Before the nineteenth century, medieval parliaments represented the interests of major landholders: the church, nobility, and relatively wealthy merchants and farmers. Those sitting in parliament gained their seats through a mixture of heredity, appointments, and elections based on narrow suffrage.

The subset of the members that were elected to their offices often ran unopposed and represented, for the most part, locally powerful families. Those eligible to run for office often had to be relatively wealthy men, both as a formal condition of eligibility, and in order to be able to afford to attend meetings of parliament, because those holding seats in parliament were not directly paid for their services. There were no professional members of parliament, per se, although members with jobs in the capital city often invested considerable time and energy in parliamentary activities.