[Footnote 16: On the rise of Parliament see Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England, II., Chaps. 15,
17; Taylor, Origins and Growth of the English
Constitution, I., 428-616; G. B. Smith, History of
the English Parliament, 2 vols. (London, 1892), I.,
Bks. 2-4; White, Making of the English
Constitution, 298-401; D. J. Medley, Students'
Manual of English Constitutional History (2d ed.,
Oxford, 1898), 127-150; Tout, History of England
from the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of
Edward III., Chaps. 5, 6, 10. Valuable biographical
treatises are G. W. Prothero, Life of Simon de
Montfort (London, 1877); E. Jenks, Edward
Plantagenet [Edward I.] the English Justinian (New
York, 1902); and T. F. Tout, Edward the First
(London, 1906).]

V. ADMINISTRATIVE AND JUDICIAL DEVELOPMENT

*16. The Permanent Council.*--One line, thus, along which were laid the
foundations of the English governmental system of to-day comprised the
transformation of the Norman Great Council into the semi-aristocratic,
semi-democratic assemblage known as Parliament. A parallel line (p. 017)
was the development from the Great Council of a body designated after
the thirteenth century as the Permanent, after the fifteenth as the
Privy, Council, and likewise of the four principal courts of law. By a
very gradual process those members of the original Council who were
attached in some immediate manner to the court or to the administrative
system acquired a status which was different from that of their
colleagues. The Great Council met irregularly and infrequently. So
likewise did Parliament. But the services of the court and the
business of government must go on continuously, and for the care of
these things there grew up a body which at first comprised essentially
a standing commission, an inner circle, of the Council, but which in
time acquired a virtually independent position and was designated, for
purposes of distinction, as the Permanent Council. The composition of
this body varied from time to time. Certain functionaries were
included regularly, while the remaining members owed their places to
special summons of the crown. Its powers were enormous, bei