and his return in 1274, Edward I stated his intention to continue to hold
parliaments at Easter and Michaelmas.^95 It is worth noting that the
parlementof Paris abandoned meetings at Candlemas after 1278, and
thenceforth held sessions regularly at Whitsun and All Saints, though
the norm of two parliaments a year does not seem to have been stated
in France until 1303.^96 The king of England might try to avoid the perils
of judgment in the parlementof his French overlord, on one occasion
urging his seneschal in Gascony to come to terms with a complainant
‘whatever the cost’,^97 but to their own parliaments Edward I and his
successors would order cases to be adjourned months in advance, and
no writs of summons were necessary to ensure the attendance at them
of councillors, justices, and serjeants-at-law. The king might call indi-
vidual pleas of quo warranto(in which lords were required in 1278 to
prove their right to franchises before the justices in eyre) from the eyre
to parliament, and ‘the record and process’ of cases in king’s bench,
particularly in cases ‘especially touching ourselves and the state of our
crown and kingdom’, such as Edward II’s suit against Master John of
Stratford for his disobedience in his negotiating for the king at the papal
curia.^98 London Jews accused of crucifying a Christian boy and throw-
ing his body into the river were summoned before parliament so that the
king could decide (after consultation with the justices in eyre at the
Tower and the justices of the Jews) how to punish ‘so loathsome a
deed’.^99 Cases might still be referred by king and council to the barons
of the exchequer for investigation, or to the court of king’s bench to
carry forward procedure, but it was increasingly often insisted that the
completion of justice (complementum justicie) should be in parliament.
Cases were continued from one parliament to the next. Recognizances
of debt might be entered into and the results of inquisitions be recited
in parliament, and a man could be ordered to confirm a marriage
covenant there. Mediation in a jurisdictional dispute between a bishop
and some Cistercian abbots took place in parliament; a case between the
city of Chester and the county of Cheshire about the citizens’ obligation
to contribute to the upkeep of Chester bridge was brought there. Parlia-
ment was where right was given to all, and major trespasses against the
king’s peace dealt with.^100
English parliaments 175(^95) Sayles, Functions of the Medieval Parliament,23, 115 ff., 135, 141–3.
(^96) Langlois, Textes, 84, 95, 174, 178, 229 ff.
(^97) Sayles, Functions of the Medieval Parliament,328–9.
(^98) Ibid.138, 173, 189, 198, 202, 208, 210, 382–3, 454; Select Cases in the Court of King’s
Bench, ed. G. O. Sayles, 7 vols. (London: Selden Soc., 1936–71), i, pp. li, cxlii–cxliii, 49, 79,
92, 116, 144, 158; ii, pp. lxii, lxvii n., lxx–lxxii, clii, 23, 139; iii, pp. cxviii, cxxii, cxxiv, cxxix,
17, 135, 143, 145, 160, 171, 175; iv (Cases under Edward II), pp. xlviii, 122, 123 (a matter
specially touching the king, et statum corone nostre et regni nostri), 132, 143; v (Cases under
Edward III), p. cxxxiv.^99 Sayles, Functions of the Medieval Parliament, 146.
(^100) Ibid.149, 150, 151, 154, 157–63, 164, 167, 185, 302; Calendar of Close Rolls,