On this page
American Heritage Dictionary:
Mag·na Car·ta |
[Middle English, from Medieval Latin : Latin magna, great + charta, charter.]
|
Featured Videos:
|
Fowler's Modern English Usage:
Magna Carta |
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
Magna Carta |
For more information on Magna Carta, visit Britannica.com.
Oxford Dictionary of British History:
Magna Carta |
Magna Carta was sealed by King John on 15 June 1215 at Runnymede (Berks.). It followed a period of intense political and military activity after John's defeat at Bouvines. Magna Carta was the product of long and hard negotiation. It was designed to be a negotiated peace, bridging the extreme rebels on the one hand, and John and his supporters on the other. But in this it was a total failure for John had no intention of adhering to Magna Carta, agreeing to it only to gain time. In September 1215 civil war began in earnest. The charter's achievement and significance lie elsewhere, for it laid down standards to be observed in the future by the crown, for the first time in written law establishing defined limitations to royal rights. With the reissues of 1216 and 1217, and the definitive version of 1225 (much briefer than the original), the charter became a statement of law.
Gale Encyclopedia of US History:
Magna Carta |
Magna Carta, or Magna Charta, is the thirteenth-century document regarded as the foundation of English constitutional liberty. By early spring of 1215, England was in the throes of a civil war. King John's blundering foreign policy had disrupted the Angevin Empire and had alienated a considerable number of his former followers. His clash with Rome over the vacant See of Canterbury outraged the nation's religious leaders. More significant were his repeated violations of feudal and common law. These abuses caused most of John's barons to revolt. John capitulated at Runnymede on 15 June 1215. Here he gave his consent to the Magna Carta.
No document in all of English history equals the Magna Carta, although none has been more misunderstood or misinterpreted. The "great charter" was a treaty won by a victorious barony from a defeated king. In its essence, the charter simply meant that John, like all the English, was to be subject to the spirit and letter of the law. His past conduct was condemned; in the future he was to rule in accordance with law and custom. The charter was not a document of human liberties. Although it did stipulate that personal liberty and private property could be taken away, the document contained no explicit reference to habeas corpus, jury trial in criminal cases, or Parliament's control over taxation. Several centuries were to pass before these basic rights became an integral part of England's organic law.
Between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Magna Carta was largely forgotten. The civil conflicts attending the War of the Roses and the strong arm of the Tudors blotted out the memory of the Magna Carta. Contemporary literature of the Tudor period (1485–1603) is strangely silent about the charter, and William Shakespeare in King John made no reference to what probably was the most important event in the life of that monarch. Had the great dramatist known of the charter, he would hardly have passed over so significant an episode.
It remained for the Puritans, lawyers, and members of Parliament of the seventeenth century, in their contest with the Stuarts, to resurrect the Magna Carta and interpret it as an impregnable bulwark of democracy. Although they misunderstood the intent of the charter and thus laid the foundation of the myth of the Magna Carta, they fashioned it into an obstacle to arbitrary government and paved the way for the present constitutional monarchy. When the Puritans migrated to the New World, they embedded their ideas in American political philosophy. The Magna Carta was viewed in the United States as a priceless heritage, never to be lost sight of, and to bravely be defended. As historical research has removed much of the myth and fancy that have surrounded the charter, its essential truths have become more significant than when John reigned: human rights, individually or collectively, are not to be destroyed by arbitrary and despotic government; the law of the land is supreme and inviolable and must be respected; and no individual or government may transcend law.
Bibliography
Cantor, Norman F. Imagining the Law: Common Law and the Foundations of the American Legal System. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.
Holt, James C. Magna Carta. 2d ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Pallister, Anne. Magna Carta: The Heritage of Liberty. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.
Answer of the Day:
Magna Carta |
|
|
| Signing the Magna Carta |
| Madonna | |
| Malcolm X |
From our Archives: Today's Highlights, June 15, 2009
Columbia Encyclopedia:
Magna Carta |
The Reasons for Its Granting
Charters of liberties had previously been granted by Henry I, Stephen, and Henry II, in attempts to placate opposition to a broad use of the king's power as feudal lord. John had incurred general hostility. His expensive wars abroad were unsuccessful, and to finance them he had charged excessively for royal justice, sold church offices, levied heavy aids, and abused the feudal incidents of wardship, marriage, and escheat. He had also appointed advisers from outside the baronial ranks. Finally in 1215 the barons rose in rebellion. Faced by superior force, the king entered into parleys with the barons at Runnymede. On June 15, after some attempts at evasion, John set his seal to the preliminary draft of demands presented by the barons, and after several days of debate a compromise was reached (June 19). The resulting document was put forth in the form of a charter freely granted by the king-although in actuality its guarantees were extorted by the barons from John. There are four extant copies of the original charter.
The Original Charter
The original charter, in Latin, is a relatively brief and somewhat vague document of some 63 clauses, many of which were of only transient significance. The charter was in most respects a reactionary document; its purpose was to insure feudal rights and dues and to guarantee that the king would not encroach upon baronial privileges. There were provisions guaranteeing the freedom of the church and the customs of the towns, special privileges being conferred upon London.
The charter definitely implies that there are laws protecting the rights of subjects and communities that the king is bound to observe or, if he fails to do so, will be compelled to observe. Historically most important were the vaguely worded statements against oppression of all subjects, which later generations interpreted as guarantees of trial by jury and of habeas corpus. Such interpretations, however, were the work of later scholars and are not explicit in the charter itself. The fact that many of the early interpretations of its provisions were based upon bad historical scholarship or false reasoning, however, does not vitiate the importance of the Magna Carta in the development of the British constitution.
Revisions and Reinterpretations
As an actual instrument of government the charter was, at first, a failure. The clumsy machinery set up to prevent the king's violation of the charter never had an opportunity to function, and civil war broke out the same year. On John's death in 1216, the charter was reissued in the name of young King Henry III, but with a number of significant omissions relative to safeguards of national liberties and restrictions on taxation. It was reissued with further changes in 1217 and again in 1225, the latter reissue being the one that was incorporated into British statute law.
In later centuries it became a symbol of the supremacy of the constitution over the king, as opponents of arbitrary royal power extracted from it various "democratic" interpretations. This movement reached its height in the 17th cent. in the work of such apologists for Parliament as Sir Edward Coke. It came to be thought that the charter forbade taxation without representation, that it guaranteed trial by jury, even that it invested the House of Commons (nonexistent in 1215) with great powers. These ideas persisted until the 19th cent., when certain scholars came to maintain that the Magna Carta was a completely reactionary, not a progressive, document-that it was merely a guarantee of feudal rights. It is generally recognized now, however, that the charter definitely did show the viability of opposition to excessive use of royal power and that this constitutes its chief significance.
Bibliography
See W. S. McKechnie, Magna Carta: A Commentary (2d ed. 1914, repr. 1960); H. E. Malden, ed., Magna Carta Commemoration Essays (1917); F. Thompson, The First Century of Magna Carta (1925, repr. 1967); M. Ashley, Magna Carta in the Seventeenth Century (1965); J. C. Holt, Magna Carta (1965, repr. 1969); A. Pallister, Magna Carta (1971); J. C. Holt, Magna Carta and the Idea of Liberty (1972) and Magna Carta and Medieval Government (1985).
West's Encyclopedia of American Law:
Magna Charta |
On June 15, 1215, King John (1199-1216) was surrounded on the battlefield at Runnymede by a cordon of England's most powerful barons, who demanded royal recognition for certain liberties and legal procedures they enumerated in a written document known today as the Magna Charta. Contained in the Magna Charta's sixty-three chapters are the seeds of trial by jury, due process, habeas corpus, and equality under the law. The Magna Charta was reissued three times during the reign of Henry III (1216-72) with some minor alteration, and confirmed by the Crown more than thirty times thereafter.
Sometimes called the Great Charter, the Magna Charta is widely considered to be the foundation of the English and U.S. constitutional systems, representing the first time the often tyrannical power of the monarchy was restrained by law and popular resistance. The Magna Charta was cited by Sir Edward Coke, esteemed English jurist and member of the House of Commons, in opposition to the monarchy's assertion of absolute power in the seventeenth century. During the American Revolution, colonists relied on the Magna Charta when they convened the First Continental Congress to restore the rights lost under the coercive legislation of Parliament.
Almost from its inception, the Great Charter has been imbued with two separate meanings, one literal and the other symbolic. The literal meaning is reflected by the original understanding of the Magna Charta in the thirteenth century; the symbolic meaning was developed by subsequent generations, which interpreted its provisions in light of a changing political landscape. The literal meaning was associated with the concrete rights enforced by the barons against the monarchy; the symbolic meaning became associated with the rule of law, an impartial system of justice, and government by the consent of the people and their representatives. To understand the symbolic importance attached to the Magna Charta, one must see the literal meaning in its original context.
The Magna Charta is the product of three competing legal jurisdictions: royal, ecclesiastical, and baronial. The royal system of justice maintained jurisdiction over all matters that affected the monarch's peace, directly or indirectly. Royal courts heard disputes at a central location in Westminster, and royal itinerant judges traveled locally to dispense the monarch's justice to communities across England.
Ecclesiastical courts, which were run by the Catholic Church, with the pope presiding as the spiritual head in Rome, maintained jurisdiction over the discipline of the church's clergy, religious offenses such as heresy, and most moral, marital, and testamentary matters.
Baronial courts were governed by barons, powerful men who were given titles of dignity by the Crown and who held large parcels of land, known as manors, from the monarch. Each baron, as lord of hismanor, was invested with the authority to hear disputes involving his tenants, men and women who agreed to work the land in exchange for shelter and security.
John alienated both the ecclesiastical and baronial jurisdictions during his reign as king, converting them into adversaries.
The first ten years of John's reign were consumed by controversy with the church. John considered the pope to be subordinate to the Crown and treated the archbishop as a mere civil servant. The church, on the other hand, considered itself to be a separate and independent sovereign that had shared power with the Crown since the time of Henry I (1100-1135).
Henry I and the church had agreed that the nomination of bishops in England would tacitly remain with the king. But the pope retained power to confirm bishops by conferring upon them the honorary symbols of their title, the spiritual staff and ring.
The agreement between Henry I and the church provided no resolution for the controversy between King John and Pope Innocent III at the outset of the thirteenth century. The controversy began when Innocent III rejected John's candidate for archbishop of Canterbury and substituted his own choice, Stephen Langton, a man of superior "moral and intellectual greatness" (Trevelyan 1982, 146). John responded by confiscating the church's property in England. The papacy, whose power had grown as a result of its compromise with Henry I, subsequently undertook a series of steps to damage the Crown's prestige and credibility.
The pope excommunicated King John, suspended religious sacraments in England, and declared the English empire a forfeit from God. Facing growing pressure from the church and increasing unpopularity among Catholics within his own country, John surrendered England to the papacy, receiving it back as a fief, which meant the Crown was now subordinate to Rome and was required to pay homage to the pope. These royal concessions satisfied the pope and made him a cautious ally of the Crown. Archbishop Langton was determined to achieve similar concessions for the barons.
The grievances voiced by the barons were quite different from those voiced by the church. The barons' dissatisfaction stemmed from the manner in which the royal system of justice had been abused by King John. Prior to the reign of Henry II (1154-89), English law had comprised a loose collection of customs and traditions followed by a variety of ethnic groups scattered across the realm. Henry II created a centralized system of justice that emanated from London, which the monarch's officials administered in a uniform manner to all English people in common. Although this ‘‘common law" established a body of rights and procedures by which all litigants appearing before the ruler's courts would theoretically be treated the same, it also vested an enormous amount of power in the Crown. The tension separating arbitrary royal power from the principle of equality under the law erupted during the struggle between King John and his baronial magnates.
King John regularly sold legal rights and privileges to the highest bidder, rewarded favorites, punished enemies, and otherwise administered justice in an erratic and unfair fashion. For a dispute to be heard by the royal courts, parties were required to pay the monarch fees, which varied from case to case depending on the circumstances. If the Crown was in need of emergency revenue — and it seemingly always was during the reign of King John — these litigation fees were increased commensurate with the urgency of a particular financial crisis. Litigants in good graces with the monarch typically paid lower court fees than litigants in disfavor. A defendant who requested the postponement or suspension of a legal matter was required to pay a greater fee than the plaintiff was charged.
Such litigation fees — which were paid in all legal matters, civil, criminal, matrimonial, and probate — simply enabled parties to assert their claims and defenses before the royal court. They did not guarantee a particular outcome, although the amount paid may have influenced the outcome, and they bore no relationship to the penalty or fine imposed on the losing party. Consequently, defendants who paid an exorbitant fee just to present an unsuccessful defense often faced fines of an equally outrageous amount. Defendants who suffered incarceration for a wrongdoing were usually forced to purchase their freedom from the monarch.
The manner in which the ruler enforced and collected royal debts was no less capricious. Litigants who could not afford to pay the legal fees set by the Crown frequently borrowed money from the ruler in order to pursue a particular right or remedy. The terms of such loan agreements were typically draconian. As collateral for these loans, John required the debtors to pledge their estates, personal property, and sometimes family members. In one case, a debtor was forced to pledge his castle and four sons as collateral. On other occasions, friends and family members of the debtor were held hostage by the king until the loan was repaid in full.
In some instances, the king simply forgave a loan because the debtor was a personal friend, had promised political favors, or had provided an invaluable service. In most instances, the invaluable service was military. During the thirteenth century, each baron was required to serve as a soldier in the monarch's army, and provide the Crown with a certain number of knights for military service. A fine could be paid in lieu of the baron's military service, and a tax, known as scutage, was then paid in lieu of the knights' service. When King John launched a military campaign, he dramatically increased the fines and taxes for nonservice, and used these monies to pay mercenaries to fight his battles.
Although King John dreamed of building an English empire through military conquest on the European continent, he was an utter failure on the battlefield. With each military loss, the miscellaneous economic demands made by the Crown seemed less justified and more absurd. It is not surprising, then, that the barons renounced loyalty to the king, plotted his assassination, and ultimately compelled his capitulation to the Magna Charta.
The grievances King John promised to redress in the Magna Charta represent both the substance of the Great Charter's original meaning and its later symbolic import. The document's immediate purpose was to appease the baronial leadership. In this vein, it provided that justice would not be sold, denied, or delayed (ch. 40), and ensured that certain rights and procedures would be "granted freely" without risk of "life or limb" (ch. 36). It guaranteed the safe return of hostages, lands, castles, and family members that had been held as security by the Crown for military service and loan agreements. The Magna Charta mandated the investigation and abolition of any "ill customs" established by King John (ch. 48), and required that no "justices, constables, sheriffs, or bailiffs" be appointed unless they "know the law of the land, and are willing to keep it" (ch. 45).
The phrase "law of the land" is interspersed throughout the Magna Charta, and is emblematic of other abstract legal concepts contained in the Great Charter that outlasted the exigencies of 1215. Nowhere in the Great Charter is "law of the land" defined, but a number of sections offer an early glimpse of certain constitutional liberties in embryonic form.
For example, the American colonies equated "law of the land" with "due process of law," a legal principle that has been the cornerstone of procedural fairness in U.S. civil and criminal trials since the late 1700s. The Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments has been relied on by the U.S. Supreme Court as a source for substantive rights as well, including the right to privacy.
Chapter 39 of the Magna Charta linked the law-of-the-land principle with another important protection. It provided, "No free man shall be seized, or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or exiled or injured in any way, nor will we enter on him or send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land." In 1215, a person obtained "lawful judgment of his peers" through a communal inquest in which twelve knights or landowners familiar with the subject matter of the dispute took an oath, and swore to testify truthfully based on their own knowledge or on knowledge gained from an eyewitness or other credible source.
This primitive form of fact-finding replaced even cruder methods — such as trial by battle, where the disputants fought savagely until one party begged for mercy or died, and the victorious party was presumed to have God and Right on his side. The process of one's peers in the community rendering judgment also presaged the modern trial by jury recognized by the Seventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which similarly entitles a defendant to be tried by a body of jurors that is a "truly representative" cross section of the community (Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 62 S. Ct. 457, 86 L. Ed. 680 [1942]).
The U.S. Supreme Court has also traced the origins of modern habeas corpus law to chapter 39 of the Magna Charta (Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 106 S. Ct. 2639, 91 L. Ed. 2d 397 [1986]). Habeas corpus is a procedure that authorizes a court to determine the legality under which a person is jailed, imprisoned, or otherwise detained by the government. If the court finds that the person was deprived of liberty through "due process of law," continued detention is permissible until trial, where guilt and innocence are placed in issue. Similarly, the Magna Charta validated the continued imprisonment of persons who had been originally incarcerated by the "law of the land."
In Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957, 111 S. Ct. 2680, 115 L. Ed. 2d 836 (1991), the Supreme Court also pointed to the Magna Charta as an early source of its Eighth Amendment proportionality analysis. Chapter 20 of the Great Charter prohibited the monarch from imposing a fine "unless according to the measure of the offense." It further provided that "for a great offense [a free man] shall be [punished] according to the greatness of the offense." Under the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, the Supreme Court has echoed this principle by prohibiting state and federal governments from imposing fines and other forms of punishment that are disproportionate to the seriousness of the offense for which the defendant was convicted.
The contemporary significance of the Magna Charta is not confined to the areas of civil and criminal procedure. The Great Charter prohibited the government from assessing any military tax such as scutage "except by the common counsel of [the] realm" (ch. 12). The common counsel comprised persons from various classes of English society, including bishops, abbots, earls, and barons. The common counsel was a forerunner to Parliament and Congress as a representative body limiting the power of the government to pass legislation, particularly tax legislation, without popular consent.
The common counsel also proclaimed what would become a battle cry of the American colonists: No Taxation without Representation. Indeed, some colonists decried the Stamp Act, a statute passed by Parliament that taxed everything from newspapers to playing cards, as an illegal attempt to raise revenue in violation of the Magna Charta. Other colonists cited "the assembly of barons at Runnymede, when Magna Carta was signed" as precedent for the Continental Congress (Bailyn 1992, 173 n. 13).
The achievement of the Magna Charta, then, is found not only in the original meaning understood by Englanders of the thirteenth century, but also in the subsequent application of the document's principles. The Magna Charta began as a peace treaty between the baronial class and the king, but later symbolized a written contract between the governed and the government, a contract that included the right of rebellion when the government grew despotic or ruled without popular consent.
The Magna Charta also came to represent the notion of government bound by the law, sometimes referred to as the rule of law. The distinction between government according to law and government according to the will of the sovereign has been drawn by legal and political philosophers for thousands of years. This distinction was also made during the reign of King John. For example, Peter Fitz Herbert, an important landowner, complained that his father had been "disseised" of land "by the will of the king" despite evidence that the land belonged to his family as a matter of "right."
In another case, jurors returned a verdict against the Crown because the king had acted "by his will and without judgment" (Holt 1965, 91). For subsequent generations, in both England and the United States, the Magna Charta signified the contrast between tyrannical government unfettered by anything but the personal whims of its political leadership, and representative government limited by the letter and spirit of the law. The Magna Charta implied that no government official, not even an autocratic monarch asserting absolute power, is above the law.
Finally, the Magna Charta has come to symbolize equality under the law. Although the baronial leadership of 1215 represented a privileged class of male landowners, many provisions of the Magna Charta safeguarded the interests of women as well. For example, the Magna Charta granted women the right to refuse marriage and the option to remarry. It also protected a widow's dower interest in one-third of her husband's property.
Some provisions of the Magna Charta applied more broadly to all "free" individuals (ch. 39), whereas other provisions seemingly applied to every person in the realm, free or not. Chapter 16, for example, stated that "no one" shall be compelled to perform service for a knight's fee, and chapter 42 guaranteed a safe return to "anyone" who left the realm.
The most telling provision in this regard was chapter 40, which provided that "justice" will be sold to "no one." This provision embodies more than the idea that justice is cheapened when bought and sold. It also underscores the principle that all persons, rich and poor, must be treated the same under the law. An extension of this principle was captured by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, invalidates laws that discriminate on the basis of, among other things, race, gender, national origin, and illegitimacy.
See: english law; feudalism.
West's Encyclopedia of American Law:
Magna Charta |
The document that has come to be known as Magna Charta (spelled variously as "charta" or "carta"), or Great Charter, is recognized as a fundamental part of the English constitutional tradition. Although it is not a constitution, it contains provisions on criminal law that were incorporated into the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.
In 1215 King John of England (1199-1216) fought more than forty English barons and their followers in a civil war. The king had angered the barons by extracting revenues based on their feudal obligations in order to fight a war in France. After John lost the war, the barons rebelled against the king.
The rebels first demanded that the king confirm the Charter of Henry I, a coronation charter from 1100 in which King Henry I had promised to abolish all evil customs that oppressed the realm. Additional grievances were added to the charter, which King John was forced to accept at Runnymede in June 1215, after the rebels occupied London.
Magna Charta contains sixty-three chapters. Many of the chapters defined the king's feudal rights over his vassals, preventing the king from arbitrarily collecting revenue from the barons. Chapter 39 established the right to due process of law, and in chapter 40 the king promised that he would not sell, deny, or delay justice to anyone.
Magna Charta did not resolve the dispute between the barons and King John. Within months they were fighting again. In August 1215 the charter was annulled by Pope Innocent III, John's feudal overlord, on the grounds that it had been executed under duress. In 1216, however, after John's death the charter was reissued with some modifications. At the conclusion of the civil war in 1217, it was reissued again with minor revisions. This version of Magna Charta became part of the English constitutional tradition; confirmed by later kings and interpreted by Parliament, it is still revered as a symbol of English liberties.
Magna Charta
John, by the grace of God, king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, count of Anjou, to all his archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justiciars, foresters, sheriffs, stewards, servants, and all bailiffs and faithful men, health. Know that we by looking to God, and for the health of our soul, and of all our ancestors and heirs, to the honor of God, and the exaltation of his holy Church, and the rectifying of our realm by the counsel of our venerable fathers, Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England and cardinal of the holy Roman Church; Henry, archbishop of Dublin; William of London, Peter of Winchester, Joscelin of Bath and Glastonbury, Hugh of Lincoln, Walter of Worcester, William of Coventry and Benedict of Rochester, bishops; Master Pandulf, subdeacon of our lord pope and servant; brother Eymeric, master of the knights of the Temple in England; and of nobles, William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke; William, Earl of Salisbury; William, Earl Warrenne; William, Earl of Arundel; Alan of Galway, constable of Scotland; Warin, son of Gerold; Peter, son of Herbert; Hubert de Burg, seneschal of Poitou; Hugh de Neville; Matthew, son of Herbert; Thomas Basset; Alan Basset; Philip de Albini; Robert de Ropley; John Marshall; John, son of Hugh; and others our lieges.
Chapter 1
First, we grant to God, and by this our present charter we confirm, for us and our heirs forever, that the English church be free, and have its rights whole and its liberties unimpaired; and so we will to be observed, which appears from the fact that we have of pure and free will, before difference arose between us and our barons, granted, and by our charter confirmed, freedom of elections, which is conceived greatest and most necessary for the English church, and have got it confirmed from our lord Pope Innocent III, which we will observe ourselves and will to be observed in good faith by our heirs forever.1 We have granted to all free men of our realm, for ourself and our heirs forever, all these underwritten liberties to have and to hold, for themselves and their heirs, from us and our heirs.
Chapter 2
If any of our earls or barons, or other tenant of us in chief by military service, die, and when he dies, his heir be of full age, and owe a relief, he shall have his inheritance by the old relief, to wit, the heir, or heirs of an earl, for the whole barony of an earl by P100; the heir or heirs of a baron, the whole barony by P100; the heir or heirs of a knight for a whole military fee by 100s. at most, and he who owes less should pay less according to the ancient custom of fees.
Chapter 3
If the heir of any of these be below age, and be in wardship, when he comes to full age he shall have his inheritance without relief or fine.
Chapter 4
The guardians of the land of any heir, who is below age, shall not take from the land of the heir more than reasonable exits [revenues], and reasonable customs, and reasonable services, and this without destruction and waste of men or property; and if we commit the wardship of any such land to the sheriff or any one else, who is to answer to us for the exits, and he made destruction or waste of his wardship, we will take recompense of him, and the land shall be committed to two lawful and discreet men of that fee, who will answer to us of the exits, or to him to whom we have assigned them; and if we have given or sold to any one the wardship of any such land, and he does destruction or waste, he shall lose his wardship, and give it to two lawful and discreet men of that fee, who shall in like manner answer to us as is aforesaid.
Chapter 5
The guardian, as long as he have wardship of the land, shall keep up houses, parks, stews, pools, mills, and other things belonging to that land, from the exits of the same land, and restore to the heir, when he comes to full age, all that land stocked with teams, according to what the season of teams demands, and the exits of the land can reasonably sustain.2
Chapter 6
Heirs shall be married without disparagement, so that before they contract matrimony it be communicated to the kinsmen in blood of the heir.
Chapter 7
A widow after the death of her husband shall at once and without hindrance have her marriage and inheritance, nor give anything for her dower, or for her marriage, or for her inheritance, which inheritance she and her husband had on the day of her husband's death, and she shall remain in her husband's home for forty days after his death, within which her dower shall be assigned to her.3
Chapter 8
No widow shall be forced to marry as long as she wills to live without a husband, so that she give security that she will not marry without our assent, if she hold from us, or without the assent of the lord from whom she holds, if she holds from another.
Chapter 9
Neither we nor our bailiffs will seize any land or rent for any debt, as long as the chattels of the debtor suffice for paying the debt, nor shall the sureties of the debtor be distrained, as long as that debtor in chief suffices for the payment of the debt, and if the debtor in chief fail in paying the debt, not having whence to pay, the sureties shall answer for the debt, and if they will, shall have the land and rents of the debtor till they are satisfied of the debt which they paid for him, unless the debtor in chief show that he is quit thence against these sureties.
Chapter 10
If anyone borrows anything from the Jews, more or less, and dies before the debt is paid, the debt shall not bear usury as long as the heir is under age, from whoever he holds it, and if that debt fall into our hands we will take only the chattel contained in the deed.
Chapter 11
And if anyone die and owes a debt to the Jews, his wife shall have her dower and pay nothing of that debt, and if the children of the dead man are under age, necessaries shall be provided for them according to the holding of the dead man, and the debt shall be paid from the residue, the service of the lords saved, and in the same way shall it be done with debts which are owed to other than Jews.
Chapter 12
No scutage or aid shall be laid on our realm except by the common counsel of our realm, unless for ransoming our person, and making our eldest son a knight, and marrying our eldest daughter once, and this must only be a reasonable aid, and so shall it be with the aids of the city of London.
Chapter 13
And the city of London shall have all its ancient liberties and its free customs, both by land and by water. Besides we will and grant that all other cities, and burghs [boroughs], and vills [towns], and ports shall have all their liberties and free customs.
Chapter 14
And to have a common counsel of our realm on assessing an aid other than in the three aforenamed cases, or assessing a scutage, we will cause to be summoned archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and greater barons, singly by our letters, and we will also cause to be summoned in general, by our sheriffs and bailiffs, all those who hold of us in chief, at a certain day, to wit, at least forty days after, and a certain place; and in all letters of summons we will express the cause of summons, and when summons is made the business assigned for the day shall proceed according to the council of those who are present, though not all who are summoned come.
Chapter 15
We will grant to no one in future that he take aid from his free men, except to ransom his person, to make his eldest son a knight, and to marry his eldest daughter once, and for this there shall only be a reasonable aid.
Chapter 16
No one shall be distrained to do a greater service for a knight's fee, or any other frank [free] tenement than is due from it.
Chapter 17
Common pleas shall not follow our court, but shall be held in some certain place.
Chapter 18
Recognizances of novel disseisin, mort d'ancestor, and darrein presentment shall not be taken except in their own counties and in this manner; we, or, if we be out of the realm, our chief justiciar, will send two justices to each county four times in the year, who, with four knights of each county, elected by the county, shall take in the county and day and place the aforenamed assises of the county.4
Chapter 19
And if the aforesaid assises of the county cannot be taken on that day, so many knights and free tenants shall remain of those who were at the county on that day, by whom judgments can be sufficiently effected, according as the business is great or small.
Chapter 20
A free man shall not be amerced for a small offense unless according to the measure of the offense, and for a great offense he shall be amerced according to the greatness of the offense, saving his tenement, and the merchant in the same manner, saving his merchandise, and the villein shall be amerced in the same manner, saving his tools of husbandry, if they fall into our mercy, and none of the aforenamed mercies shall be imposed except by the oath of reputable men of the vicinage.
Chapter 21
Earls and barons shall not be amerced but by their equals, and only according to the measure of the offense.
Chapter 22
No cleric shall be amerced of his lay tenement, except according to the measure of the other aforesaid, and not according to the size of his ecclesiastical benefice.5
Chapter 23
No vill or man shall be distrained to make bridges at rivers, unless he who of old, or by right, is bound to do so.
Chapter 24
No sheriff, constable, coroners, or others of our bailiffs shall hold pleas of our crown.
Chapter 25
All counties, hundreds, wapentakes, and ridings shall be at the old farms [rents] without any increase, saving the manors of our demesne.
Chapter 26
If anyone holding a lay fee [fief] of us dies, and the sheriff or our bailiff shows our letters patent of the summonses of a debt which the dead man owed us, it shall be lawful for our sheriff or bailiff to attach and enroll the chattels of the dead man found in this fee to the value of the debt by the view of lawful men, so that nothing be moved thence till our debt which is clear be paid us, and the residue shall be left to the executors to fulfill the testament of the deceased, and if nothing be owed us by the deceased, all his chattels shall go to the deceased, save the reasonable shares to his wife and children.
Chapter 27
If any free man die intestate, his chattels shall be distributed by his nearest relations and friends, by the view of the church, save the debts due to each which the deceased owed.
Chapter 28
No constable, or other bailiff of ours, shall take the corn or chattels of anyone, unless he forthwith pays money for them, or can have any respite by the good will of the seller.6
Chapter 29
No constable shall distrain any knight to give money for the wardship of a castle [military service in the garrison of a castle], if he be willing to perform that wardship in his own person, or by some other reputable man, if he cannot do it himself for some reasonable cause, and if we have led or sent him to an army, he shall be quit of the wardship, according to the length of time that he is with us in the army.
Chapter 30
No sheriff or bailiff of ours, or any other, shall take horses and carts of any free man for carrying, except by the will of the free man.7
Chapter 31
Neither we nor our bailiffs will take any wood for our castles, or other our works, except by consent of the man whose wood it is.
Chapter 32
We will not hold the lands of those who are convict of felony, except for one year and one day, and then the lands shall be returned to the lords of the fees.
Chapter 33
All kidells [fish-weirs] shall for the future be wholly taken away from the Thames and the Medway, and through all England, except at the coast of the sea.
Chapter 34
The writ which is called praecipe for the future shall not issue to anyone about any tenement from which a free man may lose his court.
Chapter 35
There shall be one measure of wine throughout our whole realm, and one measure of beer, and one measure of corn, to wit, the London quarter, and one breadth of dyed cloth, and russet and haberget cloth, to wit, two ells within the lists, and of weights it shall be as of measures.
Chapter 36
Nothing shall be given or taken hereafter for the writ of inquisition on life or limb, but it shall be granted freely, and not denied.
Chapter 37
If anyone holds of us by fee-farm, either by socage or by burgage, or of any other land by military service, we shall not have the wardship of the heir or his land which belongs to another's fee, because of that fee-farm, or socage or burgage, nor shall we have wardship of that fee-farm, or socage or burgage, unless the fee-farm itself owes military service. We shall not either have wardship of heir or any land, which he holds of another by military service, by reason of some petty serjeanty which he holds of us, by the service of paying us knives, or arrows, or the like.
Chapter 38
No bailiff in future shall put anyone to law by his mere word, without trustworthy witnesses brought forward for it.
Chapter 39
No free man shall be seized, or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or exiled, or injured in any way, nor will we enter on him or send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.8
Chapter 40
We will sell to no one, or deny to no one, or put off right or justice.
Chapter 41
All merchants shall have safe conduct and security to go out of England or come into England, and to stay in, and go through England, both by land and water, for buying or selling, without any evil tolls, by old and right customs, except in time of war; and if they be of the land at war against us, and if such shall be found in our land, at the beginning of war, they shall be attached without loss of person or property, until it be known by us or our chief justiciar how the merchants of our land are treated who are found then in the land at war with us; and if ours be safe there, others shall be safe here.9
Chapter 42
It shall be lawful for anyone hereafter to go out of our realm, and return, safe and sound, by land or by water, saving fealty to us, except in time of war for some short time, for the common weal of the realm, except imprisoned men, and outlaws according to the law of the realm, and as natives of a land at war against us, and to the merchants of whom is done as is aforesaid.
Chapter 43
If any person holds of any escheat, as of the honor of Wallingford, Nottingham, Boulogne, Lancaster, or of other escheats which are in our hands, and they are baronies, and he dies, his heir shall not pay any other relief, or do us any other service but that which he would do for the baron, if the barony were in the hand of a baron, and we similarly will hold him in the same way that the baron held him.10
Chapter 44
Men who dwell without the forest shall not come hereafter before our justices of the forest, by common summonses, unless they are in plea, or sureties of one or more, who are attached for the forest.11
Chapter 45
We will not make justices, constables, sheriffs, or bailiffs except from those who know the law of the realm, and are willing to keep it.
Chapter 46
All barons who have founded abbeys, whence they have charters of the kings of England, or ancient tenure, shall have their custody while vacant, as they ought to have it.
Chapter 47
All forests which have been afforested in our time shall be forthwith deforested, and so with the rivers which have been forbidden by us in our time.12
Chapter 48
All ill customs of forests and warrens, and foresters and warreners, sheriffs and their servants, rivers and their keepers, shall be forthwith inquired into in each county by twelve sworn knights of the same county, who should be chosen by the reputable men of the same county; and, within forty days after the inquest is over, they shall be wholly done away by them, never to be recalled, so we know this first, or our justiciar, if we are not in England.
Chapter 49
We will forthwith return all hostages and charters which were delivered to us by the English as security of peace or faithful service.
Chapter 50
We will wholly remove from their bailiwicks the relations of Gerard de Athée so that hereafter they shall have no bailiwick in England, Engelard de Cigogné, Andrew, Peter, and Guy de Chanceux, Geoffrey de Martigny and his brothers, Philip Mark and his brothers, and Geoffrey his nephew, and all their following.
Chapter 51
And immediately after the restoration of peace, we will remove from the realm all foreign knights, bowmen, officers, and mercenaries who came with horses and arms to the harm of the realm.
Chapter 52
If anyone has been disseised or deprived by us without lawful judgment of his peers, from lands, castles, liberties, or his right, we will forthwith restore him; and if a dispute arise about this, judgment shall then be made by twenty-five barons, of whom mention is made below, for the security of peace, and of all those matters of which a man has been disseised or deprived without the lawful judgment of his peers, by King Henry our father, or by King Richard our brother, which lands we have in our hands, or which others have, which we ought to warrant, we will have respite up to the common term of the crusaders, those being excepted of which the plea was raised or inquisition was made by our order, before the taking of our cross, and when we return from our journey, or if we chance to remain from our journey, we will forthwith show full justice thence.
Chapter 53
We will have the same respite, and in the same way, about exhibiting justice of deforesting or maintaining the forests, which Henry our father, or Richard our brother afforested, and of the wardship of the lands which are of another's fee, of which thing we have hitherto had the wardship, by reason of the fee, because someone held of us by military service, and of the abbeys which were founded on the fee of another than our own, in which the lord of the fee says he has the right; and when we return, or if we stay from our journey, we will afford full justice to those who complain of these things.
Chapter 54
No one shall be seized or imprisoned for the appeal of a woman about the death of any other man but her husband.
Chapter 55
All fines which have been made unjustly and against the law of the land with us, and all amercements made unjustly and against the law of the land, shall be wholly excused, or it shall be done with them by the judgment of twenty-five barons, of whom mention will be made below on the security of the peace, or by the judgment of the greater part of them, along with the aforenamed Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, if he can be present, and others whom he wills to summon to him, and if he be unable to be present, nevertheless the business shall go on without him, so that if one or more of the aforenamed twenty-five barons are in a like suit, they may be removed as far as this judgment is concerned, and others be appointed, elected, and sworn for this matter only, by the residue of the same twenty-five.
Chapter 56
If we have disseised or deprived the Welsh of their lands or liberties or other goods, without lawful judgment of their peers, in England or in Wales, let these things be forthwith restored, and if a dispute arise upon this, let it be thereafter settled in the march by the judgment of their peers; on tenements in England according to the law of England; on tenements in Wales according to the law of Wales; on tenements in the march according to the law of the march. The Welshmen shall do the same to us and ours.13
Chapter 57
In all these matters in which anyone of the Welsh was disseised or deprived without lawful judgment of his peers, by King Henry our father, or King Richard our brother, which we have in our hands, or which others hold, and which we ought to warrant, we will have respite to the common term of the crusaders, those excepted in which our plea has been raised, or inquisition has been made by our order, before we took the cross; but, when we return, or if by chance we wait from our journey, we will show full justice to them thence, according to the laws of Wales, and the aforesaid parties.
Chapter 58
We will restore the son of Llewellyn forthwith, and all the hostages of Wales, and the charters which have been delivered to us for the security of peace.
Chapter 59
We will do to Alexander, king of Scots, about his sisters, and restoring his hostages, and his liberties, and his right, according to the form in which we have dealt with our other barons of England, unless they are bound to other matters by the charters which we have of William his father, once king of the Scots, and this shall be by judgment of their peers in our court.
Chapter 60
All these aforesaid customs and liberties which we have granted to be held in our realm, as far as belongs to us, towards our own, all in our realm, both clergy and lay, shall observe, as far as belongs to them, towards their own.
Chapter 61
But since, for the sake of God and for the bettering of our realm, and for better quieting the discord which has arisen between us and our barons, we have ganted all the aforesaid, wishing to enjoy them in pure and firm security forever, we make and grant them the underwritten security: viz. that the barons choose twenty-five barons from the realm, whom they will, who should with all their power keep, hold, and cause to be kept, the peace and liberties which we grant them, and by this our present charter confirm, so that, if we, or our justiciar, or our bailiffs, or any of our servants, do wrong in any case to anyone, or we transgress any of the articles of peace and security, and the offense is shown to four out of the aforenamed twenty-five barons, those four barons shall come to us, or our justiciar, if we are out of the realm, to show the wrong; they shall seek that we cause that wrong to be rectified without delay. And if we do not rectify the wrong, or if we are without the realm, our justiciar does not rectify it within forty days from the time in which it was shown to us or our justiciar, if we are without the realm, the aforesaid four barons shall bring the case before the rest of the twenty-five barons, and those twenty-five barons, with the commonalty of the whole realm, shall distrain and distress us, in every way they can, to wit, by the capture of castles, lands, possessions, and other ways in which they can, till right is done according to their will, saving our person and that of our queen and our children; and, when right is done, they shall obey us as before. And whoever of the land wishes, may swear that he will obey the orders of the aforesaid twenty-five barons, in carrying out all the aforesaid, and that he will distress us as far as he can, with them, and we give publicly and freely license to all to swear who wills, and we will forbid no one to swear. But all those in the land who will not, by themselves and of their own accord, swear to the twenty-five barons about distraining and distressing us with them, we will cause them to swear by our orders, as is aforesaid. And if any one of the twenty-five barons dies, or quits the country, or in any way is hindered from being able to carry out the aforesaid, the remainder of the aforesaid twenty-five barons may choose another into his place, at their discretion, who shall be sworn in like manner with the rest. In all those matters which are committed to the barons to carry out, if these twenty-five happen to be present and differ on any one point, or others summoned by them will not or cannot be present, that must be had settled and fixed which the majority of those who are present provides or decides, just as if all the twenty-five agreed on it, and the aforesaid twenty-five shall swear that they will faithfully keep all the aforesaid, and cause them to be kept with all their power. And we will ask nothing from anyone, by ourselves or any other, by which any one of these grants and liberties shall be revoked or lessened; and if we do obtain any such thing, it shall be vain and void, and we will never use it by ourselves or by another.
Chapter 62
And all ill will, wrath, and rancor, which has arisen between us and our men, clerics and laymen, from the time of the discord, we fully have remitted and condoned to all. Besides, all the offenses done by reason of the same discord, from Easter in the sixteenth year of our reign to the renewal of peace, we wholly remit to all, clerics and laymen, and as far as we are concerned fully have condoned. And, moreover, we have caused letters patent to be made to them, in witness of this, of lord Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, of lord Henry, archbishop of Dublin, and of the aforesaid bishops, and of Master Pandulf, as the aforenamed security and grants.
Chapter 63
Wherefore we will and firmly order that the English church should be free, and that the men of our realm should have and hold all the aforenamed liberties, rights, and grants, well and in peace, freely and quietly, fully and completely, for them and their heirs, from us and our heirs, in all things and places, forever, as is aforesaid. It is sworn both by us, and on the part of the barons, that all these aforesaid shall be kept in good faith and without ill meaning. Witnesses, the abovenamed and many others. Given by our hand, in the meadow which is called Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on the fifteenth day of June, in the seventeenth year of our reign.14
Source: Selections from The Second Treatise on Government, 5 J. Locke, WORKS (1823). The footnotes have been renumbered.
1. The full text of the Charter of 1215 has been included here. Sections that were omitted in later versions of the charter are printed in italic type on this and subsequent pages. Unless otherwise indicated, the omissions were made in 1216. Important alterations and additions have been indicated in the notes.
2. A clause added in 1216 stipulated that the chapter also applied to ecclesiastical properties except that those wardships should not be sold.
3. In 1217 a clause was added that guaranteed a widow one-third of her husband's lands unless a smaller dower had been assigned at the time of the marriage. In 1225 chapters 7 and 8 were combined into one.
4. In 1217 the text was changed to say that justices (number unspecified) would be sent through each county once a year to hold assises with knights of the county (number unspecified). A separate chapter was created that stipulated that assises involving darrein presentment should always be held before the justices of the bench.
5. In 1225 chapters 20, 21, and 22 were combined in a single chapter.
6. In 1216 the chapter was modified to say that constables and their bailiffs should not take the goods of anyone who is not from the village where the castle is located unless they pay cash or make arrangements to pay later; persons from the village should be paid in three weeks. In 1217 the three weeks was changed to forty days.
7. In 1216 the chapter was modified to say that the horses and carts should not be taken unless the owner received a specified amount of money. In 1217 a chapter was inserted that prohibited bailiffs from taking carts from the demesne of a cleric, a knight, or a lady. In 1225 chapters 30 and 31 from the Charter of 1215 and the new chapter were combined into a single chapter.
8. In 1217 the words "of his freehold liberties or free customs" were inserted after "disseised." In 1225 the words "in the future" were inserted after "No free man shall," and the chapter and the one following it were joined together.
9. In 1216 the words "unless formerly they have been publicly prohibited" were inserted after "All merchants."
10. In 1217 a sentence added at the end of the chapter stipulated that the king would not have an escheat or wardship by reason of such an escheat or barony unless the person who held the property was a tenant-in-chief for other property.
11. Chapter 44 of the Charter of 1215 was retained in the Charter of 1216, but in 1217 it was transferred to the separate Charter of the Forest. In 1217 a new chapter was inserted at this point that stipulated that no free man should give or sell so much of his land that he would be prevented from doing the full service due from the fief.
12. In 1217 the first clause was transferred to the Charter of the Forest; the second clause became a separate chapter.
13. Chapter 56 was retained in the Charter of 1216 but was omitted thereafter.
14. Several chapters were added in 1217 that regulated the sheriff's tourn (tour through the hundreds, or subdivisions, of a county to hold court) and view of frankpledge; made it illegal for anyone to give land to a religious house and receive it back to hold as a tenant; established that scutage should be taken as it had been during the reign of King Henry II (1154-1189); and decreed that all adulterine castles (castles built without the king's permission) that had been erected since the beginning of the war between John and the barons should be destroyed. All but the last chapter were retained in 1225.
Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: History:
Magna Carta |
A list of rights and privileges that King John of England signed under pressure from English noblemen in 1215. It established the principles that the king could not levy taxes without consent of his legislature, or parliament, and that no free man in England could be deprived of liberty or property except through a trial or other legal process.
Politics Q&A:
What is the Magna Carta? |
| What is the Lemon test? | |
| What is the Office of Management and Budget's role in the federal budget? |
Random House Word Menu:
categories related to 'Magna Carta' |
Rhymes:
Magna Carta |
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Magna Carta |
| Magna Carta | |
 One of only 4 surviving exemplifications of the 1215 text, Cotton MS. Augustus II. 106, property of the British Library
|
|
| Created | 1215 |
| Location | Various copies |
| Author(s) | Barons of King John of England |
| Part of the Politics series on |
| Monarchism |
|---|
.svg) |
|
|
|
|
|
Magna Carta
Foundation of the Ottoman Empire Glorious Revolution French Revolution Trienio Liberal First French Empire Second French Empire Fall of Qing Dynasty Russian Revolution of 1917 Siamese Revolution of 1932 Second Spanish Civil War Birth of the Italian Republic Iranian Revolution Modern Cambodia Nepalese Civil War |
|
|
| Politics portal |
Magna Carta is an English charter, originally issued in the year 1215 and reissued later in the 13th century in modified versions. The later versions excluded the most direct challenges to the monarch's authority that had been present in the 1215 charter. The charter first passed into law in 1225; the 1297 version, with the long title (originally in Latin) The Great Charter of the Liberties of England, and of the Liberties of the Forest, still remains on the statute books of England and Wales.
The 1215 charter required King John of England to proclaim certain liberties, and accept that his will was not arbitrary, for example by explicitly accepting that no "freeman" (in the sense of non-serf) could be punished except through the law of the land, a right which is still in existence today.
Magna Carta was the first document forced onto an English King by a group of his subjects, the feudal barons, in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges. It was preceded and directly influenced by the Charter of Liberties in 1100, in which King Henry I had specified particular areas wherein his powers would be limited.
Despite its recognised importance, by the second half of the 19th century nearly all of its clauses had been repealed in their original form. Three clauses remain part of the law of England and Wales, however, and it is generally considered part of the uncodified constitution. Lord Denning described it as "the greatest constitutional document of all times – the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot".[1] In a 2005 speech, Lord Woolf described it as "first of a series of instruments that now are recognised as having a special constitutional status",[2] the others being the Habeas Corpus Act, the Petition of Right, the Bill of Rights, and the Act of Settlement.
The charter was an important part of the extensive historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law in the English speaking world, and it was Magna Carta (rather than other early concessions by the monarch) which survived to become a "sacred text".[3] In practice, Magna Carta in the medieval period did not in general limit the power of kings, but by the time of the English Civil War it had become an important symbol for those who wished to show that the King was bound by the law. It influenced the early settlers in New England[4] and inspired later constitutional documents, including the United States Constitution.[5]
Over the course of his reign a combination of higher taxes, unsuccessful wars, and conflict with the Pope had made King John unpopular with his barons. Some barons began to conspire against him in 1209 and 1212; promises made to the northern barons and John's submission to the papacy in 1213 delayed a French invasion.[6]
In 1215 some of the most important barons engaged in open rebellion against their King. Such rebellions were not particularly unusual in this period. Every king since William the Conqueror had faced rebellions. However, in every previous case there had been an obvious alternative monarch around whom the rebellion could rally. In 1215, however, John had no obvious replacement. Arthur of Brittany would have been a possibility, if he had not disappeared (widely believed to have been murdered on the orders of John). The next closest possible alternative was Prince Louis of France, but as the husband of Henry II's granddaughter, his claim was tenuous, and the English had been at war with the French for thirty years. Instead of a claimant to the throne, the barons decided to base their rebellion around John's oppressive government. In January 1215, the barons made an oath that they would "stand fast for the liberty of the church and the realm", and they demanded that King John confirm the Charter of Liberties, from what they viewed as a golden age.[7]
John prevaricated. During negotiations between January and June 1215, a document was produced, which historians have termed 'The Unknown Charter of Liberties',[8] seven of the articles of which would later appear in the 'Articles of the Barons' and the Runnymede Charter.[9] In May, King John offered to submit issues to a committee of arbitration with the Pope as supreme arbiter,[10] but the barons continued in their defiance. With the support of Prince Louis the French Heir and of King Alexander II of the Scots, they entered London in force on 10 June 1215,[11] with the city showing its sympathy with their cause by opening its gates to them. They, and many of the moderates not in overt rebellion, forced King John to agree to a document later known as the 'Articles of the Barons', to which his Great Seal was attached in the meadow at Runnymede on 15 June 1215. In return, the barons renewed their oaths of fealty to King John on 19 June 1215. The contemporary, but unreliable[12] chronicler, Roger of Wendover, recorded the events in his Flores Historiarum.[13] A formal document to record the agreement was created by the royal chancery on 15 July: this was the original Magna Carta, though it was not known by that name at the time. An unknown number of copies of it were sent out to officials, such as royal sheriffs and bishops.
The 1215 document contained a large section that is now called clause 61 (the original document was not actually divided into clauses). This section established a committee of 25 barons who could at any time meet and overrule the will of the King if he defied the provisions of the Charter, seizing his castles and possessions if it was considered necessary.[14] This was based on a medieval legal practice known as distraint, but it was the first time it had been applied to a monarch.
Distrust between the two sides was overwhelming. What the barons really sought was the overthrow of the King; the demand for a charter was a "mere subterfuge".[15] Clause 61 was a serious challenge to John's authority as a ruling monarch. He renounced it as soon as the barons left London; Pope Innocent III also annulled the "shameful and demeaning agreement, forced upon the King by violence and fear." He rejected any call for restraints on the King, saying it impaired John's dignity. He saw it as an affront to the Church's authority over the King and the 'papal territories' of England and Ireland, and he released John from his oath to obey it. The rebels knew that King John could never be restrained by Magna Carta and so they sought a new King.[16]
England was plunged into a civil war, known as the First Barons' War. With the failure of Magna Carta to achieve peace or restrain John, the barons reverted to the more traditional type of rebellion by trying to replace the monarch they disliked with an alternative. In a measure of some desperation, despite the tenuousness of his claim and despite the fact that he was French, they offered the crown of England to Prince Louis of France.[17]
As a means of preventing war the Magna Carta was a failure, rejected by most of the barons,[18] and was legally valid for no more than three months.[19] It was the death of King John in 1216 which secured the future of Magna Carta.[20]
Barons, Bishops and Abbots who were party to Magna Carta.[21]
Others
The Runnymede Charter of Liberties did not apply to Chester, which at the time was a separate feudal domain. Earl Ranulf granted his own Magna Carta.[22] Some of its articles were similar to the Runnymede Charter.[23]
King John's nine-year-old son Henry was crowned King of England in Gloucester Abbey, though much of England lay under the usurper Prince Louis. The papal legate Guala Bicchieri declared the struggle against Louis and the Barons a holy war,[24] and the loyalists led by William Marshal rallied around the new King. Earl Ranulf of Chester left the Regency to Marshall. Marshall and Guala issued a Charter of Liberties, based on the Runnymede Charter, in the King's name on 12 November 1216 as a Royal concession, in an attempt to undermine the rebels.[25]
The Charter differed from that of 1215 in only having 42 as compared to 61 clauses; most notably the infamous article 61 of the Runnymede Charter was removed. The Charter was also issued separately for Ireland.
Following the end of the First Barons War and the Treaty of Lambeth, the Charter of Liberties (carta libertatum) was issued again in the manner of 1216, again amended and issued separately for Ireland. The 42 clauses of the 1216 issue were expanded to 47.
Significantly, a fragment of the original charter would be expanded with new material to form a complementary charter, the Charter of the Forest; the two Charters would thereafter be linked. Magna carta libertatum was then used by scribes to differentiate the larger and more important charter of common liberties from the Forest Charter.[26] The term was used retrospectively to describe the previous Charters, with what had previously been described as carta libertatum becoming known simply as Magna Carta.
Having reached the age of majority, King Henry III was called upon to confirm the Charters. Henry reissued Magna Carta in a shorter version with only 37 articles, as a concession of liberties in return for a fifteenth part of moveable goods.[4] This was the first version of the Charter to enter English law.[27] The Charter of Liberties included a new statement that the Charter had been issued spontaneously and of the King's own free will. In 1227, Henry III declared all future charters had to be issued under his own seal and state under what warrant they were claimed; this proclamation questioned the validity of all previous acts done in his name or his predecessors.[28] It was not until 1237, and the carta parva, that both of the 1225 Charters were confirmed and granted in perpetuity.[29]
Edward I of England reissued the Charters of 1225 in 1297 in return for a new tax.[30] "Constitutionally, the Magna Carta of Edward I is the most important".[31] This version remains in Statute today (albeit with most articles now repealed—see below).[32] [33]
The Confirmatio Cartarum (Confirmation of Charters) was issued by Edward I in 1297, and was similar to the parva carta issued by Henry III in 1237. In the Confirmation, Edward reaffirmed Magna Carta and the Forest Charter[34] as a concession for tax money. As part of the Remonstrances the nobles sought to add another document the De Tallagio to the Charters but without success.[35] The principle of taxation by consent was reinforced, however the precise manner of that consent was not laid down.[36]
Pope Clement V annulled the Confirmatio Cartarum in 1305.[37]
As part of the reconfirmation of the Charters in 1300 an additional document was granted, the Articuli super Cartas (The Articles upon the Charters). It was composed of 20 articles and sought in part to deal with the problem of enforcing the Charters.[38] In 1305 Edward I took Clement V's Papal bull annulling the Confirmatio Cartarum to effectively apply to the Articuli super Cartas though it was not specifically mentioned.[39]
During the reign of Edward III six measures were passed between 1331 and 1369 which were later known as the 'Six Statutes'. They sought to clarify certain parts of the Charters. In particular, the third statute, of 1354, redefined clause 29, with 'free man' becoming "no man, of whatever estate or condition he may be", and introduced the phrase "due process of law" for 'lawful judgement of his peers or the law of the land'.[40]
The impermanence of the Charter required successive generations to petition the King to reconfirm his Charter, and hopefully abide by it. Between the 13th and 15th centuries the Magna Carta would have a history of being reconfirmed, 32 times according to Sir Edward Coke, but possibly as many as 45 times.[41] The Charter was last confirmed in 1423 by Henry VI.
The repeal of clause 26 in 1829, by the Offences against the Person Act 1828 (9 Geo. 4 c. 31 s. 1),[42] was the first time a clause of Magna Carta was repealed. With the document's perceived inviolability broken, in the next 140 years nearly the whole charter was repealed, leaving just Clauses 1, 9, and 29 still in force after 1969. Most of it was repealed in England and Wales by the Statute Law Revision Act 1863, and in Ireland by the Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872.[42]
| Magna Carta 1225 Clause | Runnymede Charter Clause | Date Repealed |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | I | extant |
| 2 | II | Statute Law Revision Act 1863 and Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872 |
| 3 | III | Statute Law Revision Act 1863 and Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872 |
| 4 | IV | Statute Law Revision Act 1863 and Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872 |
| 5 | V | Statute Law Revision Act 1863 and Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872 |
| 6 | VI | Statute Law Revision Act 1863 and Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872 |
| 7 | VII, VIII | Administration of Estates Act 1925, Administration of Estates Act (Northern Ireland) 1955 and Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1969 |
| 8 | IX | Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1969 |
| 9 | XIII | extant |
| 10 | XVI | Statute Law Revision Act 1948 |
| 11 | XVII | Civil Procedure Acts Repeal Act 1879 |
| 12 | XVIII | Civil Procedure Acts Repeal Act 1879 |
| 13 | Statute Law Revision Act 1863 and Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872 | |
| 14 | XX, XXI, XXII | Criminal Law Act 1967 and Criminal Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1967 |
| 15 | XXIII | Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1969 |
| 16 | XXXXVII | Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1969 |
| 17 | XXIV | Statute Law Revision Act 1892 |
| 18 | XXVI | Crown Proceedings Act 1947 |
| 19 | XXVIII | Statute Law Revision Act 1863 and Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872 |
| 20 | XIX | Statute Law Revision Act 1863 and Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872 |
| 21 | XXX, XXXI | Statute Law Revision Act 1863 and Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872 |
| 22 | XXXII | Statute Law Revision Act 1948 |
| 23 | XXXIII | Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1969 |
| 24 | XXXIV | Statute Law Revision Act 1863 and Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872 |
| 25 | XXXV | Statute Law Revision Act 1948 |
| 26 | XXXVI | Offences against the Person Act 1828 and Offences against the Person (Ireland) Act 1829 |
| 27 | XXXVII | Statute Law Revision Act 1863 and Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872 |
| 28 | XXXVIII | Statute Law Revision Act 1863 and Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872 |
| 29 | XXXIX,XXXX | extant |
| 30 | XXXXI | Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1969 |
| 31 | XXXXIII | Statute Law Revision Act 1863 and Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872 |
| 32 | Statute Law Revision Act 1887 | |
| 33 | XXXXVI | Statute Law Revision Act 1863 and Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872 |
| 34 | LIV | Statute Law Revision Act 1863 and Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872 |
| 35 | Sheriffs Act 1887 | |
| 36 | Statute Law Revision Act 1863 and Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872 | |
| 37 | LX | Statute Law Revision Act 1863 and Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872 |
Magna Carta was originally written in Latin. A large part of the Charter at Runnymede was copied, nearly word for word, from the Charter of Liberties of Henry I, issued when Henry became king in 1100, in which he said he would respect certain rights of the Church and the barons, for example not forcing heirs to purchase their inheritances.
As the Charter went through various issues many of the clauses included in the Runnymede charter were removed. Some clauses would form a supplementary Charter in 1217, the Charter of the forest.
It is worth emphasising that the 1215 charter was not numbered and was not divided into paragraphs or separate clauses. The numbering system used today was created by Sir William Blackstone in 1759,[43] and therefore should not be used to draw any conclusions regarding the intentions of the original creators of the charter.
The clauses of the 1297 Magna Carta which are still on statute are
- 1. FIRST, We have granted to God, and by this our present Charter have confirmed, for Us and our Heirs for ever, that the Church of England shall be free, and shall have all her whole Rights and Liberties inviolable. We have granted also, and given to all the Freemen of our Realm, for Us and our Heirs for ever, these Liberties under-written, to have and to hold to them and their Heirs, of Us and our Heirs for ever.
- 9. THE City of London shall have all the old Liberties and Customs which it hath been used to have. Moreover We will and grant, that all other Cities, Boroughs, Towns, and the Barons of the Five Ports, as with all other Ports, shall have all their Liberties and free Customs.
- 29. NO Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right.[42]
Clauses 12 and 14 of the 1215 charter state that the king will accept the "common counsel of our realm" when levying and assessing an aid or a scutage. Clause 14 goes into detail about how exactly the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls and greater barons should be consulted. These clauses effectively meant that the monarch had to ask before raising new taxes. The later charters merely said that "Scutage furthermore is to be taken as it used to be", although in practice the convention arose after Magna Carta that Parliament would be consulted by the monarch before raising new taxes.
Clause 61 of the 1215 charter states: "The barons shall choose any twenty-five barons of the realm they wish, who with all their might are to observe, maintain and cause to be observed the peace and liberties which we have granted and confirmed to them by this our present charter". The clause goes on to say that if the king does not keep to the charter, the twenty five barons shall seize "castles, lands and possessions... until, in their judgement, amends have been made". "Anyone in the land" would be permitted by the king to swear an oath to the twenty five to obey them in these matters, and the king was in fact supposed to order people to do so even if they didn't want to swear an oath to the twenty five barons.
The barons were trying to stop John going back on his word after agreeing to the charter, but if those who rebelled against him were able to choose a group who would have the power to seize his castles if they thought it necessary, "then the king had in effect been dethroned". No king would have agreed to this except as a manoeuvre to gain time, and the inclusion of this clause destroyed any chance of the original Magna Carta keeping the peace in the long term.[45]
Clause 61 was removed from all later versions of the charter. Forty years later, after another confrontation between king and barons, the Provisions of Oxford forced on the king a council of twenty four members, 12 selected by the crown, 12 by the barons, which would then elect a king's council of fifteen members; this however was also annulled when Henry III finally won that power struggle.
All of the remaining parts of the 1215 charter appear substantially unchanged in the 1225/1297 charter which became law and is still on the statute book. All except the three clauses which are still in force today were eventually repealed however, most in the 19th century. Many provisions have no bearing in the world today, since they deal with feudal liberties. Some clauses remained relevant but were replaced by later legislation which gave similar rights. Using the 1215 clause numbers:
There are a few clauses which are in the 1225/1297 charter but not in the 1215 charter. These have also since been repealed. Using the 1297 clause numbers:
The judgement of 1387 confirmed the supremacy of the Royal Prerogative within the constitution.[47] By the mid 15th century Magna Carta ceased to occupy a central role in English political life.[40] In part this was also due to the rise of an early version of Parliament and to further statutes, some which were based on the principle of Magna Carta. The Charter, however remained a text for scholars of law. The Charter in the statute books was correctly thought to have arisen from the reign of Henry III and was seen as no more special than any other statute and could be amended and removed. It was not seen (as it was later) as an entrenched set of liberties guaranteed for the people against the Government. Rather, it was an ordinary statute, which gave a certain level of liberties, most of which could not be relied on, least of all against the king. Therefore the Charter had little effect on the governance of the early Tudor period.
The Tudor period would see a growing interest in history. Tudor historians would rediscover the Barnwell chronicler who was more favourable to King John than other contemporary texts. John Bale and Shakespeare would both write plays on King John. Tudor historians were not inclined to regard rebellion as anything but a crime. Those who supported Henry VIII’s break with Rome “viewed King John in a positive light as a hero struggling against the papacy, they showed little sympathy for the Great Charter or the rebel barons”.[48]
The first printed edition of the Magna Carta was probably the Magna Carta cum aliis Antiquis Statutis of 1508 by Richard Pynson.[49] George Ferrers would publish the first unabridged English language edition of the Magna Carta in 1534, and effectively established the numbering of the Charter into 37 chapters; an abridged English language edition had previously been published by John Rastell in 1527.[50] By the end of the 16th century editions of the 1215 Charter would also be printed.
The Charter had no real effect until the Elizabethan era (1558–1603). Magna Carta again began to occupy legal minds, and it again began to shape how that government was run, but in a manner entirely different to that of earlier ages. William Lambarde published “what he thought were law codes of the Anglo-Saxon kings and William the conqueror”.[51] Lambarde would begin the process of misinterpreting English history, soon taken up by others, incorrectly dating documents and giving parliament a false antiquity. Francis Bacon would claim that Clause 39 of the 1215 Charter was the basis of the jury system and due process in a trial. Robert Beale, James Morice, Richard Cosin and the Puritans[52] began to misperceive Magna Carta as a ‘statement of liberty’, a 'fundamental law' above all law and government. In 1581 Arthur Hall, MP would be one of the first to suffer under this emerging new ideology, when he correctly questioned the antiquity of the House of Commons[53][54] and was without precedent expelled from Parliament.
One of the first respected jurists to write seriously about the great charter was Edward Coke. He was influential in the way Magna Carta was perceived throughout the Tudor and Stuart periods though his views were challenged during his lifetime by Lord Ellesmere and later in the century by Robert Brady. Coke used the 1225 issue of the Charter.
Coke "reinterpreted or misinterpreted" Magna Carta "misconstruing its clauses anachronistically and uncritically".[55] He would interpret liberties to be much the same as individual liberty.[56] The historian J.C. Holt excused Coke on the grounds that the Charter and its history had itself become 'distorted'.[57]
Coke would be instrumental in framing the Petition of Right, which would be a substantial supplement to Magna Carta's liberties. During the debates on the matter Coke famously sought to deny the King's sovereign rights with the claim that "Magna Carta is such a fellow, that he will have no 'sovereign'"; he believed the statutes (not the King) were absolute.[58]
Whilst Sir Edward Coke would take the lead in reinterpreting Magna Carta he would soon be joined by others with a similar ideological stance, resulting in the concept of an 'ancient constitution' which entailed belief in fundamental laws supposedly existing since time immemorial and a belief in the antiquity of Parliament.[59] These beliefs would be used to challenge the constitution as it existed under the Stuart Kings.
John Selden would link habeas corpus to Magna Carta[60] during Darnell's Case. Sir Henry Spelman, who can be largely credited with first formulating a concept of feudalism (which would ironically be later used to attack the idea of an ancient constitution, notably by Robert Brady), sought to place the origins of Common Law in Anglo-Saxon laws.[61] Antiquarians would seek out documents to support the views of their compatriots, such as Sir Robert Cotton, whose collection of manuscripts would later form the basis for the British Library, and who discovered two original copies of King John’s Charter.
The Petition of Right of 1628 sought to add to Magna Carta in the manner of the Articuli super Cartas or the Six Statutes. Charles I however, did not grant it as law and he was under no legal restriction.[62] The problem as before in history was that the King was not bound by the law as adherents of Magna Carta believed. As before in history armed force would be used, first in 1642–49 and again in 1689.
With the advent of the republic it was questionable whether Magna Carta still applied. John Milton called for “great actions, above the form of law and custom”. Whilst Oliver Cromwell had much disdain for Magna Carta, at one point describing it as "Magna Farta" to a defendant who sought to rely on it[63] he agreed to rule with the advice and consent of his council.[64]
Different radical groups held differing opinions of Magna Carta. The Levellers rejected history and law as presented by their contemporaries, holding instead to an ‘anti-Normanism’ viewpoint.[65]John Lilburne regarded Magna Carta as being less than the freedoms which supposedly existed under the Anglo-Saxons before being crushed by the Norman yoke. Richard Overton would describe Magna Carta as a “a beggarly thing containing many marks of intolerable bondage”.[66] Both however saw Magna Carta as a valuable declaration of liberties which could be used against governments they disagreed with. Lilburne said "the ground of my freedom, I build upon the Grand Charter of England", while Overton said that when arrested, he hung on to his copy of Coke on Magna Carta, shouting "murder, murder, murder" as they wrested "the Great Charter of England's Liberties and Freedoms from me".[67] Gerrard Winstanley leader of the more extreme Diggers stated “The best lawes that England hath, [viz., the Magna Carta] were got by our Forefathers importunate petitioning unto the kings that still were their Task-masters; and yet these best laws are yoaks and manicles, tying one sort of people to be slaves to another; Clergy and Gentry have got their freedom, but the common people still are, and have been left servants to work for them.”
The first attempt at a proper Historiography was undertaken by Robert Brady (writer)[68] who refuted the supposed antiquity of parliament and the belief in the immutable continuity of the law, and realised the liberties of the Charter were limited and were effective only because it was the grant of the King; by putting Magna Carta in historical context he questioned its contemporary political relevance.[69] However, Brady’s history would not survive the Glorious Revolution which “marked a setback for the course of English historiography”.[70]
The Glorious Revolution reinforced the century’s ideological interpretations of history, which would later become known as the Whig interpretation of history. Reinforced with Lockean concepts the Whigs believed England’s constitution to be a Social contract, based on documents such as the Magna Carta, the Petition of Right and The Bill of Rights.[71] Ideas about the nature of law in general were beginning to change. In 1716 the Septennial Act was passed, which had a number of consequences. Firstly, it showed that Parliament no longer considered its previous statutes unassailable, as this act provided that the parliamentary term was to be seven years, whereas fewer than twenty-five years had passed since the Triennial Act (1694), which provided that a parliamentary term was to be three years. It also greatly extended the powers of Parliament. Under this new constitution Monarchal absolutism was replaced by Parliamentary supremacy. It was quickly realised that Magna Carta stood in the same relation to the King-in-Parliament as it had to the King without Parliament. This supremacy would be challenged by the likes of Granville Sharp. Sharp regarded Magna Carta to be a fundamental part of the constitution, and that it would be treason to repeal any part of it. Sharp also held that the Charter prohibited slavery.[72]
Sir William Blackstone published a critical edition of the 1215 Charter in 1759, and gave it the numbering system still used today.[43]
In 1763 an MP, John Wilkes was arrested for writing an inflammatory pamphlet, No. 45, 23 April 1763; he cited Magna Carta incessantly. Lord Camden denounced the treatment of Wilkes as a contravention of Magna Carta.
Prophet of a new revolutionary age, Thomas Paine in his Rights of Man would disregard the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights on the grounds they were not a written constitution devised by elected representatives.
When Englishmen left their homeland for the new world, they brought with them charters establishing the colonies. The Massachusetts Bay Company charter for example stated the colonists would "have and enjoy all liberties and immunities of free and natural subjects." The Virginia Charter of 1606 (which was largely drafted by Sir Edward Coke) stated the colonists would have all "liberties, franchises and immunities" as if they had been born in England. The Massachusetts Body of Liberties contained similarities to clause 29 of the Magna Carta, and the Massachusetts General Court in drawing it up viewed Magna Carta as the chief embodiment of English common law.[73] The other colonies would follow their example. In 1638 Maryland sought to recognise Magna Carta as part of the law of the province but it was not granted by the King.[74]
In 1687 William Penn published The Excellent Privilege of Liberty and Property: being the birth-right of the Free-Born Subjects of England which contained the first copy of Magna Carta printed on American soil. Penn's comments reflected Coke's, indicating a belief that Magna Carta was a fundamental law.[75] The colonists drew on English lawbooks leading them to an anachronistic interpretation of the Magna Carta, believing it guaranteed trial by jury and habeas corpus.[76]
The development of Parliamentary sovereignty in the British Isles did not constitutionally affect the Thirteen Colonies, which retained an adherence to English common law, but it would come to directly affect the relationship between Britain and the colonies.[77] When American colonists raised arms against Britain, they were fighting not so much for new freedom, but to preserve liberties and rights, as believed to be enshrined in the Magna Carta and as later included in the Bill of Rights. American Revolutionaries would supplement this with ideas of natural right.
In 1787 when the revolutionaries gathered to draft a constitution they built upon the legal system they knew and admired, English common law, and on Lockean philosophy.
The American Constitution is the "supreme law of the land", recalling the manner in which Magna Carta had come to be regarded as fundamental law. This heritage is quite apparent. In comparing Magna Carta with the Bill of Rights: the Fifth Amendment guarantees: "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law." In addition, the United States Constitution included a similar writ in the Suspension Clause, article 1, section 9: "The privilege of the writ habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it." Each of these proclaim no man may be imprisoned or detained without proof that they did wrong. The Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The framers of the United States Constitution wished to ensure that rights they already held, such as those provided by the Magna Carta, were not lost unless explicitly curtailed in the new United States Constitution.[78][79]
The United States Supreme Court has explicitly referenced Lord Coke's analysis of Magna Carta as an antecedent of the Sixth Amendment's right to a speedy trial.[80]
Whilst radicals such as Sir Francis Burdett believed that Magna Carta could not be repealed, the 19th century would see the beginning of the repeal of many of the clauses of Magna Carta. The clauses were either obsolete and/or had been replaced by later legislation.
William Stubbs’s Constitutional History of England would be the high-water mark of the Whig interpretation of history. Stubbs believed that Magna Carta had been a major step in the shaping of the English people and he believed that the Barons at Runnymede were not just the Barons but the people.[81]
This view of history however, was passing. At the popular level William Howitt in Cassell's Illustrated history of England would note that it was fiction that King John’s Charter was the same Magna Carta as was on the statute books and stated that “The Barons, in fact, were amongst the greatest traitors that England ever produced”.[82] A more academic history was provided by Frederic William Maitland in History of English Law before the Time of Edward I which began to move Magna Carta away from the myth that had grown up around it and return it to its historical roots. In many literary representations of the medieval past, however, the Magna Carta remained the foundation for many diverse constructions of English national identity. Some authors instrumentalized the medieval roots of the document to preserve the social status quo while others utilized the precious national inheritance to change perceived economic injustice.[83]
In 1904 Edward Jenks published in the Independent Review an article entitled “The Myth of Magna Carta” which undermined the traditionally accepted view of the Magna Carta.[84] Historians like A. F. Pollard would agree with Jenks in considering Coke to have ‘invented’ Magna Carta, noting that the Charter at Runnymede had not meant popular liberty at all.[85]
Sellar and Yeatman in their parody 1066 and All That would play on the supposed importance of Magna Carta and its supposed universal liberty:. “Magna Charter was therefore the chief cause of Democracy in England, and thus a Good Thing for everyone (except the Common People)”.
![[icon]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small} |
This section requires expansion. |
Many later attempts to draft constitutional forms of government, including the United States Constitution, trace their lineage back to this source document.
The British dominions, Australia and New Zealand,[86] Canada[87](except Quebec), and formerly Union of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia, all looked back to Magna Carta in their law, and the Charter impacted generally on the states that evolved from the British Empire.[88]
Numerous copies, known as "exemplifications", were made each time it was issued, so all of the participants would each have one – in the case of the 1215 copy, one for the royal archives, one for the Barons of the Cinque Ports, and one for each of the 40 counties of the time. If there ever was one single 'master copy' of Magna Carta sealed by King John in 1215, it has not survived. Four exemplifications of the original 1215 text remain, all of which are located in England, some on permanent display:
Other early versions of Magna Carta survive. Durham Cathedral possesses 1216, 1217, and 1225 copies.[98]
A near-perfect 1217 copy is held by Hereford Cathedral and is occasionally displayed alongside the Mappa Mundi in the cathedral's chained library. Remarkably, the Hereford Magna Carta is the only one known to survive along with an early version of a Magna Carta 'users manual', a small document that was sent along with Magna Carta telling the Sheriff of the county to observe the conditions outlined in the document.[99]
Four copies are held by the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Three of these are 1217 issues and one a 1225 issue. On 10 December 2007, these were put on public display for the first time.[100] One of the Bodleian exemplifications from 1217 (once possibly held by Gloucester Cathedral) was displayed at San Francisco's California Palace of the Legion of Honor May 7 - June 6, 2011.
In 1952 the Australian Government purchased a 1297 copy of Magna Carta for £12,500 from King's School, Bruton, England.[101] This copy is now on display in the Members' Hall of Parliament House, Canberra. In January 2006, it was announced by the Department of Parliamentary Services that the document had been revalued down from A$40m to A$15m.
Only one copy (a 1297 copy with the royal seal of Edward I) is in private hands; it was held by the Brudenell family, earls of Cardigan, who had owned it for five centuries, before being sold to the Perot Foundation in 1984. This copy, having been on long-term loan to the US National Archives, was auctioned at Sotheby's New York on 18 December 2007; The Perot Foundation sold it in order to "have funds available for medical research, for improving public education and for assisting wounded soldiers and their families."[102] It fetched US$21.3 million,[103] It was bought by David Rubenstein of The Carlyle Group,[104] who after the auction said, "I thought it was very important that the Magna Carta stay in the United States and I was concerned that the only copy in the United States might escape as a result of this auction." Rubenstein's copy is on permanent loan to the National Archives in Washington, D.C..[105]
The Rubenstein Magna Carta was removed from display 2 March 2011 for conservation treatment and reencasement in an anoxic environment provided by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) the government agency responsible for the 1950s encasement of the Charters of Freedom. After treatment and encasement by National Archives conservators, the Magna Carta will be available to the public in March 2012.
Since there is no direct, consistent correlate of the English definite article in Latin, the usual academic convention is to refer to the document in English without the article as "Magna Carta" rather than "the Magna Carta". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first written appearance of the term was in 1218: "Concesserimus libertates quasdam scriptas in magna carta nostra de libertatibus" (Latin: "We concede the certain liberties here written in our great charter concerning liberties"). However, "the Magna Carta" is frequently used in both academic and non-academic speech.
Especially in the past, the document has also been referred to as "Magna Charta", but the pronunciation was the same. "Magna Charta" is still an acceptable variant spelling recorded in many dictionaries due to continued use in some reputable sources. From the 13th to the 17th centuries, only the spelling "Magna Carta" was used. The spelling "Magna Charta" began to be used in the 18th century but never became more common despite also being used by some reputable writers.[106][107]
Magna Carta is often a symbol for the first time the citizens of England were granted rights against an absolute king. However, in practice the Commons could not enforce Magna Carta in the few situations where it applied to them, so its reach was limited. Also, a large part of Magna Carta was copied, nearly word for word, from the Charter of Liberties of Henry I, issued when Henry I rose to the throne in 1100, which bound the king to laws which effectively granted certain civil liberties to the church and the English nobility.
Although the Magna Carta is popularly thought of as the document which was forced upon King John in 1215, this version of the charter was almost immediately annulled. Later monarchs reissued the document, but without the most direct challenges to their power, and without the provisions which were intended to right immediate wrongs rather than make long-term constitutional changes. The version which forms part of English law is actually that of 1297. Magna Carta can therefore be used to refer to any one of several related (but not identical) 13th century documents, or indeed to the various charters as a whole.
Popular perception is that King John and the barons signed Magna Carta. There were no signatures on the original document, however, only a single seal placed by the king. The words of the charter – Data per manum nostram – signify that the document was personally given by the king's hand. By placing his seal on the document, the King and the barons followed common law that a seal was sufficient to authenticate a deed, though it had to be done in front of witnesses. John's seal was the only one, and he did not sign it. The barons neither signed nor attached their seals to it.[108]
The document is also honoured in America, where it is an antecedent of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights. In 1957, the American Bar Association erected the Runnymede Memorial.[109] In 1976, the UK lent an original 1215 Magna Carta to the U.S. for its bicentennial celebrations, and also donated an ornate case to display it, which included a gold replica of Magna Carta. The case and gold replica are still on display in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C.[110]
In 2006, BBC History held a poll to recommend a date for a proposed "Britain Day". 15 June, which was the date of the original 1215 Magna Carta, received most votes, above other suggestions such as D-Day, VE Day, and Remembrance Day. The outcome was not binding, although the then Chancellor Gordon Brown had previously given his support to the idea of a new national day to celebrate British identity.[111] It was used as the name for an anti-surveillance movement in the 2008 BBC series The Last Enemy. According to a poll carried out by YouGov in 2008, 45% of the British public do not know what Magna Carta is.[112] However, its perceived guarantee of trial by jury and other civil liberties led to Tony Benn referring to the debate over whether to increase the maximum time terrorist suspects could be held without charge from 28 to 42 days as "the day Magna Carta was repealed".[113]
"Magna Carta". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. |
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Magna Carta |
 |
Wikisource has original text related to this article: |
|
Latin Wikisource has original text related to this article: |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
 | Runnymede (meadow in southeast England on the Thames River) |
| John (King of England) |
| Durham Report |
 | What was the Magna Carta? Read answer... |
| Where is the Magna Carta? Read answer... |
| What is magna carta for? Read answer... |
 | The magna carta did not? |
| Why is Magna Carta? |
| Why the magna carta? |
Copyrights:
 |
 | American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
Fowler's Modern English Usage. Oxford University Press. © 1999, 2004 All rights reserved. Read more | |
 |
| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2012 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
|
| Oxford Dictionary of British History. A Dictionary of British History. Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Gale Encyclopedia of US History. Encyclopedia of American History Copyright © 2006 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Answer of the Day. © 1999-present by Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
|
| West's Encyclopedia of American Law. West's Encyclopedia of American Law. Copyright © 1998 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
|
| West's Encyclopedia of American Law. West's Encyclopedia of American Law. Copyright © 1998 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: History. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved. Read more |
|
| Latin Phrase. © 1999-present by Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Politics Q&A. The Handy Politics Answer Book. © 2003 Visible Ink Press (handyanswers.com). All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Random House Word Menu. © 2010 Write Brothers Inc. Word Menu is a registered trademark of the Estate of Stephen Glazier. Write Brothers Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
|
Rhymes. Oxford University Press. © 2006, 2007 All rights reserved. Read more | |
 |
| Wikipedia on Answers.com. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Magna Carta. Read more |
Mentioned in
