The Origins of the House of Commons and Historical Awareness in Political Discourse

From the Glorious Revolution (1688) to the Great Reform Act (1832), the House of Commons has, for better and worse, been an epicentre of political events since the early 17th Century. While the role of MPs and the House has been well established, there remains strong disagreement and an alarming lack of awareness over why the institution emerged in the first place. In an era where Britain has tried to establish liberal democracies abroad, often by force, the lack of historical awareness surrounding the creation of our own institutions is worrying.

The House of Commons was never intentionally established. It emerged during the late 13th and early 14th Century, when groups of burgesses (influential members of a local town) and knights of the shire were freely elected to Parliament and became known as ‘the Commons’. Gradually, they differentiated themselves from the magnates, who started to refer to themselves as ‘peers’. These two groups began to meet separately, creating the bicameral system we are familiar with today. These ‘Commons’ were first called to Parliament in 1275 but were not consistently recalled until the middle of the 14th Century. From then, they became increasingly useful for the functioning of the royal government, especially in granting extraordinary taxation to the Crown. These developments meant that from the early years of the 15th Century, we can see the skeleton of the institution that would come to challenge the Stewarts in the 17th Century. What drove these developments and evolutions remains disputed. Modern historiography points to royal promotion, war, the need for taxation and baronial disputes as the key drivers, but their significance is still debated. 

Historians have often been critical of political debates for their lack of historical inquiry, calling for more historically informed stakeholders. However, the onus is not only on the players of contemporary politics. It is also the responsibility of historians to make the discipline more accessible to those who did not receive an academic education. One cannot expect a casual reader looking to gain historical insights into a contemporary debate to read so extensively as currently required.

 If we take the development of the House of Commons as our example – at least a dozen influential historians have each written extensive monographs with strong disagreement. Few of these monographs interact with each other sufficiently to easily understand the arenas of debate, and historical surveys (most recently by Dodd in 2014) appear sporadically every 30 years. Areas of disagreement are insufficiently signposted, leading readers to casually assume contentious claims still being discussed. Even if the casual historian does decide to invest their time into this historical research, as established there is no consensus to come at the end of their labour. The effort of historical inquiry to improve contemporary debate can therefore seem futile to a lay reader. 

While we cannot expect consensus to emerge in any field of inquiry, it is the responsibility of the discipline of history to improve access to their own work if they are to increase historical awareness in current affairs. Providing shorter articles, with clear titles indicating their content and writing with greater awareness of the clustered historiographical field of which they operate in would all benefit both the discipline and the public. 

We are seeing signs of this developing already. One of the latest substantive texts on Parliamentary development, J. R. Maddicott’s The Origins of the English Parliament, 924-1327, is exceptional in its references to other historians’ work and better than most in acknowledging disagreements. Gwilym Dodd (2014) also deserves credit for acknowledging the legacy of older scholars on present historiography and providing an excellent survey. 

The historical inquiry into the emergence of the House of Commons thus encapsulates an important point of concern. Historians have long held a grievance that political debates are not historically well-informed. If the discipline of history wants a role to play in contemporary debate, it must adapt itself to help readers quickly and easily understand modern scholarship. 

Sources Used: 

Image Used: Hayter, George, The House of Commons, oil on canvas, 1833, National Portrait Gallery, London, https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw00015/The-House-of-Commons-1833. 

Dodd, G. 'William Stubbs, Parliament and the Medieval English Constitution', (Parliamentary History: 2021).

Dodd, G. Historians of the Late Medieval English Parliament (History Compass: 2014).

Harriss, G. Shaping the Nation: England 1360-1461 (Oxford: 2005).

Harriss, Gerald, War and the emergence of the English parliament, 1297-1360 (Journal of Medieval History: 1976). 

Maddicott, J R. The Origins of the English Parliament, 924-1327 (Oxford: 2010).

Ormrod, W M. Edward III and the Recovery of Royal Authority in England, 1340-60 (History: 1987). 

Ormrod, W M. Political Life in Medieval England, 1300-1450 (London: 1995).