Carta

There was no English translation of Magna Carta until more than three hundred years after the famous charter, written in Latin, first appeared.

Now that we know what the words Magna Charta mean, it is time to ask what the Charta was, how it came to be granted in the time of King John, and why it is that Englishmen have always given it so important a place in the history of their country.

The most notable of these occasions was that on which the Magna Carta, a reaffirmation of feudal rights, was presented to King John and his agreement to it extracted. The assembly of tenants-in-chief which met on the island of Runnymede to impose the Carta upon John was called a ‘parliament’.

On June 15, 2015, the Magna Carta, the forerunner of the concept of due process, celebrated its 800th anniversary. The Carta is one of the world’s most recognized symbols of liberty under law.

Figure 7.1(b) portrays the attempt by English barons (and clergy) to constrain the oppressive rule of King John by forcing him to sign the Carta and thereby grant them liberties and privileges and limit his authority. From today’s perspective, this is a snapshot of a momentous event in English constitutional history. At that time, however, the Carta was a short-lived agreement that was renounced only a few months later. The constitutional development that followed the Magna Carta was a protracted process with many reversals.