“Common Profit” and “The Profit of the King and Kingdom”: Parliament and the Development of Political Language in England, 1250–1450

In the thirteenth century, the English crown began to make more explicit reference to the common good by claiming that its actions were undertaken for the “common profit” of the realm. In the same period it also adopted the notion of “the state of the king and kingdom,” gradually superseded by “the profit of the king and kingdom,” to express a mutuality of interests between crown and people. This study examines the adoption and development of these key phrases in the discourse of the English parliament, and specifically in the political language of the common petition, the characteristic diplomatic form that developed from the end of the thirteenth century to express the collective views of the polity. From the time of Edward II the making of common petitions was taken over by the commons, the representative element in parliament, and they began to make more consistent and assertive use of the language of the common good to justify their demands for reform. However, “common profit” was applied in these contexts principally in relation to the material wealth of the realm. There was no straightforward transition from “common profit”to the more extensively studied phrase, “common weal,” that became current from the mid-fifteenth century. The study contributes to a broader understanding of the significance of political language in articulating the value systems of pre-modern elites.