In answer to your question, “How did Parliamentary elections work in the Middle Ages?”

Parliament circa 1500 was an occasional assembly, so occasional that people talked about “a parliament” rather than about “Parliament” as they do now. When the king commanded it, and he had two kinds of occasions when he had to consult it: to approve new taxes or laws for the kingdom. If the king wanted or needed anything else, he did not have to convene Parliament, and Parliament could not legislate taxes without the king in Parliament.

Peers of the realm comprised the House of Lords, the heads of noble families, who inherited the right to sit in Lords. The kingdom’s bishops sat in the Lords as well. Most members of the House of Lords also were major tenants of the King, holding lands awarded by him.

Members of the House of Commons, however, held their seats by election, as England was comprised of a number of territories called shires, or counties. Each shire or county was represented by two knights in the House of Commons. Additionally, some towns were designated as boroughs. “Boroughs were corporations that had gained the right to send their own representatives to the Commons.”

“Only those who met a stiff property requirement could elect knights from the shires. The same was largely true…for representatives of the boroughs.” Essentially, the representatives of the shires should be elected ‘by the better people.’ “Medieval parliaments remind one that the constitutional government is not necessarily democratic…and that democratic government is not necessarily constitutional. Majority rule is not the same as rule limited by law.”

Michael Burger, “The High and Late Middle Ages,” The Making of Western Civilization, Volume I (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), 195.