Parliament

In addition, UNESCO granted the 1188 Cortes of Alfonso IX the title of "Memory of the World" and the city of Leon has been recognized as the "Cradle of Parliamentarism".

[7] The meaning evolved over time, originally referring to any discussion, conversation, or negotiation through various kinds of deliberative or judicial groups, often summoned by a monarch.

The Roman Republic had legislative assemblies, who had the final say regarding the election of magistrates, the enactment of new statutes, the carrying out of capital punishment, the declaration of war and peace, and the creation (or dissolution) of alliances.

The first recorded act of a witenagemot was the law code issued by King Æthelberht of Kent around 600, the earliest document which survives in sustained Old English prose; however, the Witan was certainly in existence long before then.

The significant difference between the Model Parliament and the earlier Curia Regis was the addition of the Commons: that is, the inclusion of elected representatives of rural landowners and of townsmen.

At first, each estate debated independently; by the reign of Edward III, however, Parliament had grown closer to its modern form, with the legislative body having two separate chambers.

Parliament still ran the country even in the absence of suitable heirs to the throne, and its legitimacy as a decision-making body reduced the royal prerogatives of kings like Henry VIII and the importance of their whims.

As Williams described it, "King and parliament were not separate entities, but a single body, of which the monarch was the senior partner and the Lords and the Commons the lesser, but still essential, members.

[29] The years of the Commonwealth, coupled with the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and the subsequent Glorious Revolution of 1688, helped reinforce and strengthen Parliament as an institution separate from the Crown.

The Icelandic, Faroese and Manx parliaments trace their origins back to the Viking expansion originating from the petty kingdoms of Norway as well as Denmark, replicating Viking government systems in the conquered territories, such as those represented by the Gulating near Bergen in western Norway:[citation needed] Later national diets with chambers for different estates developed, e.g. in Sweden and in Finland (which was part of Sweden until 1809), each with a House of Knights for the nobility.

[40] The first exact written mention of the word "parlamentum" (Parliament) for the nation-wide assembly originated during the reign of King Andrew II in the Golden Bull of 1222, which reaffirmed the rights of the smaller nobles of the old and new classes of royal servants (servientes regis) against both the crown and the magnates, and to defend the rights of the whole nation against the crown by restricting the powers of the latter in certain fields and legalizing refusal to obey its unlawful/unconstitutional commands (the "ius resistendi").

However, under the rule of heavy handed kings like Louis the Great and during reign of the early absolutist Matthias Corvinus the parliaments were often convened to announce the royal decisions, and had no significant power of its own.

From 1374, the king had to receive permission from that assembly to raise taxes and the 1454 Nieszawa Statutes granted the szlachta (nobles) unprecedented concessions and authority.

A Cortes would be called if the king wanted to introduce new taxes, change some fundamental laws, announce significant shifts in foreign policy (e.g. ratify treaties), or settle matters of royal succession, issues where the cooperation and assent of the towns was thought necessary.

As the nobles and clergy were largely tax-exempt, setting taxation involved intensive negotiations between the royal council and the burgher delegates at the Cortes.

Delegates (procuradores) not only considered the king's proposals, but, in turn, also used the Cortes to submit petitions of their own to the royal council on a myriad of matters, e.g. extending and confirming town privileges, punishing abuses of officials, introducing new price controls, constraints on Jews, pledges on coinage, etc.

This state of affairs came to an end with the Liberal Revolution of 1820, which set in motion the introduction of a new constitution, and a permanent and proper parliament, that however inherited the name of Cortes Gerais.

The term for its lower house, State Duma (which is better known than the Federal Assembly itself, and is often mistaken for the entirety of the parliament) comes from the Russian word думать (dumat), "to think".

Consisting of the Three Estates; of clerics, lay tenants-in-chief and burgh commissioners sitting in a single chamber, the Scottish parliament acquired significant powers over particular issues.

In addition, UNESCO granted the 1188 Cortes of Alfonso IX the title of "Memory of the World" and the city of Leon has been recognized as the "Cradle of Parliamentarism".

[44][45] After coming to power, King Alfonso IX, facing an attack by his two neighbors, Castile and Portugal, decided to summon his royal council (Latin: curia regis).

This was a medieval organization composed of aristocrats and bishops but because of the seriousness of the situation and the need to maximize political support, Alfonso IX took the decision to also call the representatives of the urban middle class from the most important cities of the kingdom to the assembly.

The Castilian Cortes had representatives from Burgos, Toledo, León, Seville, Córdoba, Murcia, Jaén, Zamora, Segovia, Ávila, Salamanca, Cuenca, Toro, Valladolid, Soria, Madrid, Guadalajara and Granada (after 1492).

However, by the time of King Philip II, Charles's son, the Castilian Cortes had come under functionally complete royal control, with its delegates dependent on the Crown for their income.

But after the War of the Spanish Succession and the victory of another royal house – the Bourbons – and King Philip V, their Cortes were suppressed (those of Aragon and Valencia in 1707, and those of Catalonia and the Balearic islands in 1714).

In Sweden, the half-century period of parliamentary government beginning with Charles XII's death in 1718 and ending with Gustav III's self-coup in 1772 is known as the Age of Liberty.

In addition, the institution of National Assembly was established, consisting of the Sejm and the Senate sitting jointly to elect the President of the Polish People's Republic.

As a result of Solidarity's success in elections to the Sejm and the Senate, profound reforms of the political system were undertaken by adopting an amendment to the Constitution on 29 December 1989.

If members of the lower house lose faith in the leader for whatever reason, they can call a vote of no confidence and force the prime minister to resign.

Australia's States and territories: In the federal (bicameral) kingdom of Belgium, there is a curious asymmetrical constellation serving as directly elected legislatures for three "territorial" regions—Flanders (Dutch), Brussels (bilingual, certain peculiarities of competence, also the only region not comprising any of the 10 provinces) and Wallonia (French)—and three cultural communities—Flemish (Dutch, competent in Flanders and for the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Brussels), Francophone (French, for Wallonia and for Francophones in Brussels) and German (for speakers of that language in a few designated municipalities in the east of the Walloon Region, living alongside Francophones but under two different regimes): Canada's provinces and territories: Except for the city-states of Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg, where the city council is also the state parliament, all state parliaments are called Landtag: