Accounts of the early activities of Parliament have been based largely upon two series of enrolled records, the Rolls of Parliament and the Statute Rolls. Little attention has been given to the types of bills recorded in the first or to the preparation of the statutes collected in the second. Yet a considerable number of documents antecedent to both sorts of Rolls survive and often promise new information. To ascertain what this information is and especially to interpret the Rolls of Parliament in the light of the originals of the bills which they record, is the aim of the present volume. Various types of bills emerge, some of which originated with the Commons, some elsewhere. The number and importance of the former, together with the extent to which they were or were not amended, indicate how far the influence of the Commons was at one time or another felt in the legislation of two centuries. Not only is the method of the volume new but the results of the investigation diverge in some respects from current views on the subject.