Part 805

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1771.

PARLIAMENT: A. D. 1727. Defeat of the first Reform measure.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1797.

PARLIAMENT: A. D. 1830. State of the unreformed representation.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1830.

PARLIAMENT: A. D. 1832. The first Reform of the Representation.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1830-1832.

PARLIAMENT: A. D. 1867. The second Reform Bill.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1865-1868.

PARLIAMENT: A. D. 1883. Act to prevent Corrupt and Illegal Practices at Elections.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1883.

PARLIAMENT: A. D. 1884-1885. The third Reform Bill (text and comment).

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1884-1885.

PARLIAMENT: End--------

PARLIAMENT, New Houses of.

See WESTMINSTER PALACE.

PARLIAMENT, The Scottish.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1326-1603.

PARLIAMENT, The Drunken.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1660-1666.

PARLIAMENT OF FLORENCE.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1250-1293.

PARLIAMENT OF ITALIAN FREE CITIES.

See ITALY: A. D. 1056-1152.

PARLIAMENT OF PARIS.

"When the Carlovingian Monarchy had given place, first to Anarchy and then to Feudalism, the mallums, and the Champs de Mai, and (except in some southern cities) the municipal curiæ also disappeared. But in their stead there came into existence the feudal courts. Each tenant in capite of the crown held within his fief a Parliament of his own free vassals. … There was administered the seigneur's 'justice,' whether haute, moyenne, or basse. There were discussed all questions immediately affecting the seigneurie or the tenants of it. There especially were adopted all general regulations which the exigencies of the lordship were supposed to dictate, and especially all such as related to the raising tailles or other imposts. What was thus done on a small scale in a minor fief, was also done, though on a larger scale, in each of the feudal provinces, and on a scale yet more extensive in the court or Parliament holden by the king as a seigneur of the royal domain. … This royal court or Parliament was, however, not a Legislature in our modern sense of that word. It was rather a convention, in which, by a voluntary compact between the king as supreme suzerain and the greater seigneurs as his feudatories, an ordonnance or an impost was established, either throughout the entire kingdom, or in some seigneuries apart from the rest. From any such compact any seigneur might dissent on behalf of himself and his immediate vassals or, by simply absenting himself, might render the extension of it to his own fief impossible. … Subject to the many corrections which would be requisite to reduce to perfect accuracy this slight sketch of the origin of the great council or Parliament of the kings of France, such was, in substance, the constitution of it at the time of the accession of Louis IX. [A. D. 1226]. Before the close of his eventful reign, that monarch had acquired the character and was in full exercise of the powers of a law-giver, and was habitually making laws, not with the advice and consent of his council or Parliament, but in the exercise of the inherent prerogative which even now they began to ascribe to the French crown. … With our English prepossessions, it is impossible to repress the wonder, and even the incredulity, with which we at first listen to the statement that the supreme judicial tribunal of the kingdom could be otherwise than the zealous and effectual antagonist of so momentous an encroachment." The explanation is found in a change which had taken place in the character of the Parliament, through which its function and authority became distinctly judicial and quite apart from those of a council or a legislature. When Philip Augustus went to the Holy Land, he provided for the decision of complaints against officers of the crown by directing the queen-mother and the archbishop of Rheims, who acted as regents, to hold an annual assembly of the greater barons. "This practice had become habitual by the time of Louis IX. For the confirmation and improvement of it, that monarch ordered that, before the day of any such assemblage, citations should be issued, commanding the attendance, not, as before, of the greater barons exclusively, but of twenty-four members of the royal council or Parliament. Of those twenty-four, three only were to be great barons, three were to be bishops, and the remaining eighteen were to be knights. But as these members of the royal council did not appear to St. Louis to possess all the qualifications requisite for the right discharge of the judicial office, he directed that thirty-seven other persons should be associated to them. Of those associates, seventeen were to be clerks in holy orders, and twenty légistes, that is, men bred to the study of the law. The function assigned to the légistes was that of drawing up in proper form the decrees and other written acts of the collective body. To this body, when thus constituted, was given the distinctive title of the Parliament of Paris." By virtue of their superior education and training, the légistes soon gathered the business of the Parliament into their own hands; the knights and barons found attendance a bore and an absurdity. "Ennui and ridicule … proved in the Parliament of Paris a purge quite as effectual as that which Colonel Pride administered to the English House of Commons. The conseiller clercs were soon left to themselves, in due time to found, and to enjoy, what began to be called 'La Noblesse de la Robe.' Having thus assumed the government of the court, the légistes next proceeded to enlarge its jurisdiction. … By … astute constructions of the law, the Parliament had, in the beginning of the 14th century, become the supreme legal tribunal within the whole of that part of France which was at that time attached to the crown." In the reign of Philip the Long (1316-1322) the Parliament and the royal council became practically distinct bodies; the former became sedentary at Paris, meeting nowhere else, and its members were required to be constantly resident in Paris. {2489} By 1345 the parliamentary counselors, as they were now called, had acquired life appointments, and in the reign of Charles VI. (1380-1422) the seats in the Parliament of Paris became hereditary. "At the period when the Parliament of Paris was acquiring its peculiar character as a court of justice, the meetings of the great vassals of the crown, to co-operate with the king in legislation, were falling into disuse. The king … had begun to originate laws without their sanction; and the Parliament, not without some show of reason, assumed that the right of remonstrance, formerly enjoyed by the great vassals, had now passed to themselves. … If their remonstrance was disregarded, their next step was to request that the projected law might be withdrawn. If that request was unheeded, they at length formally declined to register it among their records. Such refusals were sometimes but were not usually successful. In most instances they provoked from the king a peremptory order for the immediate registration of his ordinance. To such orders the Parliament generally submitted."

_Sir J. Stephen, Lectures on the History of France, lecture 8._

"It appears that the opinion is unfounded which ascribes to the States [the 'States-General'] and the Parliaments a different origin. Both arose out of the National Assemblies held at stated periods in the earliest times of the monarchy [the 'Champs de Mars' and 'Champs de Mai']. … Certainly in the earliest part of [the 13th] century there existed no longer two bodies, but only one, which had then acquired the name of Parliament. The stated meetings under the First race were called by the name of Mallum or Mallus, sometimes Placitum [also Plaid], sometimes Synod. Under the Second race they were called Colloquium also. The translation of this term (and it is said also of Mallum) into Parliament occurs not before the time of Louis VI. (le Gros); but in that of Louis VIII., at the beginning of the 13th century, it became the usual appellation. There were then eleven Parliaments, besides that of Paris, and all those bodies had become merely judicial, that of Paris exercising a superintending power over the other tribunals. … After [1334] … the Parliament was only called upon to register the Ordinances. This gave a considerable influence to the Parliament of Paris, which had a right of remonstrance before registry; the Provincial Parliaments only could remonstrate after registry. … The Parliament of Paris, besides remonstrating, might refuse to register; and though compellable by the King holding a Bed of Justice, which was a more solemn meeting of the Parliament attended by the King's Court in great state [see BED OF JUSTICE), yet it cannot be doubted that many Ordinances were prevented and many modified in consequence of this power of refusal."

_Lord Brougham, History of England and France under the House of Lancaster, note 66._

For an account of the conflict between the Parliament of Paris and the crown which immediately preceded the French Revolution.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1787-1789.

_ALSO IN: M. de la Rocheterie, Marie Antoinette, chapters 6-11._

PARMA, Alexander Farnese, Duke of, in the Netherlands.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1577-1581, to 1588-1593.

PARMA: Start--------

PARMA: Founding of.

See MUTINA.

PARMA: A. D. 1077-1115. In the Dominions of the Countess Matilda.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1077-1102.

PARMA: A. D. 1339-1349. Bought by the Visconti, of Milan.

See MILAN: A. D. 1277-1447.

PARMA: A. D. 1513. Conquest by Pope Julius II.

See ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513.

PARMA: A. D. 1515. Reannexed to Milanese and acquired by France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1515-1518.

PARMA: A. D. 1521. Retaken by the Pope.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1520-1523.

PARMA: A. D. 1545-1592. Alienation from the Holy See and erection, with Placentia, into a duchy, for the House of Farnese.

"Paul III. was the last of those ambitious popes who rendered the interests of the holy see subordinate to the aggrandizement of their families. The designs of Paul, himself the representative of the noble Roman house of Farnese, were ultimately successful; since, although partially defeated during his life, they led to the establishment of his descendants on the throne of Parma and Placentia for nearly 200 years. … He gained the consent of the sacred college to alienate those states from the holy see in 1545, that he might erect them into a duchy for his natural son, Pietro Luigi Farnese; and the Emperor Charles V. had already, some years before, to secure the support of the papacy against France, bestowed the hand of his natural daughter, Margaret, widow of Alessandro de' Medici, upon Ottavio, son of Pietro Luigi, and grandson of Paul III. Notwithstanding this measure, Charles V. was not subsequently, however, the more disposed to confirm to the house of Farnese the investiture of their new possessions, which he claimed as part of the Milanese duchy; and he soon evinced no friendly disposition towards his own son-in-law, Ottavio. Pietro Luigi, the first duke of Parma, proved himself, by his extortions, his cruelties, and his debaucheries, scarcely less detestable than any of the ancient tyrants of Lombardy. He thus provoked a conspiracy and insurrection of the nobles of Placentia, where he resided; and he was assassinated by them at that place in 1547, after a reign of only two years. The city was immediately seized in the imperial name by Gonzaga, governor of Milan. … To deter the emperor from appropriating Parma also to himself, [Paul III.] could devise no other expedient than altogether to retract his grant from his family, and to reoccupy that city for the holy see, whose rights he conceived that the emperor would not venture to invade." But after the death of Paul III., the Farnese party, commanding a majority in the conclave. "by raising Julius III. to the tiara [1550], obtained the restitution of Parma to Ottavio from the gratitude of the new pope. The prosperity of the ducal house of Farnese was not yet securely established. The emperor still retained Placentia, and Julius III. soon forgot the services of that family. In 1551, the pope leagued with Charles V. to deprive the duke Ottavio of the fief which he had restored to him. Farnese was thus reduced … to place himself under the protection of the French; and this measure, and the indecisive war which followed, became his salvation. He still preserved his throne when Charles V. terminated his reign; and one of the first acts of Philip II., when Italy was menaced by the invasion of the duke de Guise [1556], was to win him over from the French alliance, and to secure his gratitude, by yielding Placentia again to him. {2490} But a Spanish garrison was still left in the citadel of that place; and it was only the brilliant military career of Alessandro Faroese, the celebrated prince of Parma, son of duke Ottavio, which finally consummated the greatness of his family. Entering the service of Philip II., Alessandro gradually won the respect and favour of that gloomy monarch; and at length, in 1585, as a reward for his achievements, the Spanish troops were withdrawn from his father's territories. The duke Ottavio closed his life in the following year; but Alessandro never took possession of his throne. He died at the head of the Spanish armies in the Low Countries in 1592; and his son Ranuccio quietly commenced his reign over the duchy of Parma and Placentia under the double protection of the holy see and the monarchy of Spain."

_G. Procter, History of Italy, chapter 9._

PARMA: A. D. 1635. Alliance with France against Spain.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.

PARMA: A. D. 1635-1637. Desolation of the duchy by the Spaniards. The French alliance renounced.

See ITALY: A. D. 1635-1659.

PARMA: A. D. 1725. Reversion of the duchy pledged to the Infant of Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725.

PARMA: A. D. 1731. Possession given to Don Carlos, the Infant of Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1726-1731; and ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.

PARMA: A. D. 1735. Restored to Austria.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735; and ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.

PARMA: A. D. 1745-1748. Changes of masters.

In the War of the Austrian Succession, Parma was taken by Spain in 1745; recovered by Austria in the following year (see ITALY: A. D. 1746-1747); but surrendered by Maria Theresa to the infant of Spain in 1748.

PARMA: A. D. 1767. Expulsion of the Jesuits. Papal excommunication of the Duke.

See JESUITS: A. D. 1761-1769.

PARMA: A. D. 1801. The Duke's son made King of Etruria.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803.

PARMA: A. D. 1802. The duchy declared a dependency of France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1802 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).

PARMA: A. D. 1814. Duchy conferred on Marie Louise, the ex-empress of Napoleon.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (MARCH-APRIL).

PARMA: A. D. 1831. Revolt and expulsion of Marie Louise. Her restoration by Austria.

See ITALY: A. D. 1830-1832.

PARMA: A. D. 1848-1849. Abortive revolution.

See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.

PARMA: A. D. 1859-1861. End of the duchy. Absorption in the new kingdom of Italy.

See ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859; and 1859-1861.

PARMA: End--------

PARMA, Battle of (1734).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735.

PARNASSUS.

See THESSALY; and DORIANS AND IONIANS.

PARNELL MOVEMENT, The.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1873-1879, to 1889-1891.

PARRIS, Samuel, and Salem Witchcraft.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1692.

PARSEES, The.

"On the western coast of India, from the Gulf of Cambay to Bombay, we find from one hundred to one hundred and fifty thousand families whose ancestors migrated thither from Iran. The tradition among them is, that at the time when the Arabs, after conquering Iran and becoming sovereigns there, persecuted and eradicated the old religion [of the Avesta], faithful adherents of the creed fled to the mountains of Kerman. Driven from these by the Arabs (in Kerman and Yezd a few hundred families are still found who maintain the ancient faith), they retired to the island of Hormuz (a small island close by the southern coast, at the entrance to the Persian Gulf). From hence they migrated to Din (on the coast of Guzerat), and then passed over to the opposite shore. In the neighbourhood of Bombay and in the south of India inscriptions have been found which prove that these settlers reached the coast in the tenth century of our era. At the present time their descendants form a considerable part of the population of Surat, Bombay, and Ahmadabad; they call themselves, after their ancient home, Parsees, and speak the later Middle Persian."

_M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 7, chapter 2 (volume 5)._

See, also, ZOROASTRIANS.

PARSONS' CAUSE, The.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1763.

PARTHENII, The.

This name was given among the Spartans to a class of young men, sons of Spartan women who had married outside the exclusive circle of the Spartiatæ. The latter refused, even when Sparta was most pressingly in need of soldiers, to admit these "sons of maidens," as they stigmatized them, to the military body. The Parthenii, becoming numerous, were finally driven to emigrate, and found a home at Tarentum, Italy.

_E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 2, chapter 1._

See TARENTUM.

PARTHENON: Start--------

PARTHENON AT ATHENS, The.

"Pericles had occasion to erect on the highest point of the Acropolis, in place of the ancient Hecatompedon, a new festive edifice and treasure-house, which, by blending intimately together the fulfilment of political and religious ends, was to serve to represent the piety and artistic culture, the wealth and the festive splendour—in fine, all the glories which Athens had achieved by her valour and her wisdom. …

See ATHENS: B. C. 445-431.

The architect from whose design, sanctioned by Pericles and Phidias, the new Hecatompedon was erected, was Ictinus, who was seconded by Callicrates, the experienced architect of the double line of walls. It was not intended to build an edifice which should attract attention by the colossal nature of its proportions or the novelty of its style. The traditions of the earlier building were followed, and its dimensions were not exceeded by more than 50 feet. In a breadth of 100 feet the edifice extended in the form of a temple, 226 feet from east to west; and the height, from the lowest stair to the apex of the pediment, amounted only to 65 feet. … The Hecatompedon, or Parthenon (for it went by this name also as the house of Athene Parthenos), was very closely connected with the festival of the Panathenæa, whose splendour and dignity had gradually risen by degrees together with those of the state. … The festival commenced with the performances in the Odeum, where the masters of song and recitation, and the either and flute-players, exhibited their skill, the choral songs being produced in the theatre. Hereupon followed the gymnastic games, which, besides the usual contests in the stadium, foot-race, wrestling-matches, &c., also included the torch-race, which was held in the Ceramicus outside the Dipylum, when no moon shone in the heavens; and which formed one of the chief attractions of the whole festival."

_E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 3, chapter 3._

See, also, ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS.

{2491}

PARTHENON: A. D. 1687. Destructive explosion during the siege of Athens by the Venetians.

See TURKS: A. D. 1684-1696.

PARTHENON: End--------

PARTHENOPÉ.

See NEAPOLIS AND PALÆPOLIS.

PARTHENOPEIAN REPUBLIC, The.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1708-1799 (AUGUST-APRIL).

PARTHIA, AND THE PARTHIAN EMPIRE.

"The mountain chain, which running southward of the Caspian, skirts the great plateau of Iran, or Persia, on the north, broadens out after it passes the south-eastern corner of the sea, into a valuable and productive mountain-region. Four or five' distinct ranges here run parallel to one another, having between them latitudinal valleys, with glens transverse to their courses. The sides of the valleys are often well wooded; the flat ground at the foot of the hills is fertile; water abounds; and the streams gradually collect into rivers of a considerable size. The fertile territory in this quarter is further increased by the extension of cultivation to a considerable distance from the base of the most southern of the ranges, in the direction of the Great Iranic desert. … It was undoubtedly in the region which has been thus briefly described that the ancient home of the Parthians lay. … Parthia Proper, however, was at no time coextensive with the region described. A portion of that region formed the district called Hyrcania; and it is not altogether easy to determine what were the limits between the two. The evidence goes, on the whole, to show that while Hyrcania lay towards the west and north, the Parthian country was that towards the south and east, the valleys of the Ettrek and Gurghan constituting the main portions of the former, while the tracts east and south of those valleys, as far as the sixty-first degree of E. longitude, constituted the latter. If the limits of Parthia Proper be thus defined, it will have nearly corresponded to the modern Persian province of Khorasan. … The Turanian character of the Parthians, though not absolutely proved, appears to be in the highest degree probable. If it be accepted, we must regard them as in race closely allied to the vast hordes which from a remote antiquity have roamed over the steppe region of Upper Asia, from time to time bursting upon the south and harassing or subjugating the comparatively unwarlike inhabitants of the warmer countries. We must view them as the congeners of the Huns, Bulgarians and Comans of the ancient world; of the Kalmucks, Ouigurs, Usbegs, Eleuts, &c., of the present day. … The Parthians probably maintained their independence from the time of their settlement in the district called after their name until the sudden arrival in their country of the great Persian conqueror, Cyrus, [about 554 B. C.]. … When the Persian empire was organised by Darius Hystaspis into satrapies, Parthia was at first united in the same government with Chorasmia, Sogdiana and Aria. Subsequently, however, when satrapies were made more numerous, it was detached from these extensive countries, and made to form a distinct government, with the mere addition of the comparatively small district of Hyrcania." The conquests of Alexander included Parthia within their range, and, under the new political arrangements which followed Alexander's death, that country became for a time part of the wide empire of the Seleucidæ, founded by Seleueus Nicator,—the kingdom of Syria as it was called. But about 250 B. C. a successful revolt occurred in Parthia, led by one Arsaces, who founded an independent kingdom and a dynasty called the Arsacid.

See SELEUCIDÆ: B. C. 281-224, and 224-187.