ABSTRACT
The payment of representatives of the shires and towns summoned to parliament under the king’s writ is as old as parliament itself. It was wisely assumed that the representatives would be unable to defray their own expenses, and the obvious alternative was to make the communities which elected them responsible for the payment of their wages. The normal rate of payment for service in parliament was never adopted in London. So early as 1296, the body which elected the two aldermen to represent the city in parliament agreed at the time of the election that they should be paid at the rate of twenty shillings a day. Possibly this rate proved excessive, for two years later each of the representatives received instead a round sum of 100 shillings to cover all his expenses at the York parliament. The records of Norwich reveal a curious fluctuation in the rate of parliamentary wages.
