t was not till the grant of the Great Charter that the
powers of this assembly over taxation were formally recognized, and the
principle established that no burthen beyond the customary feudal aids
might be imposed "save by the Common Council of the Realm."

[Sidenote: Greater and Lesser Barons]

The same document first expressly regulated its form. In theory, as we have
seen, the Great Council consisted of all who held land directly of the
Crown. But the same causes which restricted attendance at the Witenagemot
to the greater nobles told on the actual composition of the Council of
Barons. While the attendance of the ordinary tenants in chief, the Knights
or "Lesser Barons" as they were called, was burthensome from its expense to
themselves, their numbers and their dependence on the higher nobles made
the assembly of these knights dangerous to the Crown. As early therefore as
the time of Henry the First we find a distinction recognized between the
"Greater Barons," of whom the Council was usually composed, and the "Lesser
Barons" who formed the bulk of the tenants of the Crown. But though the
attendance of the latter had become rare their right of attendance remained
intact. While enacting that the prelates and greater barons should be
summoned by special writs to each gathering of the Council a remarkable
provision of the Great Charter orders a general summons to be issued
through the Sheriff to all direct tenants of the Crown. The provision was
probably intended to rouse the lesser Baronage to the exercise of rights
which had practically passed into desuetude, but as the clause is omitted
in later issues of the Charter we may doubt whether the principle it
embodied ever received more than a very limited application. There are
traces of the attendance of a few of the lesser knighthood, gentry perhaps
of the neighbourhood where the assembly was held, in some of its meetings
under Henry the Third, but till a late period in the reign of his successor
the Great Council practically remained a gathering of the greater barons,
the prelates, and the high officers of the Crown.

[Sidenote: Constitutional Influence of Finance]

The change which the Great Charter had failed to accomplish was now however
brought about by the social circumstances of the time. One of the most
remarkable of these was a steady decrease in the number of the greater
nobles. The bulk of the earldoms had already lapsed to the Crown through
the exti