Magna Charta

British Cultre and Civilization, 2016

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Magna Carta, English Great Charter,
http://www.britannica.com/topic/Magna-Carta

• ‘The Charter of English liberties granted by King John on June 15,

1215, under threat of civil war and reissued with alterations in 1216,
1217, and 1225. By declaring the sovereign to be subject to the rule
of law and documenting the liberties held by “free men,” the Magna

British Cultre and Civilization, 2016

Carta would provide the foundation for individual rights in Anglo-
American jurisprudence.’

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Historical timeline
William I (1066 ) secured for himself and his immediate successors a
position of unprecedented power.
• He dominated not only the country but also the barons who had helped
him win it and the ecclesiastics who served the English church.
• He gave Pope Alexander II indirect control over the church
Henry I , William’s son —whose accession (1100) was challenged by his
eldest brother, Robert, Duke of Normandy—was compelled to make
concessions to the nobles and clergy in the Charter of Liberties (a royal

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edict issued upon his coronation).
Stephen (1135), his successor, whose hold on the throne was threatened
by Henry I’s daughter Matilda, again issued a solemn Charter (1136) with
even more generous promises of good government in church and state.
Henry II, Matilda’s son, also began his reign (1154) by issuing a solemn
charter promising to restore and confirm the liberties and free customs
that King Henry, his grandfather, had granted “to God and holy church and
all his earls, barons and all his men.”

There developed, in fact, through the 12th century a continuous

tradition that the king’s coronation oath should be strengthened by 3
written promises stamped with the king’s seal.
King John and the Great Charter of 1215

Unlike his predecessors, John did not issue a general charter to

his barons at the beginning of his reign. At Northampton,
Archbishop of Canterbury Hubert Walter, royal adviser William
Marshal, and justiciar Geoffrey Fitzpeter summoned the nobility
and promised, on behalf of the king (who was still in France), that

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he would render to each his rights if they would keep faith and
peace with him.
In 1201, however, the earls were refusing to cross the English
Channel he first promised them “their rights.”
In 1205, in the face of a threat of invasion from France, the king
was compelled to swear that he would preserve the rights of the
kingdom unharmed.
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 Great Charter of 1215

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Reissues of 1216, 1217, and 1225
• King John died on October 18/19, 1216, while Louis of France,
supported by rebellious English barons, was trying to gain control of
England. One of the first acts of the council of John’s young
successor, Henry III, was to reissue the Magna Carta on November
12, 1216 in the hope of recalling men to their allegiance to the
rightful king. It was considerably shorter than its predecessor—42
clauses versus 63 in the 1215 document—as the council had omitted
clauses dealing with purely temporary and political matters as well

British Cultre and Civilization, 2016

as those that might limit its own power to raise money or forces to
carry on the war. The church, while keeping a general promise of
freedom, lost its specific guarantee of free election to office. Even in
that moment of danger, the council did not forget one main purpose
of the charter: to provide a definitive statement of feudal law. It
tried to address points in doubt, such as specific matters of
inheritance law and the precise year at which an heir should attain
his majority (age 21). Instead of the “form of security,” the council
stated that all omissions were postponed for future consideration.
They were never replaced. 6
The Charta of 1217

• When the charter was reissued for the second time, in the
autumn of 1217, the council had reconsidered it clause by
clause. They made further verbal changes for the sake of
clarity and accuracy. They modified the promise of assize
justices’ visiting every shire four times a year to the more-

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practical suggestion of an annual visit. More difficult cases
would be heard by the bench judges.

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1223 Charta

• In 1223 Pope Honorius III declared that Henry III was of age to
make valid grants, and the young king reissued the Magna
Carta two years later. That version reflected only minor
changes from the 1217 document, and it seems probable that
the council had concluded that maintaining the charter as an

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evolving code of law was impracticable.

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Historical significance of the Magna Carta
Clause 39 of the 1215 charter, which read:
• No free man shall be arrested or imprisoned or disseised or
outlawed or exiled or in any way victimised, neither will we
attack him or send anyone to attack him, except by the
lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
• Indeed, this passage would serve as the foundational

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expression of the concept of due process in Anglo-American
jurisprudence.
• In the 17th century, when England’s North American colonies
were shaping their own fundamental laws, the words of the
Magna Carta were worked into them. The basic rights
embodied in the Constitution of USA (1789) and the Bill of
Rights (1791) echo the charter, and the 14th Amendment
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(1868) can trace its ancestry to the Magna Carta as well.