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Article: Magna Carta and Parliament: Enduring Legacies of the Thirteenth Century.(England)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Calliope
- Article date:
- April 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Carus Publishing Co. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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"Parliament" was a new term in thirteenth-century (1200s) England, and it became the buzzword for many types of meetings. These included talks between diplomats of different countries, business meetings of London craftsmen, and assemblies where the king and his barons discussed government affairs. The term was so popular that a clerk writing in 1244 even referred to the confrontation between King John and the barons in 1215 as "the parliament of Runnymede."
What happened at Runnymede was not, of course, a session of Parliament, an institution that did not yet exist. Thirteenth-century England was governed by the king, the officials he appointed (the king's court ...