Parliament 411
ever, the results of those dealings, having passed into
custom, continued to advantage the king, and the maltote,
so resisted in 1340, became a regular charge upon wool
through parliamentary action before the end of the reign.*
It seems to have been the earlier idea that clergy, Lords,
and Commons should make their money grants separately.
In a way this remained true of the clergy, who granted
money in Convocation; but the Commons really con-
trolled, for Convocation became bound by custom to
grant at the same time and proportionately with Parlia-
ment. By the end of the fourteenth century Lords and
Commons were making their grants together, and the
Commons, who bore the real burden of taxation, were
coming into the foreground—according to the formula
which came into use in J1295, the grant was made by the
Commons with the assenJLfifJh3lSidi3^ ~~
B^Ii^^ the dooms which king and
witan made in the Anglo-Saxon period, it has been re-
marked3 that the use of this word shows that there was
in mind no distinction between a court judgment and
this act, which, lacking a better term, we call legislation;
both were to them the utterance of existing law, a thing
immemorial, fundamental, not makable. There had
been remarkably little change in this notion of law and
legislation down to the fourteenth century. William
the Conqueror's "laws" were administrative adaptations
of existing law; while under Henry II. there were laws
" made," as we must say, which were in origin administra-
tive directions with no formality of intention, or being in
the realm of procedure, as were many of his assizes, were
not thought of as touching the realm of law at all. If
the king were strong enough and wise enough he might
thus powerfully legislate without knowing it. When
the king did this sort of thing, he ordinarily acted through
his court, his council small or large—and his court was,
1 Parliament was bound in time to recognise that the so-called maltote
was not an exorbitant charge.
3 See below, pp. 429, 430. 3 See above, p. 55 and note i.