363
to be so in the of the
century, to be upon occasion. One
the business and
active of the larger, summoned king's
were not, Henry II.'s in new descrip-
tive terms. Certainty the were appropriate.
The first use of in application- that
has yet found In 1259. From this tirr/e crs, it
was used with gradually increasing frequency, while the
older terms, cor.tinuefl.*
It was long had acquired the meaning
with which Is familiar to-day. Spt-aking of its use
as as the end of I.'s reign, Maitland
A parliament is rather an act a c£
cannot present a petition to a colloquy, to a detate. It is
oriy slowly that this word Is appropriated to co!2r-qt;ics cf a
particular kind, namely, those which the kir*^ has with the
estates of his realm, still mere sickly that It Is trans-
ferred from the colloquy to the body of men whom the Idr,^
has summoned. As yet any meeting of the kirk's council
that has been solemnly summoned for general husirca^
to be a parliament. . * . The personification of ** par-
liament," which enables us to say that laws are by,
aiict not merely in, parliament, is a slow and subtle process-.3
There is no single word or
describe the confused parliamentary foreshadowirsgs of
the thirteenth century; this would to it
logically imperative, at every mention of them, to enter
into long and repetitious explanations.4 On
1 ParKamentnm was a ^ common enough Latin wcrd of^ this period for
various lands of discussions or interviews., formal or informal. It and
colloquium seem quite synonymous.
2 See Early Uses of " Partia?ncntum" Modern Language Review. Js,,
92,93, and Was there a u Common Council11 Parliament, American
Historical Review* xxv., p. 17-
s Introduction to Memoranda A? p, Ixvu. note i,
* "If we speak, we must speak with words; if we think, we must think
with thoughts. We are modems, and our words and thoughts cannot but
be modem. Perhaps, as Mr. Gilbert once suggested, it is too late for us to
be early English. Every thought will be too sharp, every word will Imply