How assemblies, candidates, voting and public office were named.
parliament (n.)
A parliament is an assembly that debates and makes laws. Before it named an institution, the word named a conversation.1
Old French parlement meant a speaking or discussion, from parler, to speak. English borrowed the word for formal gatherings in the Middle Ages. It came to mean an assembly summoned by a ruler.12
The English Parliament grew out of the great councils at which the king met the leading men of the kingdom. Knights from the counties had sometimes been summoned before, and in 1265 the towns were also asked to send burgesses. It gradually became established that people outside the aristocracy would be summoned.2
Parliament met again after the recess.