Baro.] in parliament before the king had made him restitution of his temporalities; and during the vacancy of a see, the guardian of the spiritualities was summoned to attend along with the bishops.
The supreme legislative power of England was lodged in the king and great council, or what was afterwards called the parliament.

It is not doubted but the archbishops, bishops, and most considerable abbots were constituent members of this council.

They sat by a double title: by prescription, as having always possessed that privilege, through the whole Saxon period, from the first establishment of Christianity; and by their right of baronage, as holding of the king in capite by military service.

These two titles of the prelates were never accurately distinguished.

When the usurpations of the church had risen to such a height, as to make the bishops affect a separate dominion, and regard their seat in parliament as a degradation of their episcopal dignity, the king insisted that they were barons, and, on that account, obliged, by the general principles of the feudal law, to attend on him in his great councils.