(1327-1377) the three estates still sat separately, but before the
close of this period the bicameral arrangement seems definitely to
have been established. There is no evidence that at any stage of their
history the three groups ever sat as a single body. It need hardly be
emphasized that the entire course of English history since the
fourteenth century has been affected profoundly by the fact that the
national assembly took the form of two houses rather than of one, as
did the Scotch, of three as did the French, or of four as did the
Swedish. But for the withdrawal of the lesser clergy, the number might
very possibly have been three.

*14. Powers of Finance and Legislation.*--Structurally, the English
Parliament is a creation of the Middle Ages; politically, it is a
product of modern times, and, in no small measure, of the past hundred
years. Before the close of the Middle Ages, however, it had acquired a
sum total of authority which at least gave promise of its development
into a great co-ordinate, if not a preponderating, power in the state.
In the first place, it had forced the establishment of the twin
principles of public finance (1) that the right to levy taxes of every
sort lay within its hands and (2) that the crown might impose no
direct tax without its assent, nor any indirect tax save such as might
be justified under the customs recognized in Magna Carta. When Edward
I. confirmed the Charter, in 1297, he agreed that no tallages or aids
should thereafter be taken without the assent of the archbishops,
bishops, earls, barons, knights, burgesses, and other freemen of the
land. A statute of 1340 reiterated the principle still more
specifically. In 1395 appeared the formula employed to this day in the
making of parliamentary grants, "by the Commons with the advice and
assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal." And in 1407 Henry IV.
extended the royal approval to the principle that money grants should
be initiated in the Commons, assented to by the Lords, and only
thereafter reported to the king. For the ancient theory of taxation by
estates was substituted, slowly but inevitably, the modern doctrine of
the fiscal pre-eminence of the Commons.

The second point at which Parliament made decisive advance before the
close of the mediaeval period was in respect to powers of ordinary
legislation. Originally, Parliament was not conceived of as, in the
strict sense, a law-making body at all. The magnates who compose