The men who put together Magna Carta were concerned, among other things, about their wives and sisters and daughters and other female relatives who would, by a husband or father's death, be made heiresses or widows. Widows – the subject of this essay – appear in clauses 7, 8, and 11 of the 1215 Charter, and in clause 7 of the 1225 version, in the context of their remarriage, maritagium, inheritance, and dower. All those provisions were intended for their protection. As the result, for several generations the reaction to Henry II and his sons moved beyond merely curtailing abuses to creating a climate favourable to women who had lost their husbands. Paul Brand has argued that, by the end of the thirteenth century, attitudes had shifted to make dower, at least, less an automatic entitlement to a valid marriage; in any event, it is certain that in the following century dower became less secure. But that has nothing to do with the world of King John and Magna Carta. The intent here is to discuss the background to the Charter provisions and analyse their practical effects.

The drafters of Magna Carta had reason for their concern. Widows in England had long been the subject of royal intervention. Perhaps it is because they were vulnerable and needed protection – they are classed as personae miserabilis, persons to be cared for, at canon law – or perhaps it is because they were potentially disruptors of the orderly transmission of property from generation to generation, or because there was uneasiness about a grown woman free to some extent to make her own marital choices.

Henry I's coronation charter promised that a childless surviving wife should have her dower and maritagium and that she would not be given in marriage except according to her will. If she had children, she would have dower and maritagium so long as she ‘kept her body honestly’ and again there was the provision on remarriage. Henry's barons were told ‘likewise to restrain themselves towards the sons and daughters and wives of their men’. But Henry did not restrain himself; the only pipe roll remaining from his reign shows women making payments for dower and/or maritagium and fining not to take a husband. As women in his gift, they had no choice but to bargain with him.

It is certainly a testament to the vitality of Magna Carta that a conference invoking its name was held in Pennsylvania almost 800 years after Runnymede. This volume has its genesis in that conference, ‘Magna Carta and the World of King John’, at Pennsylvania State University in March 2008. As it happened, all the papers presented there dealt primarily with England, hence the change in the title of this book. Together, they explore the economic, social, political, and personal factors which ultimately affected the relationship of king and subjects. To borrow the title of a recent volume, their theme might be said to be ‘Why Magna Carta?’

In both the United States and the United Kingdom, books and articles with interpretations and analyses of the Charter have appeared regularly. Their focus has shifted over time. Nineteenth century work tended to concentrate on constitutional and political history, speculating on thirteenth-century political thought and often tracing the effect of various Charter provisions on one or more later periods in British history. There was also a tendency to inject an author's view of the morality of barons and/or king into the discussion; John Hudson touches on both points in his essay here when he speaks of historians’ former tendency to write in terms of ‘the nature of political thinking amongst the lay elite’ and of ‘the moral terms in which the question of … lay ideals for reform in 1215 used to be posed – for example, how far were the barons of 1215 self-interested, how far altruistic.’ Particularly in the second half of the twentieth century, that focus shifted. Historians concerned themselves with exploring the social and economic networks of early thirteenth century England, as well as tracing the background of specific grievances, which led the barons to embark on what David Crouch in his essay refers to as the Barons’ Rebellion. In part this may reflect changing trends in the discipline of history, but in part it must be related to the vast increase in the number of primary sources readily available to historians, thanks to the publications of county record societies, The National Archives, the Selden Society, the Ames Foundation, and other groups both British and American. The plea rolls, charters, pipe rolls, and various administrative records have led to a more nuanced view of John's governance and its reception by his subjects, baronial or other.