Parliament, English 559parish. The financial endowments remained the prop-
erty of the lord, either lay or ecclesiastical, who dis-
posed of the right of PATRONAGEor the presentation of
the clerical incumbent. The priest received the cure of
SOULSfrom the bishop and was subject to the control of
the diocesan hierarchy. The appointment to a church
was no longer defined as a FIEF, but as a BENEFICE. This
has remained the basic definition of parish administra-
tion. In the later Middle Ages, the LAITYor parishioners
acquired more responsibility and control over the fabric
of the church.
In the later Middle Ages, decades of war and insecu-
rity destabilized many parishes and ruined their temporal
incomes. A number of churches lost an incumbent or
priest. At the same time, the beneficial system became
rife with nonresidence and pluralism, leading to a decline
in the quality of pastoral care. However, the movement
that grew up in response to improve the local priesthood
increased literacy and improved training in pastoral care
activities. CONFRATERNITIESof laity attached to parishes
in the later Middle Ages also became more numerous.
See alsoCLERGY AND CLERICAL ORDERS; GREGORIAN
REFORM; INVESTITURE CONTROVERSY OR DISPUTES; SIMONY.
Further reading: George W. O. Addleshaw, The
Development of the Parochial System from Charlemagne
(768–814) to Urban II (1088–1099) (London: St.
Anthony’s Press, 1954); Joseph Avril, “Parish.” EMA
2.1,084–1,086; Peter Heath, The English Parish Clergy on
the Eve of the Reformation(Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1969); John R. H. Moorman, Church Life in England
in the Thirteenth Century(Cambridge: University Press,
1955); Colin Platt, The Parish Churches of Medieval En-
gland(London: Secker and Warburg, 1981); Norman J.
G. Pounds, A History of the English Parish: The Culture of
Religion from Augustine to Victoria (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2000); A. Hamilton Thompson,
The English Clergy and Their Organization in the Later
Middle Ages(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966).
Parlement of Paris or France The Parlement was the
supreme court of JUSTICEof the kingdom of FRANCEfrom
1250 until the French Revolution in 1790. It was estab-
lished to fulfill the prime duty of the king to provide jus-
tice. The publication and registration of royal ordinances
were performed at this court. It had its seat in the royal
palace on the Île de la Cité at PARISfrom the time of King
LOUISIX’s reforms of 1258 and 1260 forbidding trial by
battle and judicial duel in the royal domain. Louis also
made possible a general appeal to the king’s court for jus-
tice. Appeals then flew in from the whole kingdom to the
king’s court. Its judicial session became an institution, the
Parlement. From then it acquired a name, a fixed seat,
and an archive of judgments to use as reference.
An ordinance of 1345 specified the personnel of the
Parlement, whose members were now a set number of
professional counselors. The king appointed and paid
them, and divided them into three chambers: The Great
Chamber or Chamber of Pleas heard pleas spoken in
French by advocates before a “bar” in front of the judges.
It gave a judgment or final legal decree in LATINand over-
saw the other two chambers. The Chamber of Inquiries
was charged with making preliminary investigations of
cases and determining the appropriateness of petitions to
the upper chamber. If it granted a petition to cite an
adversary before the court, letters were issued to that
effect and a commissioner was sent to investigate the
local particulars of the case. The Chamber of Petitions
further examined the admissibility of the case and its
documentation. From there the case was sent back to the
Great Chamber for judgment.
The personnel of Parlement numbered about 100,
including presidents, counselors, king’s procurator and
advocate, clerks, and ushers. Some of these offices
became hereditary and some of these families eventually
joined the nobility. The whole system had a reputation
for slow action, if not sloth, in the later Middle Ages. Its
functioning also suffered from the political and military
setbacks of the monarchy in the HUNDREDYEARS’ WARin
the early 15th century. After an attempt at reform in
1436, provincial parliaments were established in
TOULOUSEin 1443, Grenoble in 1453, Bordeaux in 1463,
and Dijon in 1477.
Further reading:J. H. Shennan, The Parlement of
Paris,2d. ed. (Phoenix: Sutton, 1998).Parliament, English Starting in the 1230s certain
assemblies were called parliaments,which meant “meet-
ings or councils between the king, his ministers, and the
magnates and prelates or high ecclesiastical officials of
the kingdom to discuss the judicial, political, and fiscal
matters of state and to present petitions.” Parliament was
an instrument of the king, who called it, dissolved it, and
set its agenda. During the reign of EDWARDIII it was to
evolve into two bodies, the House of Lords and the House
of Commons. Its essential and initial function revolved
around the dispensing of JUSTICEguided by the king. In
the mid-13th century representatives of the shires and
boroughs, administrative districts of the kingdom, were
summoned. From 1327 and the important deposition of
King EDWARD II, such representatives were regularly
summoned and so constituted.DEFINITION AND GROWTH OF JURISDICTION
In about the 1320s a document called The Way of Holding
Parliamentwas written. Later in the century there were
conflicts in 1341 involving the composition of the peer-
age and the House of Lords. At the end of the century, the
deposition of RICHARDII and accession of Henry IV
involved the institution of Parliament more in the func-
tioning of the succession according to the constitution.