of parliamentary democracy, we here at
medieval news will post a few articles on Irish Parliaments in medieval times.
Assemblies to discuss laws and issues of common concern were held among the
Irish kingdoms long before the Anglo-Norman invasion of 1169. After the
invasion these assemblies were still held in the Irish controlled areas of the
country. Within the English sphere of control a number of different bodies met
to discuss the issues of government.
The
three bodies of state
The body nearest to the
centre of government was the Irish council. It was formed by the chief
ministers of the government such as the chancellor, treasurer, escheator along
with the justices of both benches. It appears that no minister had a right to
attend meetings of the council although the chief ministers were usually
present. Instead it was at the justiciar’s discretion who should attend a
particular meeting.[1]
This body advised the justiciar (the head of the government and the English
king’s representative in Ireland) and deliberated on the ordinary problems of
administration. The council was joined by other individuals from time to time.
In the fourteenth century some people retained life membership of the council.[2]
Further out from the
government circle was a “great council”. This body was an extension of the
Irish council but with numerous outsiders attending to debate the great issues
of the day. These issues usually focused on a certain geographical area and
many of the outsiders attending came from this restricted area. There were no
prescribed days of notice for a great council unlike the forty days’ notice
needed to call parliament and thus the great council could be called to deal with
matters of urgency.[3]
Beyond the great
council was the Irish Parliament which is the focus of this and subsequent
articles. The parliament was composed of four elements, the Irish council, the
lords (both spiritual and temporal), the commons and the representatives of the
lower clergy.[4]
If a full house attended parliament there could be about 120 people. Yet the Irish
Parliament remained a single body unlike in England were two houses were formed
(the lords and the commons).[5]
Parliament:
origins and development
Originally the idea of
a parliament developed in Western Europe to discuss judicial purposes. Over
time parliament took on the role of enacting legislation and by 1300 the Irish
Parliament dealt with the important matter of taxation. The legislative role of
the Irish Parliament developed slowly as in the first half of the thirteenth
century numerous communications were sent from the English king and his council
that the laws of England also applied to Ireland.[6]
At the start of the
thirteenth century a king only needed the consent of the great magnates in
matters of taxation as a lord’s tenants were bound to accept their master’s
decision. By the second half of the century many of the tenants had gained in
economic value along with the towns. The increasing cost of government meant
that kings had to get more taxes from these new rich. It was Pope Innocent III
who promoted the idea of various communities sending representatives to an
assembly like a parliament to consent to taxation.[7]
The Irish Parliament
never developed into a body where ministers were called to account by
impeachment or attainder. It remained for much of the medieval period as an
embryonic body which was very much controlled by government. The official
language was Latin or French but later English was accepted.[8]
The
Irish Parliament of 1264
In the late 1250s the
English barons waged a struggle for power against Henry III. In 1258 they
successfully implemented the Provisions of Oxford whereby parliament was to
meet three times per year. These Provisions also applied to Ireland. Thus in
the year 1264 we hear of a parliament held in Ireland. This parliament was possibly more a glorified 'great council' than a later more defined parliament. This parliament met in June 1264 at Castledermot. [9] It
is unclear if this was the first Irish Parliament or just the first one that we
know of.
Leinster House, Dublin - present location of the Irish Parliament
For example, in December
1253 Henry III sent letters to Maurice Fitzgerald and the other magnates of
Ireland along with the archbishops and bishops asking them to assemble at
Dublin before John Fitz Geoffrey, the justiciar, and debate the threatened war
by the King of Castille on the English lands in Gascony. A latter letter on 2nd
February 1254 was directed to the archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, earls,
barons, knights and other of the king’s subjects in Ireland to listen to the
justiciar about the threatened war by Castille. The persons attending the
assembly were to debate how best Ireland can contribute to the defence of
Gascony.[10]
Was this assembly a “great council” or a “parliament”?
The records do not
ascribe any particular name to the Dublin assembly but then we should not worry
too much on that point. An assembly was held at Kilkenny in October 1346 which
was described as a “tractatus” in the records. This term usually denoted a
council which did not have the status of a parliament. But in the roll of Holy
Trinity Priory, Dublin, the Kilkenny assembly is described as a parliament.
This so called “tractatus” was attended by representatives of the commons as
well as by the magnates.[11]
Returning to this Dublin
assembly of 1254 we note that the meeting was to debate an issue of national
and international importance and so beyond the usual scope of a great council. The
Dublin assembly was summoned to attend more the forty days before the event
which is the usual time given between the issue of writs to attend parliament
and the actual parliament. A great number of people from across the country and
across the social strata were invited to the assembly which is a more usual
practice for a parliament than for a great council. Thus the assembly of 1254
has much of the characteristics of a parliament and could well be called a
parliament. Could there have been gatherings before 1254 that could also be
termed as a parliament? A minute search of the records may reveal such a case.
Meanwhile the
transactions of the known parliament of 1264 are unknown. The Irish Parliament
did not keep parliament rolls on the English model. In fact the first Irish
Parliament to leave a record of its enactments was the one held in 1297. The
text for that parliament survives not in any government papers but in the Black
Book of Christ Church.[12]
There is a suggestion
in an ordinance of 1269 for the possible business of the 1264 parliament. This
ordinance, from the bench plea rolls, called for the standardisation of weights
and measures. It is unknown when legislation was created for this ordinance but
a parliament held sometime before 1269 seems a likely place of origin.[13]
Although the Provisions
of Oxford were swept away following the final defeat of the English baronial
party at the battle of Evesham in 1265 various records suggest that there were
about twenty-one parliaments held in Ireland during the reign of Edward the
First.[14]
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End of post
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[1]
A.J. Otway-Ruthven, A history of Medieval
Ireland (Ernest Benn, London, 1980), p. 149
[2]
Philomena Connolly, Medieval Record
Sources (Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2002), pp. 26-7
[3]
Philomena Connolly, Medieval Record
Sources, p. 28
[4]
Philomena Connolly, Medieval Record
Sources, p. 27
[5]
Edmund Curtis, History of medieval
Ireland (Metheun, London, 1938), p. 252
[6]
H.S. Sweetman (ed.), Calendar of
Documents relating to Ireland (Kraus reprint, 1974), Vol. 1 (1171-1251),
nos. 1458, 1679, 2379, 2850
[7] A.J.
Otway-Ruthven, A history of Medieval
Ireland, pp. 168-9
[8]
Edmund Curtis, History of medieval
Ireland, p. 252
[9]
A.J. Otway-Ruthven, A history of Medieval
Ireland, p. 168; Aubrey Gwynn, 'The Irish Parliament in the Middle Ages', in Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 42, No. 166 (1953), p. 215
[10] H.S.
Sweetman (ed.), Calendar of Documents
relating to Ireland, Vol. 1 (1171-1251), nos. 305, 306, 312
[11] H.G.
Richardson & G.O. Sayles (eds.), Parliaments
and Councils of Medieval Ireland (Stationery Office, Dublin, 1947), pp.
xi-xii
[12]
Philomena Connolly, Medieval Record
Sources, pp. 27, 29
[13]
Philomena Connolly, ‘The enactments of the 1297 parliament’, in James Lydon
(ed.), Law and disorder in
thirteenth-century Ireland (Four Courts Press, Dublin, 1997), p. 144
[14]
A.J. Otway-Ruthven, A history of Medieval
Ireland, p. 168
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