Curia regis in the context of "Great Council of England"

The Cortes of León or Decreta of León from year 1188 was a parliamentary body in the medieval Kingdom of León. According to UNESCO, it is the first historically documented example of a parliamentary system.

After coming to power, King Alfonso IX, facing an attack by his neighbours, Castile and Portugal, decided to summon the curia regis or king's court/royal council to the Basilica of San Isidoro, León. This was a gathering of the nobility and the higher clergy called to advise the king, used in numerous countries during the Middle Ages. Because of the seriousness of the situation, Alfonso IX also called in representatives of the wealthy merchants and tradesmen from the most important cities of the kingdom, thus uniting the three Estates of the Realm in one council.

The szlachta (Polish pronunciation: [ˈʂlaxta] ; Lithuanian: šlėkta; lit. 'nobility') , the nobles, were the noble estate of the realm in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was the dominating social class in the Kingdom of Poland and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was exercising political rights and power. Szlachta as a class differed substantially from the feudal nobility of Western Europe. The estate was officially abolished in 1921 by the March Constitution.

The origins of the szlachta are obscure and the subject of several theories. The szlachta secured substantial and increasing political power and rights throughout its history, beginning with the reign of King Casimir III the Great between 1333 and 1370 in the Kingdom of Poland until the decline and end of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the late 18th century. Apart from providing officers for the army, its chief civic obligations included electing the monarch and filling honorary and advisory roles at court that would later evolve into the upper legislative chamber, the Senate. The szlachta electorate also took part in the government of the Commonwealth via the lower legislative chamber of the Sejm (bicameral national parliament), composed of representatives elected at local sejmiks (local szlachta assemblies). Sejmiks performed various governmental functions at local levels, such as appointing officials and overseeing judicial and financial governance, including tax-raising. The szlachta assumed various governing positions, including voivode, marshal of voivodeship, castellan, and starosta.

The witan (lit. 'wise men') was the king's council in the Anglo-Saxon government of England from before the 7th century until the 11th century. It comprised important noblemen, including ealdormen, thegns, and bishops. Meetings of the witan were sometimes called the witenagemot.

Its primary function was to advise the king on legislation, judicial cases, land transfers, and other matters of national importance. The witan may have elected new kings from among members of the ruling dynasty. After the Norman Conquest in 1066, these roles were performed by a similar council known as the curia regis.

The Court of King's Bench, formally known as The Court of the King Before the King Himself, was a court of common law in the English legal system. Created in the late 12th to early 13th century from the curia regis, the King's Bench initially followed the monarch on his travels. The King's Bench finally joined the Court of Common Pleas and Exchequer of Pleas in Westminster Hall in 1318, making its last travels in 1421. The King's Bench was merged into the High Court of Justice by the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873, after which point the King's Bench was a division within the High Court. The King's Bench was staffed by one Chief Justice (now the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales) and usually three Puisne Justices.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, the King's Bench's jurisdiction and caseload was significantly challenged by the rise of the Court of Chancery and equitable doctrines as one of the two principal common law courts along with the Common Pleas. To recover, the King's Bench undertook a scheme of revolutionary reform, creating less expensive, faster and more versatile types of pleading in the form of bills as opposed to the more traditional writs. Although not immediately stemming the tide, it helped the King's Bench to recover and increase its workload in the long term.

The Principality of Wales (Welsh: Tywysogaeth Cymru) was originally the territory of the native Welsh princes of the House of Aberffraw from 1216 to 1283, encompassing two-thirds of modern Wales during its height of 1267–1277. Following the conquest of Wales by Edward I of England of 1277 to 1283, those parts of Wales retained under the direct control of the English crown, principally in the north and west of the country, were re-constituted as a new Principality of Wales and ruled either by the monarch or the monarch's heir though not formally incorporated into the Kingdom of England. This was ultimately accomplished with the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 when the Principality ceased to exist as a separate entity.

The Principality was formally founded in 1216 by native Welshman and King of Gwynedd, Llywelyn the Great who gathered other leaders of pura Wallia at the Council of Aberdyfi. The agreement was later recognised by the 1218 Treaty of Worcester between Llywelyn the Great of Wales and Henry III of England. The treaty gave substance to the political reality of 13th-century Wales and England, and the relationship of the former with the Angevin Empire. The principality retained a great degree of autonomy, characterized by a separate legal jurisprudence based on the well-established laws of Cyfraith Hywel, and by the increasingly sophisticated court of the House of Aberffraw. Although it owed fealty to the Angevin king of England, the principality was de facto independent, with a similar status in the empire to the Kingdom of Scotland. Its existence has been seen as proof that all the elements necessary for the growth of Welsh statehood were in place.