It may have been brought into being by rulers determined to avoid being overawed by their powerful warrior barons by appealing to lower ranks of society: lesser landowners, townsmen and clergy.
Sometimes however (as in Spain and Portugal) the gentry or lesser nobility formed a separate order; sometimes (as in Sweden) the richer peasantry did likewise.
The American variant propagated in due course to Latin America, but meanwhile in Europe there was a general revival of the representative assembly based principally on the English model.
In Galicia in 1113, Bishop Diego II of Santiago de Compostela ordered a monthly convening of councils in the regions of his bishopric “as it was the custom of our ancestors”, bringing together churchmen, knights ('milites') and peasants to do justice, in what has been interpreted as a continuation of old Celtic or Suevi local traditions.
[3] In more modern times, the supremacy of the lower chamber became normal, so did the organisation of representatives into competing parties, so did election and an extended franchise, so did the idea that the ministers of the executive should be responsible to it.