[Footnote 103: Government of England, I., 56. The best discussion of the organization, functions, and relationships of the cabinet is contained in Lowell, _op. cit._, I., Chaps. 2-3, 17-18, 22-23. Other good general accounts are Low, Governance of England, Chaps. 2-4, 8-9; Moran, English Government, Chaps. 4-9; Macy, English Constitution, Chap. 6; Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, II., Pt. 1, Chap. 2; and Maitland, Constitutional History of England, 387-430. A detailed and still valuable survey is in Todd, Parliamentary Government, Parts 3-4. A brilliant study is Bagehot, English Constitution, especially Chaps. 1, 6-9. The growth of the cabinet is well described in Blauvelt, The Development of Cabinet Government in England; and a monograph of value is P. le Vasseur, Le cabinet britannique sous la reine Victoria (Paris, 1902). For an extended bibliography see Select List of Books on the Cabinets of England and America (Washington, 1903), compiled in the Library of Congress under the direction of A. P. C. Griffin.] CHAPTER IV (p. 076) PARLIAMENT: THE HOUSE OF COMMONS *79. Antiquity and Importance.*--The British Parliament is at once the oldest, the most comprehensive in jurisdiction, and the most powerful among modern legislative assemblages. In structure, and to some extent in function, it is a product, as has appeared, of the Middle Ages. The term "parliament," employed originally to denote a discussion or conference, was applied officially to the Great Council in 1275;[104] and by the opening of the fourteenth century the institution which the English know to-day by that name had come clearly into existence, being then, indeed, what technically it still is--the king and the three estates of the realm, i.e., the lords spiritual, the lords temporal, and the commons. During upwards of a hundred years the three estates sat and deliberated separately. By the close of the reign of Edward III. (1327-1377), however, the bicameral principle had become fixed, and throughout the whole of its subsequent history (save during the Cromwellian era of experimentation) Parliament has comprised uninterruptedly, aside from the king, the two branches which exist at the present time, the House of Lords and the House of Commons, or, strictly, the Lords of Parliament and the Representatives of the Commons. [Footnote 104: In the First Statute of Westminster.]