Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of plates
- Preface
- Preface to second edition
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- 1 The Charter and its history
- 2 Government and society in the twelfth Century
- 3 Privilege and liberties
- 4 Custom and law
- 5 Justice and jurisdiction
- 6 Crisis and civil war
- 7 Quasi Pax
- 8 The quality of the Great Charter
- 9 The achievement of 1215
- 10 From distraint to war
- 11 The re-issues and the beginning of the myth
- Appendices
- References
- Index
1 - The Charter and its history
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of plates
- Preface
- Preface to second edition
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- 1 The Charter and its history
- 2 Government and society in the twelfth Century
- 3 Privilege and liberties
- 4 Custom and law
- 5 Justice and jurisdiction
- 6 Crisis and civil war
- 7 Quasi Pax
- 8 The quality of the Great Charter
- 9 The achievement of 1215
- 10 From distraint to war
- 11 The re-issues and the beginning of the myth
- Appendices
- References
- Index
Summary
In 1215 Magna Carta was a failure. It was intended as a peace and it provoked war. It pretended to State customary law and it promoted disagreement and contention. It was legally valid for no more than three months, and even within that period its terms were never properly executed. Yet it was revived in the re-issues of 1216, 1217 and 1225. The last version became law, to be confirmed and interpreted in Parliament and enforced in the courts of law. Three of its chapters still stand on the English Statute Book. These embody, with some slight and occasional amendments, four of the original provisions of 1215. No other English legal enactment has enjoyed such long life. Some of these measures survived because they seemed to have a specific value. Until 1970, for example, the prohibition of fish-weirs in cap. 23 still sought to preserve navigation on the Thames and other rivers. Some survived because they were harmless confirmations of rights and privileges conveyed by other instruments. Hence the Charter still declares that the English church shall be free and still confirms, but does not define, the privileges of the city of London and other towns and boroughs. But the other surviving clause states deeper principles and less restricted privileges. At the other extreme from the fish-weirs of cap. 23 there Stands cap. 29, which lays down that no free man is to be imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, exiled or damaged without lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Magna Carta , pp. 1 - 22Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992