Magna Carta (the Great Charter)
Magna Carta
The Great Charter of liberties (Lat. Magna Carta Libertatum) is a document sealed by the hand of King John of England granting his subjects certain privileges and rights. A group of rebellious barons impelled the King to accept the Great Charter on June 15, 1215, in the meadow, which is called Runnymede, near London on the right bank of the Themes, between Windsor and Staines. The document is written in Latin and consists of a preamble and 63 articles containing guarantees of the privileges and liberties that laid the foundation of British administrative system. Two replicas of the Great Charter of the original edition are at the British National Library; one is in the Lincoln Cathedral; yet another one –– in the Salisbury Cathedral.
Historical background. After England was conquered by Normans in 1066 apt kings ruled here; they centralized the administrative system, created new institutions (e. g. state treasury) and reformed the judicial system. By the time of Henry II’s rule (1154-1189), England had the most developed administrative system in Western Europe; but even it had a defect –– a danger of insufficient control over the authority of the king. That is why such king as John the Lackland (enthroned in 1199 after his brother Richard I’s death) could factually reign without keeping any laws. Most historians agree that John was an intelligent ruler capable of carrying out major deeds, yet at the same time he was whimsy, lazy, greedy and unreliable to the uttermost. He despised commonly accepted norms of behavior and was an inapt army commander. By 1206, John yielded to French king Philip II all the English possessions on the continent save for Aquitaine. This loss discredited John’s reputation in England and caused the barons to look for a way to restitute the damage done to them.
The barons did not like many things: a requirement of an extraordinary long military service or unbearable monetary payment (scutagia) for being released from it; sale of offices; patronizing friends and extorting money from the subjects; increase of the old taxes and introduction of new ones without getting any approval of vassals; disrespect for feudal law and violation of it. The royal courts became implementers of the monarch’s will; lawsuits were often decided based on the king’s whim; unbearable fines and severe punishments became more often. Beside that, John’s relationships with the church became so alienated that he frequently trenched upon its possessions and the clergy feared and did not trust the king. In 1208, Pope Innocent III imposed an interdiction on England, and in 1209 excommunicated John from the church. But John did not seek reconciliation with the church and did not try to restitute damage to it until 1213. So on the eve of accepting the Great Charter John found himself in isolation from almost all of his subjects.
In January of 1215, a group of barons presented the king with a list of demands, which he after a period of time accepted as temporary, and stamped it with his seal in Runnymede in the middle of June. After several days of discussion the Great Charter of Liberties was worked out –– a compromise, based upon the Barons’ statutes.
The Charters Articles. Most of the 63 articles of the Great Charter of liberties are dedicated to protection of norms of feudal law. The church was given its traditional privileges. Some articles speak about rights of middle class townspeople. One of the articles said that the king’s vassals should be summoned for discussions so that they could give recommendations or give their agreement in cases when important decisions had to be made. Another one spoke about the vassals’ right to choose if they are drafted for military service: to go and serve or to pay a monetary compensation, so called scutagia (shield fee). Another one prescribed all extra urgent taxes should be imposed exclusively after the vassals’ approval. Several articles having to do with the sphere of law turned out to be of greatest importance because of their influencing judicial procedures. John had to agree with the fact that justice from then on could not be bought and sold. Article 39 states that no freeman can be arrested, confined, lose property, to be announced non-grata, to be deported or “to be harmed in any other way” except by legal decision of peers or by the country’s law. In this way the king promised that every free man must present his case before a court of law before any action can be undertaken against him. This is a shoot of the fundamental principle of proper judicial procedure guaranteeing that people cannot be deprived of freedom or punished by arbitrary action of the authorities; rather, they are guaranteed a court trial.
Although court of jury to handle civil cases was introduced as early as Henry II’s reign criminal cases began to be decided by jurors later, by the middle of XIII century. But still lawyers and historians of XVII century interpreted the Great Charter as a document stipulating introduction of this very judicial procedure. To provide accomplishment of the promises given by John, article 61 established the council of barons. Colossal significance of the Great Charter in 1215 was that the king’s vassals for the first time made the king agree with the principle of superiority of the law.
New editions and confirmations. One year after the giving of the Great Charter king John died, and his young son Henry III became his successor. In November of 1216, soon after Henry’s coronation the Charter was republished from his name; several articles were this time omitted. The given publication of the Great Charter of liberties mainly had to do with the matters related to the sphere of private rights and not with the system of the government of the state or control over the king’s power, since the barons were sure they would be able to handle the young ruler. The second republication of the Great Charter, in which some of the points were reviewed, took place in November of 1217. In February of 1225, soon after Henry was announced full of age a third and the last republication almost identical to that of 1217 appeared. It is this version of the charter that was viewed as the beginning of the statute law and confirmed by English kings throughout the entire later medieval time.
Historical meaning. In three centuries after 1215, the Great Charter of liberties became a symbol of limitation of the king’s power, and in time began to be considered as the fundamental law of the country. However, only starting from XVII century it began to be interpreted as an act of the state providing constitutional control over the king’s authority containing an article about impossibility of introducing taxes or laws without the parliament’s consent, about necessity of bringing criminal cases to courts of jury and guarantees against arbitrary prison confinement and punishment; it also declared the principles of democratic way of ruling and impartial justice. In the course of fierce struggle against the kings of the Stewart dynasty in the beginning of XVII century such lawyers and parliament members as Edward Coke began to interpret the Great Charter as a document providing the above mentioned rights. In XVIII century, a man of law, William Blackstone included this interpretation in his famous Commentaries on the Laws of England. Historians and statesmen of XIX century uplifted the Charter as a great guarantee of English liberties. In this interpretation it affected political and legislative ideas in America and played a key role in the colonial period of its history, during the American Revolution and at the working out of the main articles of the U.S. Constitution.
Appendix
The Magna Carta
(The Great Charter)
Preamble: John, by the grace of God, king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and count of Anjou, to the archbishop, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justiciaries, foresters, sheriffs, stewards, servants, and to all his bailiffs and liege subjects, greetings. Know that, having regard to God and for the salvation of our soul, and those of all our ancestors and heirs, and unto the honor of God and the advancement of his holy Church and for the rectifying of our realm, we have granted as underwritten by advice 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, Jocelyn of Bath and Glastonbury, Hugh of Lincoln, Walter of Worcester, William of Coventry, Benedict of Rochester, bishops; of Master Pandulf, subdeacon and member of the household of our lord the Pope, of brother Aymeric (master of the Knights of the Temple in England), and of the illustrious men William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, William, earl of Salisbury, William, earl of Warenne, William, earl of Arundel, Alan of Galloway (constable of Scotland), Waren Fitz Gerold, Peter Fitz Herbert, Hubert De Burgh (seneschal of Poitou), Hugh de Neville, Matthew Fitz Herbert, Thomas Basset, Alan Basset, Philip d’Aubigny, Robert of Roppesley, John Marshal, John Fitz Hugh, and others, our liegemen.
1. In the first place we have granted to God, and by this our present charter confirmed for us and our heirs forever that the English Church shall be free, and shall have her rights entire, and her liberties inviolate; and we will that it be thus observed; which is apparent from this that the freedom of elections, which is reckoned most important and very essential to the English Church, we, of our pure and unconstrained will, did grant, and did by our charter confirm and did obtain the ratification of the same from our lord, Pope Innocent III, before the quarrel arose between us and our barons: and this we will observe, and our will is that it be observed in good faith by our heirs forever. We have also granted to all freemen of our kingdom, for us and our heirs forever, all the underwritten liberties, to be had and held by them and their heirs, of us and our heirs forever.
2. If any of our earls or barons, or others holding of us in chief by military service shall have died, and at the time of his death his heir shall be full of age and owe “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 £100; the heir or heirs of a baron, £100 for a whole barony; the heir or heirs of a knight, 100s, at most, and whoever owes less let him give less, according to the ancient custom of fees.
3. If, however, the heir of any one of the aforesaid has been under age and in wardship, let him have his inheritance without relief and without fine when he comes of age.
4. The guardian of the land of an heir who is thus under age, shall take from the land of the heir nothing but reasonable produce, reasonable customs, and reasonable services, and that without destruction or waste of men or goods; and if we have committed the wardship of the lands of any such minor to the sheriff, or to any other who is responsible to us for its issues, and he has made destruction or waster of what he holds in wardship, we will take of him amends, and the land shall be committed to two lawful and discreet men of that fee, who shall be responsible for the issues to us or to him to whom we shall assign them; and if we have given or sold the wardship of any such land to anyone and he has therein made destruction or waste, he shall lose that wardship, and it shall be transferred to two lawful and discreet men of that fief, who shall be responsible to us in like manner as aforesaid.
5. The guardian, moreover, so long as he has the wardship of the land, shall keep up the houses, parks, fishponds, stanks, mills, and other things pertaining to the land, out of the issues of the same land; and he shall restore to the heir, when he has come to full age, all his land, stocked with ploughs and wainage, according as the season of husbandry shall require, and the issues of the land can reasonable bear.
6. Heirs shall be married without disparagement, yet so that before the marriage takes place the nearest in blood to that heir shall have notice.
7. A widow, after the death of her husband, shall forthwith and without difficulty have her marriage portion and inheritance; nor shall she give anything for her dower, or for her marriage portion, or for the inheritance which her husband and she held on the day of the death of that husband; and she may remain in the house of her husband for forty days after his death, within which time her dower shall be assigned to her.
8. No widow shall be compelled to marry, so long as she prefers to live without a husband; provided always that she gives security not to marry without our consent, if she holds of us, or without the consent of the lord of whom she holds, if she holds of another.