en of
as a meeting well known, and it's statutes or decisions are put in a
manifest contradistinction to customs, or the common law. And in
Edward the third's time an act of parliament, made in the reign of
William the conqueror, was pleaded in the case of the abbey of St
Edmund's-bury, and judicially allowed by the court[g].

[Footnote f: _Quanta esse debeat per nullam assisam generalem
determinatum est, sed pro consuetudine singulorum comitatuum debetur._
_l._ 9. _c._ 10.]

[Footnote g: Year book, 21 Edw. III. 60.]

HENCE it indisputably appears, that parliaments, or general councils,
are coeval with the kingdom itself. How those parliaments were
constituted and composed, is another question, which has been matter
of great dispute among our learned antiquarians; and, particularly,
whether the commons were summoned at all; or, if summoned, at what
period they began to form a distinct assembly. But it is not my
intention here to enter into controversies of this sort. I hold it
sufficient that it is generally agreed, that in the main the
constitution of parliament, as it now stands, was marked out so long
ago as the seventeenth year of king John, _A.D._ 1215, in the great
charter granted by that prince; wherein he promises to summon all
arch-bishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and greater barons, personally;
and all other tenants in chief under the crown, by the sheriff and
bailiffs; to meet at a certain place, with forty days notice, to
assess aids and scutages when necessary. And this constitution has
subsisted in fact at least from the year 1266, 49 Hen. III: there
being still extant writs of that date, to summon knights, citizens,
and burgesses to parliament. I proceed therefore to enquire wherein
consists this constitution of parliament, as it now stands, and has
stood for the space of five hundred years. And in the prosecution of
this enquiry, I shall consider, first, the manner and time of it's
assembling: secondly, it's constituent parts: thirdly, the laws and
customs relating to parliament, considered as one aggregate body:
fourthly and fifthly, the laws and customs relating to each house,
separately and distinctly taken: sixthly, the methods of proceeding,
and of making statutes, in both houses: and lastly, the manner of the
parliament's adjournment, prorogation, and dissolution.

I. AS to the manner and time of assembling. The parliament is
regularly to be summoned by the king's writ or letter, issued out of