Magna

Carta

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Magna CartaMagna Carta (Latin for "Great Charter", literally "Great Paper"), also called Magna Carta Libertatum ("Great Charter of Freedoms"), is an English charter originally issued in 1215. Magna Carta was the most significant early influence on the extensive historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law today. Magna Carta influenced many common law and other documents, such as the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights, and is considered one of the most important legal documents in the history of democracy.

Magna Carta was originally written because of disagreements between Pope Innocent III, King John and the English barons about the rights of the King. Magna Carta required the king to renounce certain rights, respect certain legal procedures and accept that his will could be bound by the law. It explicitly protected certain rights of the king's subjects, whether free or fettered — most notably the right of Habeas Corpus, meaning that they had rights against unlawful imprisonment. Many clauses were renewed throughout the Middle Ages, and further during the Tudor and Stuart periods, and the 17th and 18th centuries. By the late 19th century most clauses in their original form had been repealed from English law.

There are a number of popular misconceptions about Magna Carta, such as that it was the first document to limit the power of an English king by law (it was not the first, and was partly based on the Charter of Liberties); that it in practice limited the power of the king (it mostly did not in the Middle Ages); and that it is a single static document (it is a variety of documents referred to under a common name).

Events leading to Magna Carta

After the Norman conquest of England in 1066 and advances in the 12th century, the English king had by 1199 become the most powerful monarch in Europe[citation needed]. This was due to a number of factors including the (PIC One of the certified copies of Magna Carta made in 1215) sophisticated centralised government created by the procedures of the new Anglo-Saxon systems of governance, and extensive Anglo-Norman land holdings in Normandy. But after King John of England was crowned in the early 13th century, a series of failures at home and abroad, combined with perceived abuses of the king's power, led the English barons to revolt and attempt to restrain what the king could legally do.

France

King John's actions in France were a major cause of discontent in the realm. At the time of his accession to the throne after Richard's death, there were no set rules to define the line of succession. King John, as Richard's younger brother, was crowned over Richard's nephew, Arthur of Brittany. As Arthur still had a claim over the Anjou empire, however, John needed the approval of the French king, Philip Augustus. To get it, John gave to Philip large tracts of the French-speaking Anjou territories.

When John later married Isabella of Angoulême, her previous fiancé (Hugh IX of Lusignan, one of John's vassals) appealed to Philip, who then declared forfeit all of John's French lands, including the rich Normandy. Philip declared Arthur as the true ruler of the Anjou throne and invaded John's French holdings in mid-1202 to give it to him. John had to act to save face, but his eventual actions did not achieve this—he ended up killing Arthur in suspicious circumstances, thus losing the little support he had from his French barons.

After the defeat of John's allies at the Battle of Bouvines, Philip retained all of John's northern French territories, including Normandy (although Aquitaine remained in English hands for a time). These serious military defeats, which lost to the French a major source of income, made John unpopular at home. Worse, to recoup his expenses, he had to further tax the already unhappy barons.

The Church

Wikisource has original text related to this article: an essay on the pope's response to the Magna Carta

At the time of John’s reign there was still a great deal of controversy as to how the Archbishop of Canterbury was to be elected, although it had become traditional that the monarch would appoint a candidate with the approval of the monks of Canterbury.

But in the early 13th century, the bishops began to want a say. To retain control, the monks elected one of their number to the role. But John, incensed at his lack of involvement in the proceedings, sent John de Gray, the Bishop of Norwich, to Rome, as his choice. Pope Innocent III declared both choices as invalid and persuaded the monks to elect Stephen Langton. But John refused to accept this choice and exiled the monks from the realm. Infuriated, Innocent ordered an interdict (prevention of public worship — mass, marriages, the ringing of church bells, etc.) in England in 1208, excommunicated John in 1209, and encouraged Philip to invade England in 1212.

John finally backed down and agreed to endorse Langton and allow the exiles to return. To completely placate the pope, he gave England and Ireland as papal territories and rented them back as a fiefdom for 1,000 marks per annum. This surrender of autonomy to a foreign power further enraged the barons.

Taxes

King John needed money for armies, but the loss of the French territories, especially Normandy, greatly reduced the state income, and a huge tax would have to be raised in order to attempt to reclaim these territories. Yet it was difficult to raise taxes due to the tradition of keeping them at the same level.

Novel efforts to raise income included a Forest law, a set of regulations about the king’s forest which were easily broken and severely punished. John also increased the pre-existing scutage (feudal payment to an overlord replacing direct military service) eleven times in his seventeen years as king, as compared to eleven times in twice that period covering three monarchs before him. The last two of these increases were double the increase of their predecessors. He also imposed the first income tax which raised what was, at the time, the extortionate sum of £60,000.

Rebellion and civil war

John of England signs Magna Carta. Illustration from Cassell's History of England (1902)

By 1215, some of the most important barons in England had had enough, and they entered London in force on June 10, 1215, with the city showing its sympathies with their cause by opening its gates to them. They, and many of the fence-sitting moderates not in overt rebellion, forced King John to agree to the "Articles of the Barons", to which his Great Seal was attached in the meadow at Runnymede on June 15, 1215. In return, the barons renewed their oaths of fealty to King John on June 19, 1215. A formal document to record the agreement was created by the royal chancery on July 15: this was the original Magna Carta. An unknown number of copies of it were sent out to officials, such as royal sheriffs and bishops.

The most significant clause for King John at the time was clause 61, known as the "security clause", the longest portion of the document. This established a committee of 25 barons who could at any time meet and over-rule the will of the King, through force by seizing his castles and possessions if needed. This was based on a medieval legal practice known as distraint, but it was the first time it had been applied to a monarch. In addition, the King was to take an oath of loyalty to the committee.

Clause 61 essentially neutered John's power as a monarch, making him King in name only. He renounced it as soon as the barons left London, plunging England into a civil war, called the First Barons' War. 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 released John from his oath to obey it.

Magna Carta re-issued

John died during the war, from dysentery, on October 18, 1216, and this quickly changed the nature of the war. His nine-year-old son, Henry III, was next in line for the throne. The royalists believed the rebel barons would find the idea of loyalty to the child Henry more palatable, so the boy was swiftly crowned in late October 1216 and the war ended.

Henry's regents reissued Magna Carta in his name on November 12, 1216, omitting some clauses, such as clause 61, and again in 1217. When he turned 18 in 1225, Henry III himself reissued Magna Carta, this time in a shorter version with only 37 articles.

Henry III ruled for 56 years (the longest reign of an English Monarch in the Medieval period) so that by the time of his death in 1272, Magna Carta had become a settled part of English legal precedent.

Henry III's son and heir Edward I's Parliament reissued Magna Carta for the final time on 12 October 1297 as part of a statute called Confirmatio cartarum (25 Edw. I), reconfirming Henry III's shorter version of Magna Carta from 1225.

Content of Magna Carta

The Magna Carta was originally written in Latin. A large part of Magna Carta was copied, nearly word for word, from the Charter of Liberties of Henry I, issued when Henry I ascended to the throne in 1100, which bound the king to certain laws regarding the treatment of church officials and nobles, effectively granting certain civil liberties to the church and the English nobility.

Rights still in force today

For modern times, the most enduring legacy of the Magna Carta is considered the right of Habeas Corpus. This right arises from what we now call Clauses 36, 38, 39, and 40 of the 1215 Magna Carta.

The impact of the Magna Carta worldwide is great in its influence, for example on US and Commonwealth law. The following material refers to UK law and stands apart from a broader appreciation of the wider impact of the Magna Carta.

Three clauses of the 1297 version of Magna Carta still remain in legal force in England and Wales. Clause 1 guarantees the freedom of the English Church. Although this originally meant freedom from the King, later in history it was used for different purposes (see below). Clause 9 guarantees the “ancient liberties” of the city of London. Clause 29 guarantees a right to due process.

I. 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.

IX. 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, and all other Ports, shall have all their Liberties and free Customs.

XXIX. 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.[1]

The repeal of clause 26 in 1829 (by 9 Geo. 4 c. 31 s. 1) was the first time a clause of Magna Carta was repealed. With the document's perceived protected status broken, in one hundred and fifty 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.[1]

Feudal rights still in place in 1225

These clauses were present in the 1225 charter but are no longer in force, and would have no real place in the post-feudal world. Clauses 2 to 7 refer to the feudal death duties; defining the amounts and what to do if an heir to a fiefdom is underage or is a widow. Clause 23 provides no town or person should be forced to build a bridge across a river. Clause 33 demands the removal of all fish weirs. Clause 43 gives special provision for tax on reverted estates and Clause 44 states that forest law should only apply to those in the King’s forest.

Feudal rights not in the 1225 charter

These provisions have no bearing in the world today, as they are feudal rights, and were not even included in the 1225 charter. Clauses 9 to 12, 14 to 16, and 25 to 26 deal with debt and taxes and Clause 27 with intestacy.

The other clauses state that no one may seize land in debt except as a last resort, that underage heirs and widows should not pay interest on inherited loans, that county rents will stay at their ancient amounts and that the crown may only seize the value owed in payment of a debt, that aid (taxes for warfare or other emergency) must be reasonable, and that scutage (literally, shield-payment, payment in lieu of actual military service used to finance warfare) may only be sought with the consent of the kingdom.

These clauses were not present in the 1225 document, but still this led to the first parliament. Clause 14 provided that the common consent of the kingdom was to be sought from a council of the archbishops, bishops, earls and greater Barons. This later became the great council (see below).

Judicial rights (also in 1225 Charter)

These rights were the beginning of English judicial rights. Clauses 17 to 22 allowed for a fixed law court, which became the chancellery, and defines the scope and frequency of county assizes. They also said that fines should be proportionate to the offence, that they should not be influenced by ecclesiastical property in clergy trials, and that people should be tried by their peers. Many think that this gave rise to jury and magistrate trial, but its only manifestation in the modern world was the right of a Lord to a criminal trial in the House of Lords at first instance (abolished in 1948).

Clause 24 states that crown officials (such as sheriffs) may not try a crime in place of a judge. Clause 34 forbids repossession without a writ precipe. Clauses 36 to 38 state that writs for loss of life or limb are to be free, that someone may use reasonable force to secure their own land and that no one can be tried on their own testimony alone.

Clauses 36, 38, 39 and 40 collectively defined the right of Habeas Corpus. Clause 36 required courts to make inquiries as to the whereabouts of a prisoner, and to do so without charging any fee. Clause 38 required more than the mere word of an official, before any person could be put on trial. Clause 39 gave the courts exclusive rights to punish anyone. Clause 40 disallowed the selling or the delay of justice.

Clauses 36 and 38 were removed from the 1225 version, but were reinstated in later versions. The right of Habeas Corpus as such, was first invoked in court in the year 1305.

Clause 54 says that no man may be imprisoned on the testimony of a woman except on the death of her husband.

Anti-corruption and fair trade (also in 1225 Charter)

Clauses 28 to 32 say that no royal officer may take any commodity such as corn, wood or transport without payment or consent or force a knight to pay for something the knight could do himself and that the king must return any lands confiscated from a felon within a year and a day.

Clause 35 sets out a list of standard measures and Clauses 41 and 42 guarantee the safety and right of entry and exit of foreign merchants.

Clause 45 says that the king should only appoint royal officers where they are suitable for the post.

Clause 46 provides for the guardianship of monasteries.

Temporary provisions

These provisions were for immediate effect, and were not in any later charter. Clauses 47 and 48 abolish most of Forest Law. Clauses 49, 52 to 53 and 55 to 59 provide for the return of hostages, land and fines taken in John’s reign.

Article 50 says that no member of the D’Athèe family may be a royal officer. Article 51 called for all foreign knights and mercenaries to leave the realm.

Articles 60, 62 and 63 provide for the application and observation of the Charter and say that the Charter is binding on the Kings and his heirs forever, but this was soon deemed to be dependent on each succeeding King reaffirming the Charter under his own seal.

1226–1495

Magna carta cum statutis angliae, (Great Charter with English Statutes) page 1 of manuscript, fourteenth century.

The document commonly known as Magna Carta today is not the 1215 charter, but a later charter of 1225, and is usually shown in the form of The Charter of 1297 when it was confirmed by Edward I. At the time of the 1215 charter many of the provisions were not meant to make long term changes but simply to right the immediate wrongs, and therefore The Charter was reissued three times in the reign of Henry III (1216, 1217 and 1225) in order to provide for an updated version. After this each individual

king for the next two hundred years (until Henry V in 1416) personally confirmed the 1225 charter in their own charter.

Magna Carta had little effect on subsequent development of parliament until the Tudor period. Knights and county representatives attended the Great Council (Simon de Montfort’s Parliament), and the council became far more representative under the model parliament of Edward I which included two knights from each county, two burgesses from each borough and two citizens from each city. The Commons separated from the Lords in 1341. The right of the Commons to exclusively sanction taxes (based on a withdrawn provision of Magna Carta) was re-asserted in 1407, although it was not in force in this period. The power vested in the Great Council by, albeit withdrawn, Clause 14 of Magna Carta became vested in the House of Commons but Magna Carta was all but forgotten for about a century, until the Tudors.

Great Council

The first long-term constitutional effect arose from Clauses 14 and 61, which permitted a Council comprised of the most powerful men in the country, to exist for the benefit of the state rather than in allegiance to the monarch. Members of the Council were also allowed to renounce their oath of allegiance to the king in pressing circumstances, and to pledge allegiance to the Council and not to the king in certain instances. The common council was responsible for taxation and, although it was not representative, its members were bound by decisions made in their absence. The common council, later called the Great Council, was England's proto-parliament.

The Great Council only existed to give input on the opinion of the kingdom as a whole, and only had power to control scutage until 1258 when Henry III got into debt fighting in Sicily for the pope. The Barons agreed to a tax in exchange for reform, leading to the Provisions of Oxford. But Henry got a papal bull allowing him to set aside the provisions and in 1262 told royal officers to ignore the provisions and only to obey Magna Carta. The Barons revolted and seized the Tower of London, the Cinque ports and Gloucester. Initially the king surrendered, but when Louis IX (of France) arbitrated in favor of Henry, Henry crushed the rebellion. Later he ceded somewhat, passing the Statute of Marlborough in 1267 which allowed writs for breaches of Magna Carta to be free of charge, enabling anyone to have standing to apply the Charter.

This secured the position of the Council forever, but its powers were still very limited. The Council originally only met three times a year, and so was subservient to the king’s council, Curiae Regis, who, unlike the Great Council, followed the king wherever he went.

Still, in some senses the council was an early form of parliament. It had the power to meet outside the authority of the king, and was not appointed by him. While executive government descends from the Curiae Regis, parliament descends from the Great Council which was later called the parliamentum. However, the Great Council was very different from modern parliament. There were no knights, let alone commons, and it was composed of the most powerful men, rather than elected.

The Tudors

The Magna Carta was the first entry on the statute books, but after 1472, it was not mentioned for a period of nearly 100 years. There was much ignorance about the document. The few who did know about the document spoke of a good king being forced by an unstable pope and rebellious Barons “to attaine the shadow of seeming liberties” and that it was a product of a wrongful rebellion against the one true authority, the king. The original Magna Carta was seen as an ancient document with shadowy origins, and as having no bearing on the Tudor world. Shakespeare’s King John makes no mention of the Charter at all, but focuses on the murder of Arthur. The Charter in the statute books was thought to have arisen from the reign of Henry III. [citation needed]

First uses of the charter as a bill of rights

This statute was used widely in the reign of Henry VIII, but was seen as no more special than any other statute, and could be amended and removed. But later in the reign, the Lord Treasurer stated in the Star Chamber that many had lost their lives in the Baronial wars fighting for the liberties, which were guaranteed by the Charter, and therefore it should not so easily be overlooked as a simple and regular statute.

The church often attempted to invoke the first clause of the Charter to protect itself from the attacks by Henry, but this claim was given no credence. Francis Bacon was the first to try to use Clause 39 to guarantee due process in a trial.

Although the early Tudor period saw a re-awakening of the use of Magna Carta in common law, it was not seen, as it was later, as an entrenched set of liberties guaranteed for the people against the Crown and Government. Rather, it was a normal 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. Although lay parliament evolved from the Charter, by this stage the powers of parliament had managed to exceed those humble beginnings. The Charter had no real effect until the Elizabethan age.

Reintepretation of the charter

In the Elizabethan age, England was becoming a powerful force in Europe. In academia, earnest, but futile, attempts were made to prove that Parliament had Roman origins. The events at Runnymede in 1215 were "re-discovered", allowing a possibility to show the antiquity of Parliament, and Magna Carta became synonymous with the idea of an ancient house with origins in Roman government.

The Charter was interpreted as an attempt to return to a pre-Norman state of things. The Tudors saw the Charter as proof that their state of governance had existed since time immemorial and the Normans had been a brief break from this liberty and democracy. This claim is disputed in certain circles, but explains how Magna Carta came to be regarded as such an important document.

Magna Carta again occupied legal minds, and it again began to shape how that government was run. Soon the Charter was seen as an immutable entity. In the trial of Arthur Hall for questioning the antiquity of the house, one of his alleged crimes was an attack on Magna Carta.

Edward Coke’s opinions

Jurist Edward Coke interpreted Magna Carta to apply not only to the protection of nobles but to all subjects of the crown equally. He famously asserted: "Magna Carta is such a fellow, that he will have no sovereign."

One of the first respected jurists to write seriously about the great charter was Edward Coke (1552–1634), who had a great deal to say on the subject and was hugely influential in the way Magna Carta was perceived throughout the Tudor and Stuart periods, although his opinions changed across time and his writing in the Stuart period was more influential. In the Elizabethan period Coke wrote of Parliament evolving alongside the monarchy and not existing due to any allowance on the part of the monarch. However he was still fiercely loyal to Elizabeth and the monarchy still judged the Charter in the same light it always had, an evil document forced out of their forefathers by brute force; he therefore prevented a re-affirmation of the charter from passing the House, and although he spoke highly of the charter, he did not speak out against imprisonments without due process. This came back to haunt him later, when he himself moved for a reaffirmation of the charter.

Coke was not alone in his confused opinions about the charter among the people in that era. The Petition of Right in 1628 was meant as a reaffirmation of the charter, but was defeated by the Attorney General (Robert Heath). He stated that the petition claimed it was a mere codification of existing law stemming from Magna Carta, but, he claimed, there was no precedent shown as to these laws existing in such as a way as they bound the present king; there was a definite feeling that the king could not be bound by law and therefore Clause 39 and all others did not apply to him. The charter was seen as important as a statement as to the antiquity of Parliament, that it was pre-Norman, and not because it was the catalyst to the genesis of Parliament. Again, this latter point is disputed by certain modern critics. The Charter was seen in part as entrenched law due to Coke's opinion and no one would dare deny it, but it most certainly was not seen as binding on the king. [citation needed] Such suggestions were impermissible until the Stuart period.

Magna Carta’s role in the lead-up to the Civil War

By the time of the Stuarts, Magna Carta had attained an almost mythical status for its admirers and was seen as representing a ‘golden age’ of English liberties extant prior to the Norman invasion. Whether or not this 'golden age' ever truly existed is open to debate; regardless, proponents of its application to English law saw themselves as leading England back to a pre-Norman state of affairs. What is true, however is that this age existed in the hearts and minds of people of the time. Magna Carta was not important because of the liberties it bestowed, but simply as ‘proof’ of what had come before; many great minds influentially exalted the Charter; by the Seventeenth Century, Coke was talking of the Charter as an indispensable method of limiting the powers of the Crown, a popular principle in the Stuart period where the kings were proclaiming their divine right and were looking, in the minds of some of their subjects, towards becoming absolute monarchs.

It was not the content of the Charter which has made it so important in the history of England, but far more how it has been perceived in the popular mind. This is something which certainly started in the Stuart period, as the Charter represented many things which are not to be found in the Charter itself. Firstly it was used to claim liberties against the Government in general rather than just the Crown and the officers of the crown, secondly that it represented that the laws and liberties of England, specifically Parliament, dated back to a time immemorial and thirdly, that it was not only just but right to usurp a King who disobeyed the law.

For the last of these reasons Magna Carta began to represent a danger to the monarchy; Elizabeth ordered that Coke stop a bill from going through Parliament, which would have reaffirmed the validity of the Charter and Charles I ordered the suppression of a book which Coke intended to write on Magna Carta. By this stage, the powers of Parliament were growing, and on Coke’s death parliament ordered his house to be searched; the manuscripts were recovered and the book was published in 1642 (at the end of Charles I's Personal Rule). Parliament began to see Magna Carta as its best way of claiming supremacy over the crown, and began to preach that they were the sworn defenders of the liberties — fundamental and immemorial — which were to be found in the Charter.

In the four centuries since the Charter had originally catered for their creation, Parliament’s power had increased greatly from their original level where they existed only for the purpose that the king had to seek their permission in order to raise scutage. Now they were the only body allowed to raise tax, a right, which although descended from the 1215 Great Charter was not guaranteed by it, as it was removed from the 1225 edition. Parliament had now become so powerful that the Charter was being used both by those wishing to limit Parliament's power (as a new organ of the Crown), and by those who wished Parliament to rival the King's power (as a set of principles Parliament was sworn to defend against the King). When it became obvious that some people wished to limit the power of Parliament by claiming it to be tantamount to the crown, Parliament claimed they had the sole right of interpretation of the Charter.

This was a hugely important step, for the first time Parliament was claiming itself a body as above the law; whereas one of the fundamental principles in English law was that all were held by the law, Parliament, the monarch and the church, albeit to very different extents. Parliament here were claiming exactly what Magna Carta wanted to prevent the King from claiming, a claim of not being subject to any higher form of power. This was not claimed until ten years after the death of Lord Coke, but he most certainly would not have agreed with this, as he claimed in the English Constitution the law was supreme and all bodies of government were subservient to the supreme law, which is to say the common law, as embodied in the Great Charter. These early discussions of Parliament sovereignty seemed to only involve the Charter as the entrenched law, and the discussions were simply about whether or not Parliament had enough power to repeal the document or not.

This debate was not as important as it may seem, for although it was important for Parliament to be able to claim themselves more powerful than the King himself in the forthcoming struggle, this very provision was provided for by the Charter itself. Clause 61 of The Charter enables people to swear allegiance to what became the Great Council and later Parliament and therefore to renounce allegiance to the King. Moreover, Clause 61 allowed for the seizing of the kingdom by the body which was later to become Parliament if Magna Carta was not respected by the King or Lord Chief Justice. So there was no need to show any novel level of power in order to overthrow the King; it had already been set out in

Magna Carta nearly half a millennium before. However, Parliament was not simply seeking for a justification to rebel against the monarch, they were seeking to establish themselves as the true and sovereign government of the United Kingdom and for this they wanted to show they could overrule Magna Carta. [citation needed] Parliament was not ready to repeal the Charter yet however, and in fact it was cited as the reason why ship-money was illegal (the first time Parliament overruled the king).

Trial of Archbishop Laud

Further proof of the significance of Magna Carta is shown in the trial of Archbishop Laud in 1645. Laud was tried with attempting to subvert the laws of England including writing a condemnation of Magna Carta claiming that as the Charter came about due to rebellion it was not valid (a widely held opinion less than a century before, when the ‘true’ Magna Carta was thought to be the 1225 edition, with the 1215 edition being considered less valid for this very reason). However Laud was not trying to say that Magna Carta was evil, and he actually used the document in his defence. He claimed his trial was against the right of the freedom of the church (as the Bishops were voted out of Parliament in order to allow for parliamentary condemnation of him) and, that he was not given the benefit of due process contrary to Clauses 1 and 39 of the Charter. By this stage Magna Carta had passed a great distance beyond the original intentions for the document, and the Great Council had evolved beyond a body merely ensuring the application of the Charter. It had got to the stage where the Great Council or Parliament was inseparable from the ideas of the Crown as described in the Charter and therefore it was potentially not just the King that was bound by the Charter, but Parliament also.

Civil War and interregnum

After 7 years of civil war the King surrendered and was executed; it seemed Magna Carta no longer applied, as there was no King. Oliver Cromwell was accused of destroying Magna Carta and many thought he should be crowned just so that it would apply. [citation needed] Cromwell himself had much disdain for the Magna Carta, at one point describing it as "Magna Farta" to a defendant who sought to rely on it[2].

In this time of foment, there were many revolutionary theorists, and many based their theories at least initially on Magna Carta, in the misguided belief that Magna Carta guaranteed liberty and equality for all.

The Levellers

The Levellers believed that all should be equal and free without distinction of class or status. They believed that Magna Carta was the ‘political bible’, which should be prized above any other law and that it could not be repealed. They prized it so highly that they believed all (such as Archbishop Laud) who “trod Magna Carta…under their feet” deserved to be attacked at all levels. The original idea was to achieve this through Parliament but there was little support, because at the time the Parliament was seeking to impose itself as above Magna Carta. The Levellers claimed Magna Carta was above any branch of government, and this led to the upper echelons of the Leveller movement denouncing Parliament. They claimed that Parliament’s primary purpose was not to rule the people directly but to protect the people from the extremes of the King and that this was adequately done by Magna Carta and therefore Parliament should be subservient to it.

After the Civil War Cromwell refused to support the Levellers and was denounced as a traitor to Magna Carta. The importance of Magna Carta was greatly magnified in the eyes of the Levellers, and John Lilburne, one of the leaders of the movement, was known for his great advocacy of the Charter and was often known to explain its purpose to lay people and to expose the misspeaking against it in the popular press of the time. He was quoted as saying the ground and foundation of my freedome I build upon the grand charter of England. However as it became apparent that Magna Carta did not grant anywhere near the level of liberty demanded by the Levellers, the movement reduced its advocacy of it. Welwyn, another leader of the movement, advocated natural law and other doctrines as the primary principles of the movement. This was mainly because the obvious intention of Magna Carta was to grant rights only to the Barons and the episcopacy, and not the general and equalitarian rights the Levellers were claiming. Also influential, however, was Spelman’s rediscovery of the existence of the feudal system at the time of Magna Carta, which seemed to have less and less effect on the world of the time. The only right which the Levellers could trace back to 1215, possibly prized over all others, was the right to due process granted by Clause 39. One thing the Levellers did agree on with the popular beliefs of the time was that Magna Carta was an attempt to return to the fabled pre-Norman ‘golden age’.

The Diggers

However, not all such groups advocated Magna Carta. The Diggers were a very early socialistic group who called for all land to be available to all for farming and the like. Gerrard Winstanley, a leader of the group, despised Magna Carta as a show of the hypocrisy of the post-Norman law, as Parliament and the courts advocated Magna Carta and yet did not even follow it themselves. The Diggers did, however, believe in the pre-Norman golden age and also wished to return to it, and called for the abolition of all Norman and post-Norman law.

Charles II

The Commonwealth was relatively short lived however, and when Charles II took the throne in 1660 he vowed to respect both the common law and the Charter. Parliament was established as the everyday government of Britain, independent of the King but not yet more powerful. However, the struggles based on the Charter were far from over but now took on the form of the struggle for supremacy between the two Houses of Parliament.

In Parliament

In 1664 the British navy seized Dutch lands in both Africa and America leading to full-scale war with Holland in 1665. The Lord Chancellor, Edward Lord Clarendon, resisted an alliance with the Spanish and Swedes in favour of maintaining a relationship with the French, who were however also the allies of the Dutch. This lack of a coherent policy led to the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-67), with the Dutch burning a number of ships in the docks at Chatham, and the blame was placed on the shoulders of Clarendon. The Commons demanded that Clarendon be indicted before the Lords, but the Lords refused, citing the due process requirements of The Charter, giving Clarendon the time to escape to Europe. A very similar set of events followed in 1678 when the Commons asked the Lords to indict Thomas Lord Danby on a charge of fraternising with the French. As with Clarendon the Lords refused, again citing Magna Carta and their own supremacy as the upper house. Before the quarrel could be resolved Charles dissolved the Parliament. When Parliament was re-seated in 1681 again the Commons attempted to

force an indictment in the Lords. This time Edward Fitzharris who was accused of writing libellously that the King was involved in a papist plot with the French (including the overthrowing of Magna Carta). However, the Lords doubted the veracity of the claim and refused to try Fitzharris saying Magna Carta stated that everyone must be subject to due process and therefore he must be tried in a lower court first. This time the Commons retorted that it was the Lords who were denying justice under Clause 39 and that it was the Commons who were right to cite the Charter as their precedent. Again before any true conclusions could be drawn Charles dissolved the Parliament, although more to serve his own ends and to rid himself of a predominantly Whig Parliament, and Fitzharris was tried in a regular court (the King’s Bench) and executed for treason. Here the Charter, once again, was used far beyond the content of its provisions, and simply being used as a representation of justice. Each house was claiming its supremacy was supported by the Charter under Clause 39, but the power of the King was still too great for either house to come out fully as the more powerful.

Outside Parliament

The squabble also continued outside the Palace of Westminster. In 1667 the Lord Chief Justice and important member of the House of Lords, Lord Keating, forced a grand jury of Middlesex to return a verdict of murder when they wanted to return one of manslaughter. However, his biggest crime in the eyes of the Commons was that, when the jury objected on the grounds of Magna Carta, he scoffed and exclaimed “Magna Carta, what ado with this have we?”. The Commons were incensed at this abuse of the Charter and accused him of “endangering the liberties of the people”. However, the Lords claimed he was just referring to the inappropriateness of the Charter in this context, but Keating apologised anyway. In 1681 the next Lord Chief Justice, Lord Scroggs, was condemned by the Commons first for being too severe in the so-called ‘papist plot trials’ and second for dismissing another Middlesex grand jury in order to secure against the indictment of the Duke of York, the Catholic younger brother of the King later to become James II. Charles again dissolved Parliament before the Commons could impeach Scroggs, and removed him from office on a good pension. Just as it seemed that the Commons might be able to impose their supremacy over the Lords, the King intervened and proved he was still the most powerful force in the government. However, it was certainly beginning to become established that the Commons were the primary branch of Government, and they used the Charter as much as they could in order to achieve this end.

The supremacy of the Commons

This was not the end of the struggle however, and in 1679 the Commons passed the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, which greatly reduced the powers of the Crown. The act passed through the Lords by a small majority, arguably establishing the Commons as the more powerful House. This was the first time since the importance of the Charter had been so magnified that the Government had admitted that the liberties granted by the Charter were inadequate. However, this did not completely oust the position of the Charter as a symbol of the law of the ‘golden age’ and the basis of common law.

It did not take long before the questioning of the Charter really took off and Sir Matthew Hale soon afterwards introduced a new doctrine of common law based on the principle that the Crown (including the government cabinet in that definition) made all law and could only be bound by the law of God, and showed that the 1215 charter was effectively overruled by the 1225 charter, further undermining the idea that the charter was unassailable, adding credence to the idea that the Commons were a supreme branch

of Government. Some completely denied the relevance of the 1215 Charter as it was forced upon the king by rebellion (although the fact that the 1225 charter was forced on a boy by his guardians was overlooked). It was similarly argued against the Charter that it was nothing more than a relaxation of the rigid feudal laws and therefore had no meaning outside of that application.

The Glorious Revolution

The danger posed by the fact that Charles II had no legitimate child was becoming more and more real, as this meant that the heir apparent was the Duke of York, a Catholic and firm believer in the divine right of kings, threatening the establishment of the Commons' as the most powerful arm of government. Parliament did all it could to prevent James’ succession but was prevented when Charles dissolved the Parliament. In February 1685 Charles died of a stroke and James II assumed the throne of the United Kingdom. Almost straight away James attempted to impose Catholicism as the religion of the country and to regain the royal prerogative now vested in the Parliament. Parliament was slightly placated when James’ four-year-old son died in 1677 and it seemed his Protestant daughter Mary would take his throne. However when James' second wife, Mary of Modena, gave birth to a male heir in 1688 Parliament could not take the risk that another Catholic monarch would assume the throne and take away their power, and in 1688 the Convention Parliament declared that James had broken the contract of Magna Carta and nullified his claim to the throne. This once and for all proved that Parliament was the major power in the British Government; Mary, James II's eldest daughter was invited to take the throne with her husband William of Orange. Many thought that, with bringing in a new monarch, it would be prudent to define what powers this monarch should have, so the Bill of Rights was created. The Bill of Rights went far beyond what the Magna Carta had ever set out to achieve. It stated that the crown could not make law without Parliament. Although the raising of taxes was specifically mentioned, it did not limit itself to such, as Magna Carta did. However, one important thing to note is that the writers of the bill did not seem to think that the Bill included any new provisions of law; all the powers it ‘removes’ from the crown it refers to as ‘pretended’ powers, insinuating that the rights of Parliament listed in the Bill already existed under a different authority, presumably Magna Carta. So the importance of Magna Carta was not completely extinguished at this point, although it was somewhat diminished.

The eighteenth century

The power of the Magna Carta myth still existed in the 18th century; in 1700 Samuel Johnson talked of Magna Carta being “born with a grey beard” referring to the belief that the liberties set out in the Charter harked back to the Golden Age and time immemorial. However 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. Previously, all legislation that passed in a parliamentary session had to be listed in the election manifesto, so in effect the electorate was consulted on all issues which were to be brought before Parliament. However, with a seven-year term, it was unlikely, if not impossible, that all the legislation passed would be discussed at the election. This gave Parliament the freedom to legislate as it liked during its term. This was not Parliamentary sovereignty as understood today however, as although Parliament could overrule its own statutes, it was still considered itself bound by the higher law, such as Magna Carta. Arguments for Parliamentary sovereignty were not new;

however, even its proponents would not have expected Parliament to be as powerful as it is today. For example, in the previous century, Coke had discussed how Parliament might well have the power to repeal the common law and Magna Carta, but they were, in practice, prohibited from doing so, as the common law and Magna Carta were so important in the constitution that it would be dangerous to the continuing existence of the constitution to ever repeal them.

The extent of the Commons' powers

In 1722 the Bishop of Rochester (Francis Atterbury (a Stuart Jacobite)), a member of the House of Lords, was accused of treason. The Commons locked him in the Tower of London, and introduced a bill intending to remove him from his post and send him into exile. This, once again, brought up the subject of which was the more powerful house, and exactly how far that power went. Atterbury claimed, and many agreed, that the Commons had no dominion over the Lords. Other influential people disagreed however; for example, the Bishop of Salisbury (also a Lord) was of the strong opinion that the powers of Parliament, mainly vested in the Commons, were sovereign and unlimited and therefore there could be no limit on those powers at all, implying the dominion of the lower house over the upper house. Many intellectuals agreed; Jonathan Swift went so far as to say that Parliament’s powers extended to altering or repealing Magna Carta. This claim was still controversial, and the argument incensed the Tories. Bolingbroke spoke of the day when “liberty is restored and the radiant volume of Magna Carta is returned to its former position of Glory”. This belief was anchored in the relatively new theory that when William the Conqueror invaded England he only conquered the throne, not the land, and he therefore assumed the same position in law as the Saxon rulers before him. The Charter was therefore a recapitulation or codification of these laws rather than (as previously believed) an attempt to reinstate these laws after the tyrannical Norman Kings. This implied that these rights had existed constantly from the ‘golden age immemorial’ and could never be removed by any government. The Whigs on the other hand claimed that the Charter only benefited the nobility and the church and granted nowhere near the liberty they had come to expect. However although the Whigs attacked the content of the Charter, they did not actually attack the myth of the ‘golden age’ or attempt to say that the Charter could be repealed, and the myth remained as immutable as ever.

America

The 1765 Stamp Act extended the stamp duty which had been in force on home territory since 1694 to cover the American colonies as well. However the colonists despised this as they were not represented in Parliament and refused to see how a body, which did not represent them, could tax them. The cry ‘no taxation without representation’ rang throughout the colonies. Despite the fact that the Great Council which approved taxation in the fourteenth century was certainly not representative of all those who were paying that tax, the ‘representationalists’ quoted Magna Carta as a precedent[citation needed]. This is a further example of how the idea of the liberties of Magna Carta went far beyond its actual content.

The influence of Magna Carta can be clearly seen in the U.S. Bill of Rights, which enumerates various rights of the people and restrictions on government power, such as:

No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.

Article 21 from the Declaration of Rights in the Maryland Constitution of 1776 reads:

That no freeman ought to be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized of his freehold, liberties, or privileges, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any manner destroyed, or deprived of his life, liberty, or property, but by the judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.

Parliamentary sovereignty

The doctrine of parliamentary supremacy (if not parliamentary sovereignty) had largely been established 1765 when William Blackstone argued strongly for sovereignty in his Commentaries on the English Law. He essentially argued that absolute supremacy must exist in one of the arms of Government; and he thought it resided in Parliament, as Parliament could legislate on anything, even legislating the impossible if they wished, regardless of whether it was practical. The debate over whether or not Parliament could limit or overrule the supposed rights granted by Magna Carta was to prove to be the basis for the discussion over parliamentary sovereignty. Blackstone thought however that despite Parliament's power, it should respect Magna Carta as a show of law from time immemorial. The other great legal mind of the time Jeremy Bentham used the Charter to attack legal abuses.

John Wilkes

In 1763 John Wilkes, an MP, was arrested for writing an inflammatory pamphlet, No. 45, 23 April 1763. In his defence he continually cited Magna Carta, and the weight that Magna Carta held at the time meant Parliament was wary of continuing the charge. He was released and awarded damages for the wrongful seizure of his papers as the general warrant under which he was arrested was deemed illegal. He was still expelled from Parliament and spent a week in the Tower of London.

He spent a number of years abroad until 1768 when he returned and failed to be elected as the MP for London. Unperturbed he stood again for Middlesex but he was expelled again on the basis of the earlier offence the next year. He stood again and was elected but the Commons ruled that he was ineligible to sit. At the next three re-elections Wilkes again was the champion, but the House did not relent and his opponent, Lutteral, was announced the winner.

The treatment of Wilkes caused a furore in Parliament, with Lord Camden denouncing the action as a contravention of Magna Carta. Wilkes made the issue a national one and the issue was taken up by the populace. All over the country there were prints of him being arrested whilst teaching his son about Magna Carta. He received the support of the Corporation of London, which had long sought to establish its supremacy over Parliament, based on the Charter.

Those who supported Wilkes often had little or no knowledge of the actual content of the Charter, or if they did were looking to protect their own position based on it (such as the Corporation of London). Wilkes re-entered the House in 1774 having begun the cause for a reform movement to ‘restore the constitution’, through a more representative, less powerful, and shorter termed Parliament.

Granville Sharp

One of the principal reformists was the philanthropist Granville Sharp. Sharp called for the reform of Parliament based on Magna Carta, and to back this up he devised the doctrine of accumulative authority. This doctrine stated that because almost innumerable parliaments had approved Magna Carta it would

take the same number of Parliaments to repeal it. Like many others, Sharp accepted the supremacy of Parliament as an institution, but did not believe that this power was without restraint, and thought that Parliament could not repeal Magna Carta. Many reformists agreed that the Charter was a statement of the liberties of the mythical and immemorial golden age, and there was a popular movement to have a holiday to commemorate the signing of the Charter in a similar way to the American 4th of July holiday; however, very few went as far as Sharp.

Proposed Reform of Magna Carta

Although there was a popular movement to resist the sovereignty of Parliament based on The Charter, others thought that too much was claimed for the Charter. Cartwright pointed out in 1774 that Magna Carta could not have existed unless there was a firm constitution beforehand. He went even further later and claimed that the Charter was not part of the constitution, but merely a codification of the constitution that existed at the time. Cartwright went on to suggest that there should be a new Magna Carta based on equality and rights for all, not just for landed persons.

People like Cartwright were showing that the rights granted by the Charter were out of pace with the changes that had happened in the intervening six centuries. There were certain provisions, such as Clauses 23 and 39, which were not only still valid then but still form the basis of important rights in the present English law. Undeniably, though, the importance of Magna Carta was diminishing and the arguments for having a fully sovereign Parliament were increasingly accepted. Many in the House still supported the Charter, such as Sir Francis Burdett, who in 1809 called for a return to the constitution of Magna Carta, and denounced the House of Commons for taking proceedings against the radical John Gale Jones, who had accused Parliament of acting in contravention of Magna Carta. Burdett was largely ignored, but he continued, claiming that the Long Parliament (1640-60) had usurped all the power then enjoyed by the Parliament of the time. He stated that Parliament was constantly contravening Magna Carta (although he was referring to its judicial not legislative practice), and that it did not have the right to do so. He received popular support and there were riots across London when he was arrested for these claims.

The Chartists

The major breakthrough occurred in 1828 with the passing of the first Offences Against the Person Act, which for the first time repealed a clause of Magna Carta, namely Clause 36. With the myth broken, in one hundred and fifty years nearly the whole charter was repealed.

The Reform Act 1832 fixed some of the most glaring problems in the political system, but did not go nearly far enough for a group that called itself the Chartists, who called for a return to the constitution of Magna Carta [citation needed], and eventually created a codification of what they saw as the existing rights of the People, the People's Charter. At a rally for the Chartists in 1838 the Reverend Raynor demanded a return to the constitution of the Charter; freedom of speech, worship and congress. This is a perfect example of how the idea of the Charter went so far beyond its actual content: it depicted for many people the idea of total liberty. It was this over-exaggeration of the Charter that eventually led to its downfall. The more people expected to get from the Charter, the less Parliament was willing to attempt to cater to this expectation, and eventually writers such as Tom Paine refuted the claims about the

Charter made by those such as the Chartists. This meant that the educated no longer supported these claims, and the power of Magna Carta as a symbol of freedom gradually faded into obscurity.

Influences on later constitutions

Many later attempts to draft constitutional forms of government, including the United States Constitution, trace their lineage back to this source document. The United States Supreme Court has explicitly referenced Lord Coke's analysis of Magna Carta as an antecedent of the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of a speedy trial.[3]

Magna Carta has influenced international law as well: Eleanor Roosevelt referred to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as "a Magna Carta for all mankind".

Magna Carta and the Jews in England

Magna Carta contained two articles related to money lending and Jews in England. Jewish involvement with money lending caused Christian resentment, because the Church forbade usury; it was seen as vice and was punishable by excommunication, although Jews, as non-Christians, could not be excommunicated and were thus in a legal grey area. Secular leaders, unlike the Church, tolerated the practice of Jewish usury because it gave the leaders opportunity for personal enrichment. This resulted in a complicated legal situation: debtors were frequently trying to bring their Jewish creditors before Church courts, where debts would be absolved as illegal, while the Jews were trying to get their debtors tried in secular courts, where they would be able to collect plus interest. The relations between the debtors and creditors would often become very nasty. There were many attempts over centuries to resolve this problem, and Magna Carta contains one example of the legal code of the time on this issue:

If one who has borrowed from the Jews any sum, great or small, die before that loan be repaid, the debt shall not bear interest while the heir is under age, of whomsoever he may hold; and if the debt fall into our hands, we will not take anything except the principal sum contained in the bond. And if anyone die indebted to the Jews, his wife shall have her dower and pay nothing of that debt; and if any children of the deceased are left under age, necessaries shall be provided for them in keeping with the holding of the deceased; and out of the residue the debt shall be paid, reserving, however, service due to feudal lords; in like manner let it be done touching debts due to others than Jews.

After the Pope annulled Magna Carta, future versions contained no mention of Jews. Jews were seen by the Church as a threat to their authority, and the welfare of Christians, because of their special relationship to Kings as moneylenders. "Jews are the sponges of kings," wrote the theologian William de Montibus, "they are bloodsuckers of Christian purses, by whose robbery kings dispoil and deprive poor men of their goods." Thus the specific singling out of Jewish moneylenders seen in Magna Carta originated in part because of Christian nobles who permitted the otherwise illegal activity of usury, a symptom of the larger ongoing power struggle between Church and State during the Middle Ages.

Popular perceptions

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.

The document commonly known as Magna Carta today is not the 1215 charter, but a later charter of 1225, and is usually shown in the form of the Charter of 1297 when it was confirmed by Edward I. At the time of the 1215 charter many of the provisions were not meant to make long-term changes but simply to right some immediate wrongs; therefore the Charter was reissued three times in the reign of Henry III (1216, 1217 and 1225). After this, each king for the next two hundred years (until Henry V in 1416) personally confirmed the 1225 charter in their own charter. It should not be thought of as one document but rather a variety of documents coming together to form one Magna Carta, in the same way as the treaties of Rome and Nice (among others) come together to form the treaties of the European Union and the European Community.

Popular perception is that King John and the barons signed the Magna Carta, however there were no signatures on the original document, only a single seal 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.[4]

The document is also honoured in America, where some view it as an antecedent of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights. The United States has contributed the Runnymede Memorial and Lincoln Cathedral offers a Magna Carta Week.[5] The UK lent one of the four remaining copies of Magna Carta to the U.S. for its bicentennial celebrations and donated a gold copy which is displayed in the U.S. Capital Rotunda.[6]

In 2006, BBC History held a poll to recommend a date for a proposed "Britain Day". June 15, as the date of the signing 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 Chancellor Gordon Brown had previously given his support to the idea of a new national day to celebrate British identity.[7]

Usage and spelling

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 of liberties.") However, "the Magna Carta" is also frequently used. In the past, the document has also been referred to as "Magna Charta".

Copies

Numerous copies 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 Cinque Ports, and one for each of the 40 counties of the time. Several of those copies still exist and some are on permanent display. If there ever was one single 'master copy' of Magna Carta sealed by King John in 1215, it has not survived. Four contemporaneous copies (known as "exemplifications") remain, all of which are located in the UK:

The 'burnt copy', which was found in the records of Dover Castle in the 17th century and so is assumed to be the copy that was sent to the Cinque Ports. It was subsequently involved at a house fire at its owner's property, making it all but illegible. It is the only one of the four to have its seal surviving, although this too was melted out of shape in the fire. It is currently held by the British Library

Another supposedly original, but possibly amended version of the Magna Carta is on show just outside of the chamber of the House of Lords situated in Westminster Palace.

one owned by Lincoln Cathedral, normally on display at Lincoln Castle. It has an unbroken attested history at Lincoln since 1216. We hear of it in 1800 when the Chapter Clerk of the Cathedral reported that he held it in the Common Chamber, and then nothing until 1846 when the Chapter Clerk of that time moved from within the Cathedral to a property just outside. In 1848 Magna Carta was shown to a visiting group who reported it as “hanging on the wall in an oak frame in beautiful preservation”. It went to the New York World Fair in 1939 and so had to be held in Fort Knox, next to the original of the US Constitution, until the end of the Second World War. Having returned to Lincoln, it has been back to America on various occasions since then.[8] It was not on display for a time to undergo conservation in preparation for its visit to America, where it was exhibited at the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia from March 30 to June 18, 2007 in recognition of the Jamestown quadricentennial.[9][10] From July 4 to July 25, the document was displayed at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia[11], returning to Lincoln Castle afterwards.

one owned by and displayed at Salisbury Cathedral.

Other early versions of Magna Carta survive. Durham Cathedral possesses 1216, 1217, and 1225 copies.[12]

Magna Carta Place, within Canberra, Australia's Parliamentary Triangle opened on 24 May 2003.

In 1952 the Australian Government purchased a 1297 copy of Magna Carta for £12,500. 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.

In September 1984, the Perot Foundation purchased another copy of the 1297 issue of Magna Carta. This copy was loaned to the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C. until September 2007. The Perot Foundation plans to sell this copy in order to “have funds available for medical research, for improving public education and for assisting wounded soldiers and their families.”[1]

The Magna Carta

A translation of the original text as confirmed by Edward II in 1297

PreambleEDWARD by the grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Guyan, to all Archbishops, Bishops, etc. We have seen the Great Charter of the Lord HENRY, sometimes King of England, our father, of the Liberties of England, in these words: Henry by the grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Guyan, and Earl of Anjou, to all Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Priors, Earls, Barons, Sheriffs, Provosts, Officers, and to all Bailiffs and other our faithful Subjects , which shall see this present Charter, Greeting. Know ye that we, unto the honour of Almighty God, and for the salvation of the souls of our progenitors and successors, Kings of England, to the advancement of holy Church, and amendment of our Realm, of our meer and free will, have given and granted to all Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Priors, Earls, Barons, and to all freemen of this our realm, these liberties following, to be kept in our kingdom of England for ever.

[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 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 underwritten, to have and to hold to them and their Heirs, of us and our Heirs for ever.

[2] If any of our Earls or Barons, or any other, which holdeth of Us in chief by Knights service, shall die and at the time of his death his heir be of full age, and oweth us Relief, he shall have his inheritance by the old Relief; that is to say, the heir or heirs of an Earl, for a whole Earldom, by one hundred pound; the heir or heirs of a Baron, for an whole Barony, by one hundred marks; the heir or heirs of a Knight, for one whole Knights fee, one hundred shillings at the most; and he that hath less, shall give less, according to the custom of the fees.

[3] But if the Heir of any such be within age, his Lord shall not have the ward of him, nor of his land, before that he hath taken him homage. And after that such an heir hath been in ward (when he is come of full age) that is to say, to the age of one and twenty years, he shall have his inheritance without Relief, and without Fine; so that if such an heir, being within age, be made Knight, yet nevertheless his land shall remain in the keeping of his Lord unto the term aforesaid.

[4] The keeper of the land of such an heir, being within age, shall not take of the lands of the heir, but reasonable issues, reasonable customs, and reasonable servics, and that without destruction and waste of his men and goods. And if we commit the custody of any such land to the Sheriff, or to any other, which is answerable unto us for the issues of the same land, and he make destruction or waste of those things that he hath in custody, we will take of him amends and recompence therefore, and the land shall be committed to two lawful and discreet men of that fee, which shall answer unto us for the issues of the same land, or unto him whom we will assign. And if we give or sell to any man the custody of any such land, and he therein do make destruction or waste, he shall lose the same custody; and it shall be assigned to two lawful and discreet men of that fee, which also in like manner shall be answerable to us, as afore is said.

[5] The keeper, so long as he hath the custody of the land of such an heir, shall keep up the houses, parks, warrens, ponds, mills, and other things pertaining to the same land, with the issues of the said land; and he shall deliver to the Heir, when he cometh to his full age, all his land stored with ploughs, and all other things, at the least as he received it. All these things shall be observed in the custodies of the Archbishopricks, Bishopricks, Abbeys, Priories, Churchs, and Dignities vacant, which appertain to us; except this, that such custody shall not be sold.

[6] Heirs shall be married without Disparagement.

[7] A Widow, after the death of her husband, incontinent, and without any Difficulty, shall have her marriage and her inheritance, and shall give nothing for her dower, her marriage, or her inheritance, which her husband and she held the day of the death of her husband, and she shall tarry in the chief house of her husband by forty days after the death of her husband, within which days her dower shall be assigned her (if it were not assigned her before) or that the house be a castle; and if she

depart from the castle, then a competent house shall be forthwith provided for her, in the which she may honestly dwell, until her dower be to her assigned, as it is aforesaid; and she shall have in the meantime her reasonable estovers of the common; and for her do wer shall be assigned unto her the third part of all the lands of her husband, which were his during coverture, except she were endowed of less at the Church-door. No widow shall be distrained to marry herself: nevertheless she shall find surety, that she shall not marry without our licence and assent (if she hold of us) nor without the assent of the Lord, if she hold of another.

[8] We or our Bailiffs shall not seize any land or rent for any debt, as long as the present Goods and Chattels of the debtor do suffice to pay the debt, and the debtor himself be ready to satisfy therefore. Neither shall the pledges of the debtor be dist rained, as long as the principal debtor is sufficient for the payment of the debt. And if the principal debtor fail in the payment of the debt, having nothing wherewith to pay, or will not pay where he is able, the pledges shall answer for the debt. And if they will, they shall have the lands and rents of the debtor, until they be satished of that which they before paid for him, except that the debtor can show himself to be acquitted against the said sureties.

[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, and all other Ports, shall have all their liberties and free customs.

[10] No man shall be distrained to do more service for a Knights fee, nor any freehold, than therefore is due.

[11] Common Pleas shall not follow our Court, but shall be holden in some place certain.

[12] Assises of novel disseisin, and of Mortdancestor, shall not be taken but in the shires, and after this manner: If we be out of this Realm, our chief Justicer shall send our Justicers through every County once in the Year, which, with the Knights of the shires, shall take the said Assises in those counties; and those things that at the coming of our foresaid Justicers, being sent to take those Assises in the counties, cannot be determined, shall be ended by them in some other place in their circuit; and those things, which for difficulty of some articles cannot be determined by them, shall be referred to our Justicers of the Bench, and there shall be ended.

[13] Assises of Darrein Presentment shall be alway taken before our Justices of the Bench, and there shall be determined.

[14] A Freeman shall not be amerced for a small fault, but after the manner of the fault; and for a great fault after the greatness thereof, saving to him his contenement; and a Merchant likewise, saving to him his Merchandise; and any other's villain than ours shall be likewise amerced, saving his wainage, if he falls into our mercy. And none of the said amerciaments shall be assessed, but by the oath of honest and lawful men of the vicinage. Earls and Barons shall not be amerced but by their Peers, and after the manner of their offence. No man of the Church shall be amerced after the quantity of his spiritual Benefice, but after his Lay-tenement, and after the quantity of his offence.

[15] No Town or Freeman shall be distrained to make Bridges nor Banks, but such as of old time and of right have been accustomed to make them in the time of King Henry our Grandfather.

[16] No Banks shall be defended from henceforth, but such as were in defence in the time of King Henry our Grandfather, by the same places, and the same bounds, as they were wont to be in his time.

[17] No Sheriff, Constable, Escheator, Coroner, nor any other our Bailiffs, shall hold Pleas of our Crown.

[18] If any that holdeth of us Lay-fee do die, and our Sheriff or Bailiff do show our Letters Patents of our summon for Debt, which the dead man did owe to us; it shall be lawful to our Sheriff or Bailiff to attach or inroll all the goods and chattels of the dead, being found in the said fee, to the Value of the same Debt, by the sight and testimony of lawful men, so that nothing thereof shall be taken away, until we be clearly paid off the debt; and the residue shall remain to the Executors to perform the testament of the dead; and if nothing be owing unto us, all the chattels shall go to the use of the dead (saving to his wife and children their reasonable parts).

[19] No Constable, nor his Bailiff, shall take corn or other chattels of any man, if the man be not of the Town where the Castle is, but he shall forthwith pay for the same, unless that the will of the seller was to respite the payment; and if he be of the same Town, the price shall be paid unto him within forty days.

[20] No Constable shall distrain any Knight to give money for keeping of his Castle, if he himself will do it in his proper person, or cause it to be done by another sufficient man, if he may not do it himself for a reasonable cause. And if we lead or send him to an army, he shall be free from Castle-ward for the time that he shall be with us in fee in our host, for the which he hath done service in our wars.

[21] No Sheriff nor Bailiff of ours, or any other, shall take the Horses or Carts of any man to make carriage, except he pay the old price limited, that is to say, for carriage with two horse, x.d. a day; for three horse, xiv.d. a day. No demesne Cart of any Spiritual person or Knight, or any Lord, shall be taken by our Bailiffs; nor we, nor our Bailiffs, nor any other, shall take any man's wood for our Castles, or other our necessaries to be done, but by the licence of him whose wood it shall be.

[22] We will not hold the Lands of them that be convict of Felony but one year and one day, and then those Lands shall be delivered to the Lords of the fee.

[23] All Wears from henceforth shall be utterly put down by Thames and Medway, and through all England, but only by the Sea-coasts.

[24] The Writ that is called Praecipe in capite shall be from henceforth granted to no person of any freehold, whereby any freeman may lose his Court.

[25] One measure of Wine shall be through our Realm, and one measure of Ale, and one measure of Corn, that is to say, the Quarter of London; and one breadth of dyed Cloth, Russets, and Haberjects, that is to say, two Yards within the lists. And it shall be of Weights as it is of Measures.

[26] Nothing from henceforth shall be given for a Writ of Inquisition, nor taken of him that prayeth Inquisition of Life, or of Member, but it shall be granted freely, and not denied.

[27] If any do hold of us by Fee-ferm, or by Socage, or Burgage, and he holdeth Lands of another by Knights Service, we will not have the Custody of his Heir, nor of his Land, which is holden of the Fee of another, by reason of that Fee-ferm, Socage, or Burgage. Neither will we have the custody of such Fee-ferm, or Socage, or Burgage, except Knights Service be due unto us out of the same Fee-ferm. We will not have the custody of the Heir, or of any Land, by occasion of any Petit Serjeanty, that any man holdeth of us by Service to pay a Knife, an Arrow, or the like.

[28] No Bailiff from henceforth shall put any man to his open Law, nor to an Oath, upon his own bare saying, without faithful Witnesses brought in for the same.

[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 otherwise destroyed; nor will we 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.

[30] All Merchants (if they were not openly prohibited before) shall have their safe and sure Conduct to depart out of England, to come into England, to tarry in, and go through England, as well by Land as by Water, to buy and sell without any manner of evil Tolts, by the old and rightful Customs, except in Time of War. And if they be of a land making War against us, and such be found in our Realm at the beginning of the Wars, they shall be attached without harm of body or goods, until it be known unto us , or our Chief Justice, how our Merchants be intreated there in the land making War against us; and if our Merchants be well intreated there, theirs shall be likewise with us.

[31] If any man hold of any Eschete, as of the honour of Wallingford, Nottingham, Boloin, or of any other Eschetes which be in our hands, and are Baronies, and die, his Heir shall give none other Relief, nor do none other Service to us, than he should to the Baron, if it were in the Baron's hand. And we in the same wise shall hold it as the Baron held it; neither shall we have,

by occasion of any such Barony or Eschete, any Eschete or keeping of any of our men, unless he that held the Barony or Eschete hold of us in chief.

[32] No Freeman from henceforth shall give or sell any more of his Land, but so that of the residue of the Lands the Lord of the Fee may have the Service due to him, which belongeth to the Fee.

[33] All Patrons of Abbies, which have the King's Charters of England of Advowson, or have old Tenure or Possession in the same, shall have the Custody of them when they fall void, as it hath been accustomed, and as it is afore declared.

[34] No Man shall be taken or imprisoned upon the Appeal of a Woman for the Death of any other, than of her husband.

[35] No County Court from henceforth shall be holden, but from Month to Month; and where greater time hath been used, there shall be greater: Nor any Sheriff, or his Bailiff, shall keep his Turn in the Hundred but twice in the Year; and nowhere but in due place, and accustomed; that is to say, once after Easter, and again after the Feast of St. Michael. And the View of Frankpledge shall be likewise at the Feast of St. Michael without occasion; so that every man may have his Liberties which he had, or used to have, in the time of King HENRY our Grandfather, or which he hath purchased since: but the View of Frankpledge shall be so done, that our Peace may be kept; and that the Tything be wholly kept as it hath been accustomed; and that the Sheriff seek no Occasions, and that he be content with so much as the Sheriff was wont to have for his Viewmaking in the time of King HENRY our Grandfather.

[36] It shall not be lawful from henceforth to any to give his Lands to any Religious House, and to take the same Land again to hold of the same House. Nor shall it be lawful to any House of Religion to take the Lands of any, and to lease the same to him of whom he received it. If any from henceforth give his Lands to any Religious House, and thereupon be convict, the Gift shall be utterly void, and the Land shall accrue to the Lord of the Fee.

[37] Escuage from henceforth shall be taken like as it was wont to be in the time of King HENRY our Grandfather; reserving to all Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Priors, Templers, Hospitallers, Earls, Barons, and all persons, as well Spiritual as Temporal, all their free liberties and free Customs, which they have had in time passed. And all these Customs and Liberties aforesaid, which we have granted to be holden within this our Realm, as much as appertaineth to us and our Heirs, we shall observe; and all Men of this our Realm, as well Spiritual as Temporal (as much as in them is) shall observe the same against all persons in like wise. And for this our Gift and Grant of these Liberties, and of other contained in our Charter of Liberties of our Forest, the Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Priors, Earls, Barons, Knights, Freeholders, and other our Subjects, have given unto us the Fifteenth Part of all their Moveables. And we have granted unto them for us and our Heirs, that neither we, nor our Heirs shall proc ure or do anything whereby the Liberties in this Charter contained shall be infringed or broken; and if anything be procured by any person contrary to the premisses, it shall be had of no force nor effect. These being Witnesses; Lord B. Archbishop of Cant erbury, E. Bishop of London, J. Bishop of Bathe, P. of Winchester, H. of Lincoln, R. of Salisbury, W. of Rochester, W. of Worester, J. of Ely, H. of Hereford, R. of Chichester, W. of Exeter, Bishops; the Abbot of St. Edmunds, the Abbot of St. Albans, the Abbot of Bello, the Abbot of St. Augustines in Canterbury, the Abbot of Evesham, the Abbot of Westminster, the Abbot of Bourgh St. Peter, the Abbot of Reading, the Abbot of Abindon, the Abbot of Malmsbury, the Abbot of Winchcomb, the Abbot of Hyde, the Abbot of Certefey, the Abbot of Sherburn, the Abbot of Cerne, the Abbot of Abbotebir, the Abbot of Middleton, the Abbot of Seleby, the Abbot of Cirencester; H. de Burgh Justice, H. Earl of Chester and Lincoln, W. Earl of Salisbury, W. Earl of Warren, G. de Clare Earl of Gloucester and Hereford, W. de Ferrars Earl of Derby, W. de Mandeville Earl of Essex, H. de Bygod Earl of Norfolk, W. Earl of Albermarle, H. Earl of Hereford, J. Constable of Chester, R. de Ros, R. Fitzwalter, R. de Vyponte, W. de Bruer, R. de Muntefichet, P. Fitzherbert, W. de Aubenie, F. Grefly, F. de Breus, J. de Monemue, J. Fitzallen, H. de Mortimer, W. de Beauchamp, W. de St. John, P. de Mauly, Brian de Lisle, Thomas de Multon, R. de Argenteyn, G. de Nevil, W. de Mauduit, J. de Balun, and others.

We, ratifying and approving these Gifts and Grants aforesaid, confirm and make strong all the same for us and our Heirs perpetually, and, by the Tenour of these Presents, do renew the same; willing and granting for us and our Heirs, that this Charter, and all and singular his Articles, for ever shall be stedfastly, firmly, and inviolably observed; although some Articles in the same Charter contained, yet hitherto peradventure have not been kept, we will, and by Authority Royal command, from henceforth firmly they be observed. In witness whereof we have caused these our Letters Patents to be made. T. EDWARD our Son at Westminster, the Twenty-eighth Day of March, in the Twenty-eighth Year of our Reign.

Carta Magna. Texto EspanolCláusulas   Notas introductorias     15 de junio de 1215.1  2  3  4  5

6  7  8  9 *10  *11 *12  +13

*14  *15  16 17  18  19 20  21  22

23  24  *25 26  *27  28 29  30  31 32  33  34 35  36  37

38  +39 +40  41

*42  43  44 *45  46  47

*48  *49 *50  *51

*52  *53  54 *55  56  *57 *58  *59  60

*61  *62 *63  

     

Vea texto: ï Latín ï English ï Castellano

© British Library Detalle en tela de Augustus II  

1.

En la Carta Magna las cláusulas no se numeran, y el texto se lee continuamente. El articulado se lo introdujo aquí solamente con fines didácticos

 

2.

Las cláusulas marcadas con (+) son todavía válidas bajo la carta constitucional de 1225, pero con correcciones menores.

 

3.Las cláusulas marcadas con (*) se omitieron en reediciones posteriores de la carta.

 

4.

La cláusula marcada con (º) fue introducida posteriormente ya que no estaba en el documento Artículos de los Barones.

 

5.

Para que tenga sentido la traducción del latín al inglés, la traducción fue interpretativa, no literal. Para esta versión en castellano se uso la versión en inglés.

 

     

     

 © Copyright MMIV by Ermo Quisbert, Jorge Machicado and Margot Mariaca. All rights reserved.

      JUAN, por la gracia de Dios rey de Inglaterra, señor (Lord) de Irlanda, Duque de Normandia y Aquitania y conde de Anjou, a sus arzobispos, obispos, abades, condes, barones, jueces, gobernadores forestales (foresters), corregidores (sheriffs), mayordomos (stewards) y a todos sus bailios y vasallos, Salud.       TODOS QUE ANTE DIOS, para bien de nuestra alma y de la de nuestros antepasados y herederos, en loor a Dios y para mayor gloria de la Santa iglesia, y la mejor ordenación de nuestro Reino, por consejo de nuestros reverendos padres Esteban, arzobispo de Canterbury, primado de toda Inglaterra y cardenal de la Santa iglesia Romana: Enrique, arzobispo de Dublín; Guillermo, obispo de Londres; Pedro, obispo de Winchester; Jocelino, obispo de Bath y Glastonbury; Hugo, obispo de Lincoln; Walter, obispo de Coventry: Benedicto, obispo de Rochester: Maestro Pandolfo, subdiacono y miembro de la

casa papal Hermano Aimerico, maestre de los caballeros templarios en Inglaterra Guillermo Marshall, conde Pembroke Guillermo, conde Salisbury: Guillermo, conde de Warren Guillermo, conde Arundel; Alan de Galloway, condestable de Escocia; Warin Fitz Gerald, Pedro Fitz Herbert, Huberto de Burgh, senescal del Poitou, Hugo de Neville, Mateo Fitz Herbert, Tomas Basset, Alan Basset, Felipe Daubeny, Roberto de Roppeley, Juan Marshall, Juan Fitz Hugh y otros leales vasallos:  

ð1)

PRIMERO, QUE HEMOS OTORGADO EN EL NOMBRE DE DIOS (That we have granted to God), y por la presente Carta hemos confirmado para Nos y nuestros herederos a perpetuidad que la Iglesia inglesa sea libre, conserve todos sus derechos y no vea menoscabadas sus libertades. Que así queremos que sea observado resulta del hecho de que por nuestra libre voluntad, antes de surgir la actual disputa entre Nos y Nuestros barones, concedimos y confirmamos por carta la libertad de las elecciones eclesiasticas--un derecho que se reputa como el de mayor necesidad e importancia para la Iglesia--y la hicimos confirmar por el Papa Inocencio III. Esta libertad es la que Nos mismo observaremos y la que deseamos sea observada de buena fe (in good faith) por nuestros herederos para siempre jamas (in perpetuity).  A TODOS LOS HOMBRES LIBRES DE NUESTRO REINO (To all free men of our Kingdom) hemos otorgado asimismo, para Nos y para nuestros herederos a titulo perpetuo, todas las libertades que a continuacion se enuncian, para que las tengan y posean de Nos y de nuestros herederos para ellos y los suyos:

2)

Si fallece algún conde, barón u otra persona que posea tierras directamente de la Corona, con destino al servicio militar, y a su muerte el heredero fuese mayor de edad y debiera un "censo"(o "relief '), dicho heredero entrará en posesión de la herencia al pagar la antigua tarifa del "censo", es decir, el o los herederos de un conde pagaran 100 (cien) libras por toda la baronía del conde, los herederos

de un caballero (knight) 100 (cien) chelines (shillings) como máximo por todo el "feudo" ("fee") del caballero, y cualquier hombre que deba menor cantidad pagará menos, con arreglo a la usanza antigua de los "feudos".  

3)

Pero si el heredero de esa persona fuese menor de edad y estuviese bajo tutela, cuando alcance la mayoría de edad entrará en posesión de su herencia sin tener que pagar "censo" o derecho (fine) real.

4)

Quien tenga a su cargo la tierra de un heredero menor de edad sólo sacará de ella frutos, las rentas usuales y servicios personales (feudal services), debiéndolo hacer sin destrucción ni daño alguno a los hombres ni a los bienes. En caso de que hayamos confiado la custodia de la tierra a un corregidor o a cualquier persona responsable ante Nos por el producto de aquella, y perpetrase una destrucción o daños, le exigiremos compensación y la tierra será encomendada a dos hombres dignos y prudentes del mismo feudo" (of the same "fee"), que responderán ante Nos del producto o ante la persoria que les asignemos. En caso de que hayamos conferido o vendido a alguien la custodia de esa tierra y de que esa persona cause destrucción o daños, perderá la custodia y el terreno será entregado a dos hombres dignos y prudentes (two worthy and ident men) del mismo "feudo", que serán responsables de modo semejante ante Nos.

5)

Mientras el tutor tenga la custodia de estas tierras, mantendrá las casas, sotos, cotos de pesca, estanques, molinos y demás pertenencias con cargo al producto de la propia tierra. Cuando el heredero llegue a la mayoria de edad, el tutor le hará entrega de todo el predio, surtido con los arados y aperos (implements of husbandry) que la estación requiera y acrecido en el producto que la tierra buenamente sea capaz de dar.

6)

Los herederos podrán ser dados en matrimonio, pero no a alguien de inferior rango social. Antes de que se celebre el casamiento, se avisará a los parientes mas proximos (next-of-kin) del heredero.

7)

A la muerte del marido toda viuda podrá entrar en posesión de su dote y de su cuota hereditaria inmediatamente y sin impedimento alguno. No tendrá que pagar nada por su dote, por presentes matrimoniales o por cualquier herencia que su marido y ella poseyesen conjuntamente el día de la muerte de aquél, y podrá permanecer en la casa de su marido cuarenta días tras la muerte de este, asignándosele durante este plazo su dote.

8)

Ninguna viuda será obligada a casarse mientras desee permanecer sin marido. Pero deberá dar seguridades de que no contraerá matrimonio sin el consentimiento regio, si posee sus tierras con cargo a la Corona, o sin el consentimiento del señor a quien se las deba.

9)

Ni Nos ni nuestros bailíos ocuparemos tierras ni rentas de la tierra en pago de deuda alguna, mientras el deudor tenga bienes muebles (movable goods) suficientes para satisfacer el débito. Los fiadores del deudor no serán apremiados mientras el deudor mismo pueda pagar la deuda. Si por falta de medios el deudor fuese incapaz de satisfacerla, saldrán responsables sus fiadores, quienes, si lo desean, podrán incautarse de las tierras y rentas del deudor hasta que obtengan el reembolso del débito que le hayan pagado, a menos que el deudor pueda probar que ha cumplido sus obligaciones frente a ellos.

*10)

Si alguien que haya tomado prestada una suma de dinero a judios, muriese antes de haberse pagado la deuda, su heredero no pagará interés alguno sobre ésta mientras sea menor de edad, sea quien fuere la persona a la que deba la posesión de sus tierras. Si la deuda

viniese a parar a manos de la Corona, ésta no recabará más que la suma principal indicada en el título (bond).

* 11)

Si un hombre muere debiendo dinero a judios, su mujer podrá entrar en posesion de la dote y no estará obligada a pagar cantidad alguna de la deuda con cargo a aquella. Si deja hijos menores de edad, se podrá proveer a su sustento en una medida adecuada al tamaño de la tierra poseida por el difunto. La deuda deberá ser satisfecha con cargo al remanente, despues de ser reservado el tributo debido a los señores del feudo Del mismo modo se tratarán las deudas que se deban a los no judios.

*12)

No se podrá exigir "fonsadera" ("scutage") ni "auxilio" ("aid") en nuestro Reino sin el consentimiento general, a menos que fuere para el rescate de nuestra persona, para armar caballero a nuestro hijo primogénito y para casar (una sola vez) a nuestra hija mayor. Con este fin solo se podrá establecer un "auxilio" razonable y la misma regla se seguirá con las "ayudas" de la ciudad de Londres.

+13)

La ciudad de Londres gozará de todas sus libertades antiguas y franquicias tanto por tierra como por mar. Asimismo, queremos y otorgamos que las demás ciudades, burgos, poblaciones y puertos gocen de todas sus libertades y franquicias (free customs).

*14)

Para obtener el consentimiento general al establecimiento de un "auxilio" --salvo en los tres casos arriba indicados--o de una "fonsadera" haremos convocar individualmente y por carta a los arzobispos, obispos, abades, duques y barones principales. A quienes posean tierras directamente de Nos haremos dirigir una convocatoria general, a través de los corregidores y otros

agentes, para que se reúnan un día determinado (que se anunciará con cuarenta días, por lo menos, de antelación) y en un lugar señalado. Se hará constar la causa de la convocatoria en todas las cartas de convocación. Cuando se haya enviado una convocatoria, el negocio señalado para el día de la misma se tratará con arreglo a lo que acuerden los presentes, aun cuando no hayan comparecido todos los que hubieren sido convocados.

*15)

En lo sucesivo no permitiremos que nadie exija "ayuda" a alguno de sus vasallos libres (free men) salvo para rescatar su propia persona, para armar caballero a su hijo primogénito y para casar (una vez) a su hija mayor. Con estos fines únicamente se podrá imponer una "ayuda" razonable.

16)

Nadie vendrá obligado a prestar mas servicios para el "feudo" de un caballero (for a knight's "fee") o cualquier otra tierra que posea libremente, que lo que deba por este concepto.

17)

Los litigios ordinarios ante los Tribunales no seguirán por doquier a la corte real, sino que se celebrarán en un lugar determinado.

18)

Sólo podrán efectuarse en el tribunal de condado respectivo las actuaciones sobre "desposesión reciente" (novel disseisin), "muerte de antepasado" (mort d'ancestor) y "última declaración" (darrein presentment). Nos mismo, o, en nuestra ausencia en el extranjero, nuestro Justicia Mayor (Chief justice), enviaremos dos jueces a cada condado cuatro veces al año, y dichos jueces, con cuatro caballeros del condado elegidos por el condado mismo, celebrarán los juicios en el tribunal del condado, el día y en el lugar en que se reúna el tribunal.

19)

Si no pudiese celebrarse audiencia sobre algún caso en la fecha del tribunal de condado, se quedarán allí tantos caballeros y propietarios (freeholders) de los que hayan asistido al tribunal, como sea suficiente para administrar justicia, atendida la cantidad de asuntos que se hayan de ventilar.

20)

Por simple falta un hombre libre será multado únicamente en proporción a la gravedad de la infracción y de modo proporcionado por infracciones mas graves, pero no de modo tan gravoso que se le prive de su medio de subsistencia (livelihood) Del mismo modo, no se le confiscará al mercader su mercancía ni al labrador los aperos de labranza, en caso de que queden a merced de un tribunal real. Ninguna de estas multas podrá ser impuesta sin la estimación de hombres buenos de la vecindad.

21)

Los duques y barones serán multados únicamente por sus pares y en proporción a la gravedad del delito.

22)

Toda multa impuesta sobre bienes temporales (lay property) de un clerigo ordenado se calculará con arreglo a los mismos principios, excluido el valor del beneficio eclesiástico.

23)

Ninguna ciudad ni persona será obligada a construir puentes sobre rios, excepto las que tengan de antiguo la obligacion de hacerlo.

24)

Ningun corregidor (sheriff), capitán (constable) o alguacil (coroner) o bailío podrá celebrar juicios que competan a los jueces reales.

*25)

Todos los condados, partidos, subcondados y aldeas conservarán su renta antigua, sin incremento alguno, excepto las fincas del patrimonio real (the royal demesne manors)

26)

Si a la muerte de un hombre que posea un "feudo" de realengo (a lay "fee" of the Crown), un corregidor o bailío presentase cartas patentes de cobro de deudas a la Corona, será lícita la ocupación e inventario por aquel de los bienes muebles que se encuentren en el feudo de realengo del difunto, hasta el importe de la deuda, segun estimación hecha por hombres-buenos. No se podrá retirar bien alguno mientras no se haya pagado la totalidad de la deuda y entregado el remanente a los albaceas (executors) para que cumplan la voluntad del difunto. Si no se debiese suma alguna a la Corona, todos los bienes muebles se considerarán como propiedad del finado, excepto las partes razonables de su esposa y sus hijos.

*27)

Si un hombre libre muere sin haber hecho testamento (If a free man dies intestate), sus bienes muebles serán distribuidos a sus parientes mas próximos y a sus amigos, bajo la supervisión de la Iglesia, si bien serán salvaguardados los derechos de sus deudores (debtors).

28)

Ningun capitán ni bailío nuestro tomará grano u otros bienes muebles de persona alguna sin pagarlos en el acto, a menos que el vendedor ofrezca espontaneamente el aplazamiento del cobro.

29)

Ningún capitán podrá obligar a un caballero a pagar suma alguna de dinero por la guardia de castillos (castle-guard) si el caballero está dispuesto a hacer la guardia en persona o, dando excusa justificada, a prestar hombres aptos para que la hagan en su lugar. Todo caballero

requerido o enviado a un servicio de armas estará exento de la guardia de castillos durante el período del servicio.

30)

Ningún corregidor, bailío u otra persona podrá tomar de un hombre libre caballos o carros para el transporte sin el consentimiento de aquél.

31)

Ni Nos ni nuestros bailíos llevaremos leña para nuestro castillo o para otra finalidad sin el consentimiento del dueño.

32)

 No retendremos en nuestras manos las tierras de personas condenadas por traición (convicted o felony) mas de un año y un día, despues de lo cual serán devueltas a los señores del "feudo" respectivo.

33)

 Se quitarán todas las empalizadas de pesca del Támesis, del Medway y de toda Inglaterra, excepto las construidas a orillas del mar.

34)

 No se expedirá en lo sucesivo a nadie el requerimiento llamado "precipe" respecto a la posesión de tierras, cuando la expedición del mismo implique la privación para algún hombre libre del derecho a ser juzgado por el tribunal de su propio señor.

35)

 Habrá patrones de medida para el vino, la cerveza y el grano (el cuarto londinense) en todo el Reino, y habrá tambien un patrón para la anchura de las telas teñidas, el pardillo (the russet) y la cota de malla (haberject), concretamente dos varas (two ells) entre las orlas. Del mismo modo habrán de uniformarse los pesos.

36)

 En lo sucesivo no se pagará ni se aceptará nada por la expedición de un auto de investigación de vida y bienes (writ of inquisition of life and limbs), el cual se otorgará gratis y no podrá ser denegado.  

37)

 Si un hombre posee tierras de realengo (lands of the Crown) a título de "feudo en renta perpetua" (by "fee-fanm"), de "servicios" ("socage") o de "renta anual" ("burgage") y posee asimismo tierras de otra persona en concepto de servicio de caballería, no asumiremos la tutela de su heredero ni de la tierra que pertenezca al "feudo" de la otra persona en virtud de la "renta perpetua", de los "servicios" o de la "renta anual", a menos que el "feudo en renta perpetua" esté sujeto a servicio de caballería. No asumiremos la tutela del heredero de un hombre ni la guardia de la tierra que ese hombre poseyera de manos de otro por el hecho de que detente pequeñas propiedades de la Corona a cambio de un servicio de caballeros o arqueros o de indole analoga.  

38)

 En lo sucesivo ningún bailío llevará a los tribunales a un hombre en virtud únicamente de acusaciones suyas, sin presentar al mismo tiempo a testigos directos dignos de crédito sobre la veracidad de aquellas.  

+39)

 Ningún hombre libre podrá ser detenido o encarcelado o privado de sus derechos o de sus bienes, ni puesto fuera de la ley ni desterrado o privado de su rango de cualquier otra forma, ni usaremos de la fuerza contra él ni enviaremos a otros que lo hagan, sino en virtud de sentencia judicial de sus pares y con arreglo a la ley del reino.  

+40)

 No venderemos, denegaremos ni retrasaremos a nadie su derecho ni la justicia.

41)

 Todos los mercaderes podrán entrar en Inglaterra y salir de ella sin sufrir daño y sin temor, y podrán permanecer en el reino y viajar dentro de el, por vía terrestre o acuática, para el ejercicio del comercio, y libres de toda exacción ilegal, con arreglo a los usos antiguos y legítimos. Sin embargo, no se aplicará lo anterior en época de guerra a los mercaderes de un territorio que esté en guerra con nosotros. Todos los mercaderes de ese territorio hallados en nuestro reino al comenzar la guerra serán detenidos, sin que sufran daño en su persona o en sus bienes, hasta que Nos o nuestro Justicia Mayor hayamos descubierto como se trata a nuestros comerciantes en el territorio que esté en guerra con nosotros, y si nuestros comerciantes no han sufrido perjuicio, tampoco lo sufrirán aquéllos.

*42)

 En lo sucesivo todo hombre podrá dejar nuestro reino y volver a él sin sufrir daño y sin temor, por tierra o por mar, si bien manteniendo su vínculo de fidelidad con Nos, excepto en época de guerra, por un breve lapso y para el bien común del Reino. Quedarán exceptuadas de esta norma las personas que hayan sido encarceladas o puestas fuera de la ley con arreglo a la ley del reino, las personas de territorios que estén en guerra con Nos y los mercaderes--que serán tratados del modo indicado anteriormente.

43)

 Si algún hombre poseyera tierras de "reversion" ("escheat"), tales como el "honor" de Wallington, Nottingham, Boulogne, Lancaster o de otras "reversiones" en nuestro poder que sean baronías, a la muerte de aquel su heredero nos pagará únicamente el "derecho de sucesión" (relief) y el servicio que habría tenido que pagar al barón en el caso de que la baronía se hubiese hallado en manos de este, y Nos retendremos lo "revertido" del mismo modo que lo tenia el barón.

44)

 Las personas que vivan fuera de los bosques no estarán obligadas en lo sucesivo a comparecer ante los jueces reales forestales en virtud de requerimientos generales, a menos que se hallen efectivamente implicadas en actuaciones o sean fiadores de alguien que haya sido detenido por un delito forestal.

*45)

 No nombraremos jueces, capitanes, corregidores ni bailíos sino a hombres que conozcan las leyes del Reino y tengan el propósito de guardarlas cabalmente.

46)

 Todos los barones que hayan fundado abadías y que tengan cartas patentes de reyes de Inglaterra o posesión de antiguo en prueba de ellos podrán ejercer el patronato de aquellas cuando estén vacantes (when there is no abbot), como en derecho les corresponde.

47)

 Todos los bosques que se hayan plantado durante nuestro reinado serán talados sin demora, y lo mismo se hará con las orillas de los ríos que hayan sido cercadas durante nuestro reinado.  

*48)

 Todos los malos usos en materia de bosques y cotos de caza (warren), guardabosques, guardacotos, corregidores y sus bailíos, o de orillas de rios por guardianes de estas, deberán ser inmediatamente objeto de investigación en cada condado por doce caballeros juramentados del propio condado, y antes de cumplirse los cuarenta dias de la investigación esos malos usos deberán ser abolidos total e irrevocablemente, si bien Nos, y de no estar Nos en Inglaterra Nuestro Justicia Mayor, deberemos ser informados primero.

*49)

 Devolveremos inmediatamente todos los rehenes y cartas que nos han sido entregados por los ingleses como garantía de paz o de lealtad en el servicio.

*50)

 Separaremos completamente de sus cargos a los parientes de Gerardo de Athee, quienes no podrán en lo sucesivo ejercer cargos en Inglaterra. Las personas en cuestión son Engelardo de Cigogne. Pedro Guy y Andres de Chanceaux, Guy de Ggogne, Godofredo de Martigny y sus hermanos. Felipe Marc y sus herederos hermanos, con Godofredo su sobrino, y todos sus seguidores.

*51)

 Tan pronto como se restablezca la paz, expulsaremos del reino a todos los caballeros y arqueros extranjeros, a sus servidores y a los mercenarios que hayan entrado con daño para el reino. con sus caballos y sus armas.

*52)

 A quien hayamos privado o desposeído de tierras, castillos, libertades o derechos sin legítimo juicio de sus pares se los devolveremos en el acto. En casos litigiosos el asunto será resuelto por el juicio de los veinticinco barones a que se refiere más adelante la cláusula de garantía de la paz. En el supuesto, sin embargo, de que algún hombre haya sido privado o desposeído de algo que esté fuera del ámbito legítimo de enjuiciamiento de sus pares por nuestro padre el Rey Enrique o nuestro hermano Ricardo, y que permanezca en nuestras manos o esté en posesión de terceros por concesión nuestra, tendremos una moratoria por el período generalmente concedido a los Cruzados, a menos que estuviese pendiente un litigio judicial o que se hubiese entablado una indagación por orden nuestra, antes de que tomáramos la Cruz en calidad de Cruzados. A nuestro regreso de la Cruzada o, si desistimos de ella, haremos inmediatamente justicia por entero:

*53)

 Tendremos derecho a la misma moratoria en la administración de justicia relacionada con los bosques que hayan de ser talados o permanecer como tales, cuando estos hayan sido originariamente plantados por nuestro padre Enrique o nuestro hermano Ricardo; con la guardia de tierras que pertenezcan a "feudo" de un tercero, en el supuesto de que la hayamos ejercido hasta ahora en virtud de algun "feudo" concedido por Nos a un tercero a cambio de servicios de caballería, y con las abadías fundadas en "feudos" de terceros en las cuales el señor del "feudo" reivindique un derecho propio. En estas materias haremos entera justicia a los recursos cuando regresemos de la Cruzada o inmediatamente si desistimos de ella.

54)

 Nadie será detenido o encarcelado por denuncia de una mujer por motivo de la muerte de persona alguna, salvo el marido de aquella.

*55)

 Todas las multas que se nos hayan pagado injustamente y contra la ley del reino, y todas las multas que hayamos impuesto sin razón, quedan totalmente remitidas o bien serán resueltas por sentencia mayoritaria de los veinticinco varones a que se refiere mas adelante la claúsula de salvaguardia de la paz, así como de Esteban, arzobispo de Canterbury, si pudiere asistir, y cuantos otros quiera el traer consigo. Si el arzobispo no puede asistir, continuarán las actuaciones sin él, pero si uno cualquiera de los veinticinco barones fuere parte en el litigio, no se tendrá en cuenta su juicio y se elegirá y tomará juramento a otro en su lugar, como suplente para la materia en cuestion, por el resto de los veinticinco.

56)

En caso de que hayamos privado o desposeido a algún gales de tierras, libertades o cualquier otro bien en Inglaterra o en Gales, sin legítima sentencia de sus pares, aquellas le serán devueltas sin demora. Todo litigio en la materia será dirimido en las Marcas (in the Marches) mediante sentencia de los pares de la parte. Se aplicará la ley inglesa a las tierras que se posean en Inglaterra, la ley galesa a las que posean en Gales y la de las Marcas a las que se posean en las

Marcas. Los galeses nos tratarán a Nos y a los nuestros de la misma manera.

*57)

 En caso de que un galés haya sido privado o desposeído de algo, sin haber mediado legítima sentencia de sus pares, por  nuestro padre el Rey Enrique o nuestro hermano el Rey Ricardo y el bien en cuestión permanezca en nuestro poder o esté en posesión de terceros por concesión nuestra, tendremos moratoria por el lapso generalmente reconocido a los Cruzados, a menos que estuviese ya pendiente algún litigio judicial o se hubiese entablado una indagación por orden nuestra, antes de tomar Nos la Cruz como Cruzado, pero a nuestro regreso de la Cruzada o de modo inmediato si desistimos de ella, haremos plenamente justicia con arreglo a las leyes de Gales y de dichas regiones.

*58)

 Devolveremos en seguida al hijo de Llyvelyn, a todos los rehenes galeses y las cartas que se nos hayan entregado en garantía de la paz.

*59)

 Respecto a la devolución de las hermanas y rehenes de Alejandro, Rey de Escocia, y de los derechos y libertades de éste, le trataremos del mismo modo que nuestros demás barones de Inglaterra, a menos que resulte de las cartas que nos concedió su padre Guillermo, anteriormente Rey de Escocia, que deba ser tratado de otro modo. Esta materia será dirimida por el juicio de sus pares en nuestro tribunal.

60)

 Todas las franquicias y libertades que hemos otorgado serán observadas en nuestro reino en cuanto se refiera a nuestras relaciones con nuestros súbditos. Que todos los hombres de nuestro reino, sean clérigos o legos, las observen de modo semejante en sus relaciones con sus propios vasallos.

*61)

 POR CUANTO HEMOS OTORGADO TODO LO QUE ANTECEDE ("SINCE WE HAVE GRANTED ALL THESE THINGS") por Dios, por la mejor gobernación de nuestro Reino y para aliviar la discordia que ha surgido entre Nos y nuestros barones, y por cuanto deseamos que esto sea disfrutado en su integridad, con vigor para siempre, damos y otorgamos a los barones la garantia siguiente:       Los barones elegiran a veinticinco entre ellos para que guarden y hagan cumplir con todo el poder que tengan, la paz y las libertades otorgadas y confirmadas para ellos por la presente Carta.       Si Nos, nuestro Justicia Mayor, nuestros agentes o cualquiera de nuestros bailios cometiese algun delito contra un hombre o violase alguno de los artículos de paz o de la presente garantía, y se comunicase el delito a cuatro de los citados veinticinco barones, los informados vendrán ante Nos --o en ausencia nuestra del reino, ante el Justicia Mayor-- para denunciarlo y solicitar reparacion inmediata. Si Nos, o en nuestra ausencia del Reino el Justicia Mayor, no dieramos reparación dentro de los cuarenta días siguientes, contados desde aquél en que el delito haya sido denunciado a Nos o a él. Los cuatro barones darán traslado del caso al resto de los veinticinco, los cuales podrán usar de apremio contra Nos y atacarnos de cualquier modo, con el apoyo de toda la comunidad del Reino, apoderándose de nuestros castillos, tierras, posesiones o cualquier otro bien, excepto nuestra propia persona y las de la reina y nuestros hijos, hasta que consigan efectivamente la reparación que hayan decretado. Una vez obtenida satisfacción, podran volver a someterse a la normal obediencia a Nos.       Todo hombre que lo desee podrá prestar juramento de obedecer las órdenes de los veinticinco barones para la consecución de estos fines y de unirse a ellos para acometernos en toda la medida de su poder. Damos permiso solemne e irrestricto de prestar dicho juramento a cualquier hombre que así lo desee y en ningún momento prohibiremos a nadie que lo preste; mas aún, obligaremos a cualquiera de nuestros súbditos que no quiera prestarlo a que lo preste por orden nuestra.

      Si alguno de los veinticinco barones muere o abandona el país o se ve impedido por otra razón de ejercitar sus funciones, los restantes elegirán a otro barón en su lugar, según su libre arbitrio, y el elegido prestará el mismo juramento que los demás.       En caso de discrepancia entre los veinticinco barones sobre cualquier asunto que se haya sometido a su decisión, el juicio de la mayoría presente tendrá la misma validez que un pronunciamiento unánime de los veinticinco, tanto si éstos estuviesen todos presentes como si alguno de los convocados estuviera impedido de comparecer o no hubiera querido hacerlo.       Los veinticinco barones jurarán obediencia fiel a los artículos anteriores y harán que sean cumplidos por los demás en la medida del poder que tengan.       No intentaremos conseguir de nadie, ya por acción nuestra ya por medio de terceros, cosa alguna por la cual una parte de estas concesiones o libertades pueda quedar revocada o mermada. Si se consiguiese semejante cosa, se tendrá por nula y sin efecto y no haremos uso de ella en ningun momento, ni personalmente ni a través de terceros.

*62)

 Hemos condonado y perdonado por completo a todos cualquier intención torticera, daño y agravio que haya podido surgir entre Nos y nuestros súbditos, ya sean clérigos o legos, desde el comienzo de la disputa. Además, hemos remitido totalmente, y por nuestra parte hemos perdonado también, a cualesquiera clérigos y legos todos los delitos cometidos como consecuencia de la citada disputa entre la Pascua (Easter) del decimosexto año de nuestro reinado y la restauración de la paz.       Hemos ordenado asimismo cursar cartas patentes para los barones en testimonio de la presente garantía y de las concesiones indicadas anteriormente, con los sellos de Esteban, arzobispo de Canterbury;

Enrique, arzobispo de Dublin, los demás obispos arriba mencionados y el Maestro Pandolfo.

*63)

 EN CONSECUENCIA ES NUESTRO REAL DESEO Y NUESTRA REAL ORDEN que la Iglesia de Inglaterra sea libre y que todos los hombres en nuestro Reino tengan y guarden todas estas libertades, derechos y concesiones legítima y pacificamente en su totalidad e integridad para si mismos y para sus herederos, en cualesquiera asuntos y lugares y para siempre.       Tanto Nos como los barones hemos jurado que todo esto se observará de buena fe y sin engaño alguno, de lo cual son testigos las personas antedichas y muchas otras.       Dado de nuestro puño y letra en el prado que se llama Runnymede, entre Windsor y Staines, el día decimoquinto del mes de junio del decimoséptimo año de nuestro reinado. Fuente: La traducción fue realizada de la versión inglesa de la que tiene la British Library, que a su vez fue hecha del latín. 

      http://www.bl.uk/collections/treasures/magnatranslation.html © British Library

       http://www.britannia.com/history/magna2.html

© Copyright ©1999 by Britannia.com 

      gopher://ulima.edu.pe:70/00/ccpp/seccion1/cextr/europa/granbret.txt/© José Miguel Vidal. Universidad de Lima (Perú)

       http://www.der.uva.es/constitucional/verdugo/carta_magna.html

Participant list

Barons, Bishops and Abbots who were party to Magna Carta.[13]

Barons

Surety Barons for the enforcement of Magna Carta:

William d'Albini , Lord of Belvoir Castle. Roger Bigod , Earl of Norfolk and Suffolk. Hugh Bigod , Heir to the Earldoms of Norfolk and Suffolk. Henry de Bohun , Earl of Hereford. Richard de Clare , Earl of Hertford. Gilbert de Clare , heir to the earldom of Hertford. John FitzRobert , Lord of Warkworth Castle. Robert Fitzwalter , Lord of Dunmow Castle. William de Fortibus , Earl of Albemarle. William Hardell , **Mayor of the City of London. William de Huntingfield , Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk. John de Lacie , Lord of Pontefract Castle. William de Lanvallei , Lord of Standway Castle. William Malet , Sheriff of Somerset and Dorset. Geoffrey de Mandeville , Earl of Essex and Gloucester. William Marshall jr, heir to the earldom of Pembroke . Roger de Montbegon , Lord of Hornby Castle, Lancashire. Richard de Montfichet , Baron. William de Mowbray , Lord of Axholme Castle. Richard de Percy , Baron. Saire/Saher de Quincey , Earl of Winchester. Robert de Roos , Lord of Hamlake Castle. Geoffrey de Saye , Baron. Robert de Vere , heir to the earldom of Oxford. Eustace de Vesci , Lord of Alnwick Castle.

Bishops

These bishops being witnesses (mentioned by the King as his advisers in the decision to sign the Charter):

Stephen Langton , Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, Henry, Archbishop of Dublin E. Bishop of London, J. Bishop of Bath, P. Bishop of Winchester, H. Bishop of Lincoln, R. Bishop of Salisbury, W. Bishop of Rochester, W. Bishop of Worcester,

J. Bishop of Ely, H. Bishop of Hereford, R. Bishop of Chichester, W. Bishop of Exeter.

Abbots

These abbots being witnesses:

the Abbot of St. Edmunds the Abbot of St. Albans the Abbot of Bello the Abbot of St. Augustines in Canterbury the Abbot of Evesham the Abbot of Westminster the Abbot of Peterborough the Abbot of Reading the Abbot of Abingdon the Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey the Abbot of Winchcomb the Abbot of Hyde the Abbot of Certesey the Abbot of Sherborne the Abbot of Cerne the Abbot of Abbotebir the Abbot of Middleton the Abbot of Selby the Abbot of Cirencester the Abbot of Hartstary

Others

Llywelyn the Great Also the other Welsh Princes Master Pandulff, subdeacon and member of the Papal Household Brother Aymeric, Master of the Knights Templar in England Alexander II of Scotland

Notes

1. ^ a b (Magna Carta) (1297) (c. 9). UK Statute Law Database. Retrieved on 2007-09-02. 2. ̂ http://www.dca.gov.uk/judicial/speeches/lcj150605.htm 3. ̂ KLOPFER v. NORTH CAROLINA, 386 U.S. 213 (1967) 4. ̂ Browning, Charles Henry (1898). "The Magna Charta Described", The Magna Charta Barons and Their American

Descendants..., p. 50. OCLC 9378577.  5. ̂ Homepage. Lincoln Cathedral. Retrieved on 2007-09-02. (Select "Visits & Events" > "Magna Carta" to navigate to the page

with this information.) 6. ̂ Byrd, Robert (2000-06-15). "Magna Carta" (pdf). Congressional Record — Senate. ISSN 0363-7239. OCLC 2437919.

Retrieved on 2006-09-26.  7. ̂ "Magna Carta tops British day poll", BBC News, 2006-05-30. Retrieved on 2007-09-02.  8. ̂ Knight, Alec (2004-04-17). Magna Charta Our Heritage and Yours. National Society Magna Charta Dames and Barons.

Retrieved on 2007-09-02. 9. ̂ Magna Carta & Four Foundations of Freedom. Contemporary Art Center of Virginia (2007). Retrieved on 2007-09-02. 10. ̂ By Our Heirs Forever. Contemporary Art Center of Virginia (2007). Retrieved on 2007-09-02. 11. ̂ National Constitution Center (2007-05-30). Magna Carta on Display Beginning July 4. Press release. Retrieved on 2007-09-02. 12. ̂ Magna Carta: Where Can I See A Copy?. Icons: A Portrait of England. Culture Online. Retrieved on 2007-09-02.

13. ̂ Magna Charta translation, Magna Charta Surety Baron Listing, Magna Charta Period Feudal Estates

References

"Magna Carta" . In Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Article from Australia's Parliament House about the relevance of Magna Carta J. C. Holt (1992). Magna Carta. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-27778-7.  Jennings: Magna Carta and its influence in the world today H. Butterfield; Magna Carta in the Historiography of the 16th and 17th Centuries G.R.C. Davis; Magna Carta J. C. Dickinson; The Great Charter G. B. Adams; Constitutional History of England A. Pallister; Magna Carta the Legacy of Liberty A. Lyon; Constitutional History of the United Kingdom G. Williams and J. Ramsden; Ruling Britannia, A Political History of Britain 1688-1988 Royal letter promulgating the text of Magna Carta (1215), treasure 3 of the British Library displayed via The

European Library

See also

Divine Right of Kings Fundamental Laws of England History of democracy Joyous Entry Magna Carta Place

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Magna Carta

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Magna Carta

Official text of Magna Carta 1297 (c. 9) as amended and in force today within the United Kingdom, from the UK Statute Law Database

"Treasures in Full: Magna Carta" , two copies from 1215 from the British Library in multi-media format. Annotated English translation of 1215 version "Magna Carta" Side-by-side Latin with English translation] magnacharta.com "Magna Carta and Its American Legacy" The influence of Magna Carta on the United States Constitution and Bill of

Rights historicaldocuments.com Parliament House, Canberra, Australia The Magna Carta English translations. Project Gutenberg celebratory etext 10000 Text of Magna Carta English translation, with introductory historical note. From the Internet Medieval Sourcebook. Notes prepared by Nancy Troutman Magna Carta glossary