Duration of English Parliaments Before 1660 - List of Parliaments From 1241

List of Parliaments From 1241

The English civil year started on 25 March until 1752. The years used in this article have been converted to the new style where necessary. Old style dates are a year earlier than the new style for dates between 1 January and 24 March. No attempt has been made to compensate for the eleven days which did not occur in September 1752, both in England and Scotland, as well as in other British controlled territories, when the day which followed 2 September was 14 September. This was done to bring Britain and its empire fully into line with the Gregorian calendar.

There were some meetings before 1241 which are sometimes called Parliaments, notably the Parliament of Merton in 1236.

Early Parliaments did not, so far as is known, include representatives of the communities (or commons) of England. They were composed of important church officials and landowners, whom the King summoned individually to advise him, similar to the group of men which eventually became known as the House of Lords.

The Sheriffs of the English Counties were ordered to send knights of the shire to attend a number of Parliaments before 1265, but they were not required to have them chosen by election. No such summonses are known to have required the attendance of citizens of cities or burgesses of other boroughs. Records of this sort of summons survive for the Oxford Parliament, which was the seventh Parliament of King Henry III, assembled 27 October 1258 and presumed dissolved when writs de expensis were issued on 4 November 1258, and for the same king's sixteenth Parliament, summoned on 4 June 1264 and assembled on 22 June 1264, although the date of dissolution is unknown.

De Montfort's Parliament in 1265 was the first Parliament to include elected representatives from counties (or shires), cities and boroughs, the group which eventually became the House of Commons.

In 1320 it became the invariable practice to summon the Commons to Parliament. If the Commons were not summoned to an early Parliament, this is indicated in a footnote. The normal place for Parliaments to meet was in Westminster. If a different location is known it is indicated in a note. Unusual features of the dates of summons, attendance or dissolution of a Parliament are included in a note.