# The Magna Carta was signed 800 years ago today. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 15, 2015, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-magna-carta-was-signed-800-years-ago-today/722574 "2015-06-15T12:48:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-magna-carta-was-signed-800-years-ago-today/722574/21 "2015-06-17T08:51:43Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > You’re acting like that’s some trivial point. “Well, everyone else already had to obey the law. So the Magna Carta only extended that to one more person. No big deal.” But the King was a pretty significant exception even if he was only one person. So telling the King he had to obey the same laws that everyone else had to obey was a big deal. But the point is that the _law_ already covered the King. The Baron’s whole point was that John was \*breaking \*the law. > [@Sumption](#): > > The great English political theorist of the generation before Magna Carta was John of Salisbury, who wrote his major work, the Policraticus, in the 1150s. He believed that the difference between a King and a tyrant was that a king ruled by law. \*\*Kings, he taught, were subject to legal constraints which protected the liberty of the individual from arbitrary government. **These constraints the King could not simply change at will. By comparison a tyrant had no greater authority for his acts > than physical force. N**ow, I cite John of Salisbury not because his views were particularly original, but because they were entirely commonplace… > > So, it is true that Magna Carta stands for the rule of law. But it is not true that Magna Carta was the origin of the principle. The English Kings had doubtless broken the law quite frequently before Magna Carta, and they continued to break it afterwards. But the idea that the King was subject to law had for a very long time been part of the orthodoxy of medieval constitutional thought both in England and elsewhere. **The barons did not invent it at Runnymede.** Their object was to define what the law was. **No one doubted that whatever it was, the King was subject to it** (Bolding mine.) > [@Little Nemo](#): > > And while it’s true that the majority of the Magna Carta was concerned about contractual obligations between the King and the nobility, the sections I referred to applied to all free men. No. Most free men would have their disputes adjudicated by the King’s Justices, who were not bound by Magna Carta. Only the tenants-in-chief had justice directly from the King, who is the “we” in the passage you quote. It’s a specific promise that the King will treat his barons the way he ought to treat them, according to the existing law. And again, it was perfectly alright under Magna Carta for a King to arrest his barons for any reason whatsoever, provided he only signed a bit of paper saying he thought it was a good idea. It’s interesting to compare Magna Carta’s position on selling justice with this clause in Henry I’s Coronation Charter, which predates Magna Carta by 115 years and which influenced Magna Carta greatly: > [@Henry I](#): > > If any of my barons or tenants commit a crime, he shall not bind himself to **a payment at the king’s mercy** as he has been doing in the time of my father or my brother; but he shall make amends according to the extent of the crime as he would have done before the time of my father in the time of my other ancestors. But if he be convicted of treachery or heinous crime, he shall make due satisfaction for it. The “…in the time of my other ancestors” phrasing is a reference to a pre-existing legal framework that prevented the king from dispensing “justice” according to his whim. It was understood in 1100 that this was the base state of affairs and that deviations from it were unjust. > [@Little Nemo](#): > > Finally, there’s the reality of subsequent history. You can look at the way the monarchy developed in England with the Magna Carta and compare it to the way other monarchies developed in Europe in places without an equivalent check on monarchic powers. There are a couple of other factors to take into consideration: 1. The Plantagenets struggled to develop absolute power because they fought each other for the crown. Not in a constitutional struggle, but in a naked attempt to become Big Boss. If, say, Richard II had been a strong, capable ruler the development of the monarchy would have been very different, Magna Carta or none. 2. Parliament. The development of Parliament had nothing to do with Magna Carta but was the major check on the monarchy, especially as its power to raise taxation increased while cash from feudal tithes diminished. 3. Union of the Crowns - the introduction of a new monarchy with little relationship to the existing polity, and a new polity with its own relationship with the new monarchy, was somewhat disruptive. Even discounting these fairly massive confounding factors, I’d argue that the Tudor version of monarchy didn’t fall far short of anything you’d see from a Bourbon. And of course the Stuart kings were so committed to absolute monarchy that it took rebellion and decapitation to bring them in line. It can’t be stressed enough that by the time of the Tudors, Magna Carta was defunct. And yes, as discussed, Coke in particular referred to Magna Carta in his conflict with the Crown over the limits of its authority. But his was a mythic interpretation, and it is this myth, rather than the actual 1215/1225 document, which played a founding role in the development of citizen’s rights and limitation of state power. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-magna-carta-was-signed-800-years-ago-today/722574/22 "2015-06-17T08:52:45Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > The Children’s BBC Horrible Histories team have a good explainer video about the issues behind the creation of the document. It’s done via the medium of rap, of course… > > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F\_5My8XH-n0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_5My8XH-n0) I was going to link this! As ever, the HH team are brilliant. ---
**Author:** ![stillownedbysetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@stillownedbysetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stillownedbysetters)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-magna-carta-was-signed-800-years-ago-today/722574/23 "2015-06-17T15:04:39Z")
After all this time and that Bic pen they used still writes 'first time, every time." 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-magna-carta-was-signed-800-years-ago-today/722574/24 "2015-06-17T15:16:27Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > The Children’s BBC Horrible Histories team have a good explainer video about the issues behind the creation of the document. It’s done via the medium of rap, of course… > > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F\_5My8XH-n0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_5My8XH-n0) I didn’t know rap was being performed in 1215. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-magna-carta-was-signed-800-years-ago-today/722574/25 "2015-06-17T15:20:58Z")
Much earlier than that: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXgtZbrcxBQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXgtZbrcxBQ) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-magna-carta-was-signed-800-years-ago-today/722574.md?page=1)