before the reign of John. Tenants in chief are enumerated distinctly
from earls and barons in the charter of Henry I. Knights, as well as
barons, are named as present in the parliament of Northampton in 1165,
in that held at the same town in 1176, and upon other occasions.[11]
Several persons appear in the Liber Niger Scaccarii, a roll of military
tenants made in the age of Henry II., who held single knight's fees of
the crown. It is, however, highly probable, that, in a lax sense of the
word, these knights may sometimes have been termed barons. The author of
the Dialogus de Scaccario speaks of those holding greater or lesser
baronies, including, as appears by the context, all tenants in
chief.[12] The former of these seem to be the majores barones of King
John's Charter. And the secundae dignitatis barones, said by a
contemporary historian to have been present in the parliament of
Northampton, were in all probability no other than the knightly tenants
of the crown.[13] For the word baro, originally meaning only a man, was
of very large significance, and is not unfrequently applied to common
freeholders, as in the phrase of court-baron. It was used too for the
magistrates or chief men of cities, as it is still for the judges of the
exchequer, and the representatives of the Cinque Ports.[14]

The passage however before cited from the Great Charter of John affords
one spot of firm footing in the course of our progress. Then, at least,
it is evident that all tenants in chief were entitled to their summons;
the greater barons by particular writs, the rest through one directed to
their sheriff. The epoch when all, who, though tenants in chief, had not
been actually summoned, were deprived of their right of attendance in
parliament, is again involved in uncertainty and conjecture. The unknown
writer quoted by Camden seems not sufficient authority to establish his
assertion, that they were excluded by a statute made after the battle of
Evesham. The principle was most likely acknowledged at an earlier time.
Simon de Montfort summoned only twenty-three temporal peers to his
famous parliament. In the year 1255 the barons complained that many of
their number had not received their writs according to the tenor of the
charter, and refused to grant an aid to the king till they were
issued.[15] But it would have been easy to disappoint this mode of
packing a parliament, if an unsummoned baron could have sat by mere
right of his tenur