Parliament and Community: Theory and Practice in the Insular World, c.1399-c.1460

Abstract

This thesis presents a comparative study of the communitarian language and ideas which underpinned parliamentary institutions in English Ireland and Scotland from c.1399 - c.1460. Recent years have seen a proliferation of studies on the medieval English parliament, which offer new frameworks of interpretation for how ideological concepts-especially those which pertain to parliament and community-were located within the realm of political discourse and governance. This thesis extends the intellectual framework of the 'new constitutional history' in England to a comparative study of Irish and Scottish parliaments, but with a closely contextualised approach giving primacy to the idea that there was no one 'ideal' model of parliament in the insular world. As such, the comparative element of this thesis is firmly focused upon Ireland and Scotland, whereas England serves as a 'backdrop' against which dominant interpretations are contested and challenged by testing their application in these two structurally different polities: 'colonial' Ireland and 'sovereign' Scotland.