ABSTRACT
Parliamentary government is an institution which the English carried with them to America and which, during the nineteenth century, spread to large parts of the world. In the Middle Ages some approach to it existed in many countries, but this mediaeval parliamentarism died out except in Hungary. Even in Hungary it was clearly not intended to give expression to the feelings of democracy, since the debates were conducted in Latin until exactly a hundred years ago. Modern parliamentarism is British in origin. Where it exists in continental countries, it is not a survival of anything mediaeval but a deliberate adaptation from the institutions of England and America.
