Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- The People and Parliament in Fifteenth-Century England
- ‘A Beest envenymed thorough … covetize’: an Imposter Pilgrim and the Disputed Descent of the Manor of Dodford, 1306-1481
- Henry Inglose: A Hard Man to Please
- London Merchants and the Borromei Bank in the 1430s: the Role of Local Credit Networks
- ‘Mischieviously Slewen’: John, Lord Scrope, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, and the Murder of Henry Howard in 1446
- A Fifteenth-Century Medicus Politicus: John Somerset, Physician to Henry VI
- ‘Domine Salvum Fac Regem’: The Origin of ‘God Save the King’ in the Reign of Henry VI
- ‘Monuments of Honour’: Clerks, Histories and Heroes in the London Livery Companies
- The East Anglian Parliamentary Elections of 1461
- Changing Perceptions of the Soldier in Late Medieval England
- Thomas More, the London Charterhouse and Richard III
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoria
The People and Parliament in Fifteenth-Century England
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- The People and Parliament in Fifteenth-Century England
- ‘A Beest envenymed thorough … covetize’: an Imposter Pilgrim and the Disputed Descent of the Manor of Dodford, 1306-1481
- Henry Inglose: A Hard Man to Please
- London Merchants and the Borromei Bank in the 1430s: the Role of Local Credit Networks
- ‘Mischieviously Slewen’: John, Lord Scrope, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, and the Murder of Henry Howard in 1446
- A Fifteenth-Century Medicus Politicus: John Somerset, Physician to Henry VI
- ‘Domine Salvum Fac Regem’: The Origin of ‘God Save the King’ in the Reign of Henry VI
- ‘Monuments of Honour’: Clerks, Histories and Heroes in the London Livery Companies
- The East Anglian Parliamentary Elections of 1461
- Changing Perceptions of the Soldier in Late Medieval England
- Thomas More, the London Charterhouse and Richard III
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoria
Summary
A fuller understanding of the participation of relatively humble people in the politics of the kingdom and the importance of the public realm in the fifteenth century has emerged in recent years. In this body of work, however, little attention has been paid to the specific question of the engagement of the people with parliament. A broad assumption remains that this was one arena from which they were excluded. After all, we seem to have no better authority for this than Bishop John Russell of Lincoln, chancellor of England in 1483. As he intended to declare to the Lords that summer, warning of the risks ahead during a minority, it was self-evident that government and good order belonged to the nobles rather than ‘the whole generality of the people’. As far as parliament went, he asserted, ‘the people, must stand afar and not pass the limits’. Yet when one considers in more detail the relationship between the people and parliament in the fifteenth century, Russell's insistence that they should stand afar was prescriptive, rather than descriptive. This paper reviews the evidence concerning popular engagement with parliament.
First, what actually did Russell have to say about the people and parliament? He took as his text Isaiah 49. 1 ‘Audite insule, Et attendite populi de longe, Dominus ab utero vocavit me’. He began by reminding his audience that all public bodies in Christendom were composed of three parts, the prince, the nobles and the people and that he had chosen his text appropriate to the particular moment and germane to an occasion when he was having to speak to all three.
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- Information
- The Fifteenth Century XParliament, Personalities and Power - Papers Presented to Linda S. Clark, pp. 1 - 16Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2011