Abstract
The leading role of the Cortes during the first Portuguese liberal experience is a consensual issue amongst historians. In the aftermath of the Liberal Revolution, the Cortes appeared to be destined to assume uncontested power. This leading role and the parliamentarization of political life would be, in a certain sense, inevitable. This article revisits this interpretation, arguing that the parliamentarization of political life in Portugal, although probable, was largely the result of a petitionary movement of unprecedented proportions in the country’s history. The text also submits that this petitionary movement was only possible because the Cortes adopted an internal regulation that favored the role of the new institution as the space to where all expectations converged. Without such unassuming regulatory device (forgotten by the scholarship), the political interaction of the new institution with the population would have been significantly smaller. Even the leading role of the Cortes would be diminished.
Keywords:
Liberal Cortes; Parliamentarization; Petitionary drive; Liberalism