Medieval Courts: Origin, Parliaments, and Representative Assemblies
Medieval Courts
I. The Origin of the Courts
A) THE EMERGENCE OF PARLIAMENTS IN EUROPE
1. Scientific and Political Reasons for this Study
The collapse of the Old Regime during the French Revolution ushered in nineteenth-century Europe into a constitutional state. This new era saw the overcoming of political absolutism by controlling the power of the people represented in assemblies. Additionally, the Romantic movement was deeply interested in the Middle Ages.
These two interconnected phenomena caused the ideological mentors of such political assemblies to look back to medieval times. This occurred for both cultural and political reasons. It was desirable that popular parliaments not appear as radical and therefore disruptive. The control of power through a chamber of popular representation had already been tried with varying success in the Middle Ages and was thus consistent with national legal traditions. In some cases, it was argued that the true national tradition had consisted precisely in a system of public freedoms and control of power established in medieval times, which had then been undermined by the royal absolutism of the modern centuries. Thus, the democratic constitutional state assemblies not only did not contradict national tradition but represented the restoration of the most ancient and genuine essence of the political life of peoples.
Some of this happened in Spain. After the Cortes of Cadiz and the Constitution of 1812, there was an attempt to link the constituent assembly with the old medieval courts. The justification was provided by the great historian, Martinez Marina, who published his Theory of the Courts for this purpose. In his book, “citizen Francisco Martínez Marina” undertook the study of the Cortes of Castile, described in the book’s title as “monuments of its political constitution and the sovereignty of the people.” The Cortes of Cadiz were well-suited to link, in such an illustrious trial of a citizen, what had taken place in these realms during the Middle Ages. In the political arena, a major scientific issue remained open. Had the Cortes of Castile, or the medieval courts in general, been representative assemblies that exercised de facto royal power-limiting functions? Did they, in fact, assume legislative power? This is the starting point of the controversy over the nature of the medieval Hispanic Courts, which continues to this day.
2. The Birth of Representative Assemblies
Medieval kings in Europe appear surrounded by a retinue of nobles, both lay and clergy, who assist in governing the kingdom and sit beside the monarch to enact laws. In the early High Middle Ages, nobles and clergy monopolized these boards, known as curiae, which can be distinguished into two types:
- Regular or reduced Curia: A small assembly of regular composition that unfolds in the environment of the monarch and maintains a habitual relationship.
- Extraordinary or full Curia: Much wider than the regular curia, in which the heroes of the nobility and clergy in the territories of the kingdom are also called upon when special circumstances require their presence.
Overall, we can say that the ordinary curia evolved in the late Middle Ages to become the King’s Council, while the extraordinary curia simultaneously became a more or less representative assembly that adopted different names in Europe: States General in France and the Netherlands, Parliament in England, Diet in Germany, Cortes in Spain, etc.
What exactly do you mean by the full curia becoming a representative assembly? Late medieval society was structured into three orders or estates: nobility, church, and city. Initially, only the first two were part of the royal curia. The entry of the burghers or citizens turned them into assemblies representing the entire social body. This phenomenon occurred in Europe in general between the 12th and 14th centuries, and Spain played an important pioneering role. In France, under King Louis IX (1226-1270), the bourgeoisie of cities with franchises were occasionally called to special meetings of the curia, and Pope Nicholas IV reported to Philip the Fair in 1290 that he had received their envoys: earls, barons, and the “community of the kingdom.” Finally, in 1302, the bourgeois of France were incorporated into the assembly of the States General. In Germany, at the same time, the curial solemnly held in Worms on May 1, 1231, realized that the monarch would not introduce legislative innovations or contributions without the agreement of the most representative of the different places, whose presence in the Diets was regularly checked and only appeared at a later date. And so, to the extent that a massive curia was held in Nuremberg in 1294, which was attended by five thousand people from the church, dukes, marquesses, counts, knights, and barons, not a single representative of the cities attended.
In England, the presence of citizens and “ordinary people” in the assemblies coincided with the achievement of freedom and the absolute failure of the first half of the thirteenth century. The Charter of Liberties of 1215, the famous Magna Carta, whose Clause 39 devoted to the Western world the habeas corpus or the right not to be sent to prison if it is not in accordance with relevant laws, and after the date of the Provisions of Oxford of 1258, reflects the noble victory against Henry III (1216-1272). In the previous reign and before the Magna Carta, King John summoned a meeting in Oxford on November 7, 1213, attended by representatives of the counties to discuss the affairs of the kingdom. This and other meetings of the early thirteenth century were judged by Maitland as the earliest manifestation of the presence of citizens in the former British curiae or councils, then the ostensible presence of the Parliamentum convened in 1265 by Simon de Montfort, who could then perhaps have been inspired by the example of the Crown of Aragon, known to him, according to historian Webster’s course.