MAGNA CHARTA LIBERTATUM. — This name denotes the foundational act of English constitutional life issued by King JOHN Lackland on 19 June 1215 at the demand of rebellious English barons. The value and significance of the Magna Carta of 1215 were, however, not originally those that came to be affirmed through an often inchoate development over several centuries, down to the Revolution of 1688 and beyond.
The English monarchy of the Plantagenets had, in the 12th century, sought—thanks to HENRY II and RICHARD the Lionheart—to establish a strong centralized royal government, thereby suppressing feudal particularism. This had not been achieved easily: the monarchy had had to make concessions, such as the Constitutions of Clarendon of 1164 and the Assizes of Clarendon of 1166.
JOHN Lackland, a man of great ambition but limited political ability, failed to preserve the gains secured by his father and brother. His conflicts with PHILIP II Augustus of France and with Pope INNOCENT III drove him to fiscal measures that provoked protest and resistance from the clergy and nobility, who were determined to defend their rights and immunities. In May 1215, the great feudal lords marched in arms on London and on 15 June presented to King John at Runnymede, between Staines and Windsor, their *Capitula*, which already contained the essential principles of the Magna Carta, which the king sealed four days later.
The Magna Carta granted to the Church of England its traditional rights and liberties, among the principal of which were the freedom of ecclesiastical elections and the right to appeal to the Roman Curia without seeking royal consent; to the barons it conceded the respect of all ancient fiscal, military, and feudal rights. All cities, boroughs, and towns were to retain their customary liberties. The Magna Carta also included other administrative provisions: a commitment to appoint judges, sheriffs, and bailiffs who were well-versed in the laws of the realm and would not tyrannize the people; to restore sums exacted by way of amercement; not to imprison or condemn any subject except by lawful judgment of his peers; not to levy taxes except with the common counsel of the realm, for which he would summon bishops, abbots, earls, and barons at least forty days before the meeting. The barons were to elect twenty-five representatives to ensure the observance of the peace and liberties granted.
The Magna Carta undoubtedly represents a weakening of the monarchical autocracy established by the kings of the 12th century, but to the advantage of the feudal caste. This caste took advantage of King John’s weakness to react victoriously against royal despotism, though it sought only practical provisions for governance, framed in a feudal spirit, and restored customary guarantees that had been superseded. On the contrary, there was no assertion of rights pertaining to a collective or popular or class entity. Yet while acknowledging that the Magna Carta addresses the particular interests of various feudal and ecclesiastical groups, one cannot deny that its clauses, in their theoretical indecision, permitted varied interpretations and thus paved the way for the grand theoretical construction that became what is commonly called the English parliamentary constitution.
Strange were the vicissitudes through which the Magna Carta passed in the 13th century: immediately after its approval, the king appealed to Pope INNOCENT III, who on 24 August declared the document null and void as inequitable and prejudicial to the rights of the king and the pope. The new king, HENRY III, however, at the urging of a papal legate, solemnly confirmed it in 1216; but he later proved unable either to uphold or to abolish it, so that in 1238 the Great Council, which was beginning to call itself Parliament, rose against the disorderly rule of the king’s favorites, and the reformers formed a league that imposed the convocation of a Committee of Twenty-Five for the reform of the state. Thus came the Provisions of Oxford, a developed reaffirmation of the Magna Carta of 1215; and later, after an attempt by the king to evade the application of the Provisions of Oxford, a further reworking in the Provisions of Westminster. Even then, however, there was no durable system capable of controlling the monarchy; the king could at will convene Parliament, still essentially a feudal assembly. Only in the political struggles of the 14th century did the charter of 1215 undergo a more vigorous and innovative development, as a result of the activity of the towns, in a wholly new situation.