"Unreformed House of Commons" is a name given to the House of Commons of Great Britain (after 1800 the House of Commons of the United Kingdom) before it was reformed by the Reform Act 1832, the Irish Reform Act 1832, and the Scottish Reform Act 1832. Until the Act of Union of 1707, which united the Kingdoms of Scotland and England to form Great Britain, Scotland had its own Parliament, and the term can be used to refer to the House of Commons of England (which included representatives from Wales from the 16th century). From 1707 to 1801 the term refers to the House of Commons of Great Britain. Until the Act of Union of 1800 joining the Kingdom of Ireland to Great Britain (to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland), Ireland also had its own Parliament. From 1801 to 1832, therefore, the term refers to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. Medieval background 6th century to 1066 The Witenagemot was the forerunner political institution (that of Anglo-Saxon England) which operated from before the 7th century in at least the Kingdom of Wessex until the 11th century by which time the Kingdom of England was long-established. It was an assembly of the ruling class whose main function was to advise the king; composed of the most key noblemen in England, ecclesiastic and secular. The institution is thought to represent an aristocratic development of the ancient Germanic general assemblies, or folkmoots. In England, by the 7th century, these ancient folkmoots had developed into convocations of the land's most powerful and important people: ealdormen, thegns, and senior clergy, to discuss matters of national and local significance. Through missionaries (later made saints) sent by Gregory the Great (such as Augustine of Canterbury and Paulinus of York) the seven Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, mainly with quasi-Witenagemots, officially converted to the church, by the mid-7th century. The panoply of Anglo-Saxon monarchs were then free to arrange marriages into European royalty, which were likewise, from then, became more autocratic while feudal. The role of a consulting forum, overall, declined. In England, cross-sea Viking Kingdoms made raids and soon invasions – such times and places of conflict favoured stronger leadership, and effective autocracy. None more so than the Danelaw, among whose rulers were Cnut the Great, Sveyn Forkbeard and Cnut of Northumbria. 1066 to 1265 The latter's semi-relatives, being the people (predominantly men) of