ABSTRACT
The principle of restraint was expressed in the Ordinances in the movement which ended in the appointment of the ordainers, in the method of that appointment and most of all in the results of their work. In all three directions the barons were influenced by previous efforts made to achieve similar objects. The Ordinances are called in one chronicler "les ordinances de Sir Simon de Mountford, vont
establir en son temps1." Precedents guided the ordainers throughout but they did not follow precedent slavishly. That elaborate system of councils and committees to which the Provisions of Oxford were to give birth was absent from the Ordinances. In fact no permanent council was intended. The ordainers were a temporary committee appointed for a specific purpose and for a limited time. No machinery was provided for the execution of the Ordinances. It was apparently considered that restrictive principles coming in the form of ordinances, the work of a body appointed by the whole baronage, the appointment being freely allowed by the king, the avowed object of the ordinances being reform of the royal household, would commend themselves sufficiently. The event was to prove that the restraint could only be supported and maintained by coercion.
