‘We have also granted to all the free men of our realm for ourselves and our heirs for ever (in perpetuum) all the liberties written below.’ Thus cap. 1 of Magna Carta. The words are repeated in cap. 63 in corroboration –‘the men in our realm shall have and hold all the aforesaid liberties … … for ever (in perpetuum), as is aforesaid’. The immediate precedent is contained in the Charter itself. Cap. 1 opens – ‘In the first place [we have] granted to God and by this our present charter have confirmed, for us and our heirs in perpetuity, that the English church shall be free … ’, and also – ‘we conceded and confirmed by our charter, freedom of elections … which we shall observe and wish our heirs to observe in good faith in perpetuity’. Here the Charter repeated John's grant of freedom of election to the church of 21 November 1214 – ‘libere sint in perpetuum elections’. So cap. 1 of the Charter elides very easily from the liberties of the church to the liberties of the realm. It is as if ecclesiastical liberties infected all the rest, the whole placed within the broader notion of free and perpetual alms, the community of freemen viewed as if it were as permanent and undying as the church itself with all its component institutions. If so, the infection was a strong one; all subsequent reissues of the Charter and the Charter of the Forest are grants made in perpetuity.

Similar language was used for individuals – in ordinary grants occasionally, in quitclaims more frequently, in warranty clauses commonly. That apart, the norm was a simple concession from the grantor and his heirs to the recipient and his heirs. Earlier in the Anglo-Norman world hereditary tenure by laymen and perpetual tenure by the church had grown up side by side, the one reinforcing the other in the act of benefaction; indeed the earliest grants to the reformed Norman church were expressed in the language of perpetual inheritance.