Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
page 61 note 1 There is little difference between the ‘ ordinances and acts ’ of the great council of 1462 (Early stat. Ire., 1-12 Edw. IV, pp. 2-13) and the ‘ statutes, ordinances and acts ’ of subsequent parliaments. Representatives of the commons and proctors of the clergy were summoned to them as well as the official council and the lords spiritual and temporal. The last great council to which it is known that proctors of the clergy were called was that of 1484 (p. 68, below). After 1494 it appears they were not called for legislative purposes, as their ordinances might infringe Poynings' Law, but great councils, composed of the official council and the lords spiritual and temporal, continued to be called to authorise the holding of a general hosting and the issue of writs for servitium regale, as well as, at certain periods, for the election of a justice on the death or departure from the country of a lieutenant or deputy.