Parliaments developed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, in some cases earlier, and became a familiar part of the political process in most European states. The later fifteenth century saw a decline in the use and power of the Estates in France, England and elsewhere, but an increased use of them in some German principalities. This wave-like pattern created an illusion that medieval government was more autocratic, and that constitutional government developed later, than was in fact the case. There was considerable continuity between medieval parliamentary traditions and the emergence of modern representative government.

This is the less surprising because what parliaments were, what they stood for and were conceived to be, and the roles they undertook, sprang from roots deep in the political cultures of the European lands. The primary function of parliament was usually to grant the ruler a tax for specific purposes, often war. Such purposes were presented as, and generally considered to be, for the benefit of the realm as a whole. The ‘talking’ or negotiating aspect of parliament concerned the fixing of a rate of taxation acceptable to both sides. In England parliament had a supreme judicial role which gave it added importance.

The reasons why parliaments were called by kings for such purposes and played the role they did lie in the social structure of medieval Europe, in the way power and wealth were distributed.