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This article discusses the historical roots of modern German parliamentary practice in England, France and the individual German states, and argues that there were very strong continuities but no single model. Early established practice in the English Houses of Parliament as interpreted above all by Jeremy Bentham subsequently influenced revolutionary France and many early nineteenth-century German states. The role of Robert Mohl in introducing these procedures to the Frankfurt assembly of 1848 was fundamental. Later it was to be developments in the Prussian parliament that were the most influential on the Reichstag of the North German Confederation. From there we may trace direct links in turn between parliaments in the German Empire, the Weimar Republic and the Bundesrepublik. The article then discusses in detail the development of three characteristics of modern parliamentary practice: the system of three readings for legislation; the creation of parliamentary select committees; and the principle of discontinuities resulting from the dissolution of a sitting parliament.
