What could be called ‘the bill revolution’ marked a second beginning
for the English legal system. At the top, the new high court of parlia-
ment was created. The earliest Rolls of Parliament, which survive from
1290, are headed ‘Pleas [placita] before the Lord King and his Council
at his Parliaments’ for the longer entries, and ‘Petitions in Parliament’
for the shorter entries that follow.^121 No plea can be representative of
a court designed for exceptional cases, but that of the bishop of
Winchester against Henry Hose in 1290 shows some of the factors
bringing a case to a parliament. At the Hilary meeting at Westminster
the bishop sought remedy for the trespasses of the royal constable of
Portchester in his hunting parks during his absence on the king’s busi-
ness—trespasses which he had denounced before the special auditors of
complaints against the king’s ministers appointed on Edward’s return
from France. In June all the parties appeared before the king and his
council, the auditors bearing record of the proceedings before them,
the bishop exhibiting a charter granting the hunting rights, and the
constable claiming that he had done only what his predecessors did by
right of their office. Both bishop and constable asked for a sworn
inquest, but since it seemed to the court that it was the king they should
be suing as grantor of the charter and owner of the castle, it was decided
that they should await the king’s will.^122 In another case in 1302, a
coheir who was dissatisfied with the apportionment of a deceased
tenant-in-chief’s lands made in the chancery at Westminster in the
presence of the justices and other members of the council delivered a bill
into the king’s hands at the midsummer parliament, and the king had
the receiver of petitions read it out on the spot, then reaffirming that the
custom of the realm must be followed.^123
As in any other court a petitioner could be represented in parliament
by an attorney, and a querelacould be brought there on the king’s
behalf and receive the reply that the king should have a writ in a lower
court. The Rolls of Parliament functioned like other plea rolls in keep-
ing track of adjournments from one session to another. Usually king
and council gave preliminary judgments on petitions to be completed
elsewhere, and final judgments only when other courts could not:
parliament was thus a ‘co-ordinating centre’ of judicial sessions. The
replies endorsed on petitions in parliament were regularly that the
petitioners should simply ‘sue at the common law’ or go to the barons
Petitioning parliament for justice 181251 n., 290–1, 338–47, 353 n., 361 n., 408, 412, 414, 426; Rotuli Parliamentorum Anglie
hactenus inediti, ed. H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles (Camden Soc. 3rd ser. 51, 1935),
70–80: tr. in EHD iii. 621–9.
(^121) RPi. 15 ff., 46 ff., 66 ff., 154 ff.; Sayles, Functions of the Medieval Parliament, 195–6.
(^122) RPi. 25–6 (no. 16).
(^123) Sayles, Functions of the Medieval Parliament,253–5.