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- [00:01]
Matt Lewis
Hello, I'm Matt Lewis.
- [00:03]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
And I'm Dr. Eleanor Jaenega and we're.
- [00:05]
Matt Lewis
Just popping up here to tell you some insider info.
- [00:08]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
If you would like to listen to Gone Medieval ad free and get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit.
- [00:14]
Matt Lewis
With the History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries such as my new series on.
- [00:22]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Everyone'S favorite conquerors, the Normans, or my.
- [00:25]
Matt Lewis
Recent exploration of the castles that made Britain.
- [00:29]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
There's a new release to enjoy every week.
- [00:32]
Matt Lewis
Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe or find the link in the show notes for this episode.
- [00:49]
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- [01:58]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usaa.com autodiscounts restrictions apply.
- [02:09]
Matt Lewis
Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval From History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to Popes to the Crusades, we cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots and murders, to find the stories, big and small that tell us how we got here, find out who we really were with. Gone Medieval few documents have left as indelible A mark on history as Magna Carta. But the story we remember of King John reluctantly sealing the charter at Runnymede in 1215 was only the beginning. Let's go back 800 years. The year is 1225. The realm, still reeling from civil war, teeters on the brink of chaos. The King is the 17 year old Henry III, son of the despised King John. It's he who will truly cement Magna Carta's place in history. A decade has passed since John's ill fated charter. That document, annulled by the Pope, ignored by both crown and barons, lies in tatters. But from its ashes, a new Magna Carta will rise. Henry faces a crucial decision. The kingdom needs money and the barons hold the purse strings. But they demand something in return. A reaffirmation of their rights and liberties. And so, on February 11, 1225, Henry III does what his father never truly did. He freely issues Magna Carta, not under duress, but as a mutual agreement between king and subjects. This is the Magna Carta that will endure. The 1225 charter issued by Henry's own will becomes the definitive version. It's this document that will be reissued time and again, eventually finding its way into English statutory law. But why does this matter? What makes the 1225 Magna Carta so pivotal? How did a young king's decision shape the course of English law and lay the groundwork for modern concepts of individual rights and limited government? To tell the story of Magna Carta not as you think you know it, but as it truly unfolded, I'm joined by David Carpenter, professor of Medieval History at King's College London. Welcome back to Gone Medieval. David, it's fantastic to have you with us again.
- [05:05]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Thank you, Matt. I'm privileged to be back so soon after the King John one.
- [05:11]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. I think, having spoken about King John, we sort of skirted around Magna Carta a little bit in discussing him. So I thought we'd come back and talk about Magna Carta and specifically kind of the anniversary this year of the 1225 reissue, which in many ways I think you might frame as the Magna Carta.
- [05:32]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yes, I mean, contemporaries, it's well worth thinking about, never regarded the 1215 charter as Magna Carta. It was never called Magna Carta in the medieval period and beyond. It was always called the Charter of Runnymede. Magna carta was Henry III's charter of 1225. Now, contemporaries were well aware that that was based. There are also significant differences on the charter of 1215. But that didn't stop them calling 1215 charter the charter. Rally me. And 1225 is Magna Carta.
- [06:06]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. So if we just wind the clock back to 12:15 for a moment and force ourselves to think about King John again, as much as we don't like to think about King John too much, why was the original sealing of that document at Runnymede? Why was that a groundbreaking moment in 1215?
- [06:24]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
It was a groundbreaking moment. Not in 1215. In 1215 the charter was a complete failure. It was a groundbreaking moment because the charter was revived during the minority of Henry III and then leads to the final definitive version in 1225. But at the end of 1215, you would have thought the charter was a failure without a future. I mean, King John had conceded it because he thought, it'll bring peace, the rebels will lay down their arms and that would be that. He never thought they would actually manage to enforce the poisonous contents. So when he discovered that they were going to enforce those contents to the letter and beyond, he got the Pope to quash the charter. But the rebel barons also abandoned the charter in a way because they thought, well, good, then the charter is, we can't hold John to its terms, we must go down another route. And so they deposed John as far as they were concerned. They deposed him, offered the throne to the eldest son of the King of France, Louis. Louis comes to England in 1216, carries all before him, gets control of London, gets the allegiance of the great majority of the barons. But he had no brief for Magna Carta. His view was that, you know, you don't need Magna Carta with me as a benevolent Capetian king. So the charter seemed finished at that point.
- [07:42]
Matt Lewis
And is it fair to say then that the furore in 1215 around Magna Carta, the barons imposing it on John, its failure, and ultimately their own abandonment of it too, contributed to what we remember as the first Baron's war and this sort of effectively a civil war in which John is deposed and replaced by a French opponent.
- [07:59]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, the barons deposed him and offered the throne to Louis. Of course, John and his supporters didn't accept that. So John was not actually replaced. As you say, it leads into a civil war. I mean, what saved the charter was John's death on that great storm howling round Newark Castle in October 1216, because he leaked a nine year old son in an absolutely desperate position. And the nine year old son, Henry III's supporters, above all, William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, the regent, the aged regent, this doyon of chivalry as he portrayed himself and the Papal Legate, Gwala. They realized the only way to survive with Louis controlling more than half the country controlling London, was to make a complete reversal of government policy. John had rejected the charter. What Gwal and William Marshal do is that they now accept it. They accept what John had rejected, but also Louis was ignoring. And so shorn of its most radical aspects, they issued a new version of the charter. And you know, that's a fundamental decision in the whole later constitutional history of England, history of the world. I particularly think that the Papal Legate took a very brave initiative there because the Pope had condemned the charter. There was no way Gwala could actually conceal, consult the Pope about this total change of policy. I'd love to have seen the letter he wrote explaining himself, but he would have said, look, this is just a necessity. It's the only way that the young king can survive. So in November 1216 from Bristol, this new version of the charter is issued. And I think it did have a profound effect. There were no immediate desertions from Louis, but at the decisive Battle of Lincoln in May 1217, the rebel barons on Louis side didn't fight very hard. They sort of struck token blows and then all surrendered. Not one of them was killed. And that was because they knew their cause was won. You know, there's now an innocent boy in place of a malevolent king. But the charter is now in place and that was confirmed at the end of the war as part of the final peace settlement. A new version of the Charter was issued in November 1217. So that's the second version of the charter.
- [10:33]
Matt Lewis
And I guess it's interesting to think that that seems to have been a straight pragmatic decision, that the only, or at least the best way to end the civil war that was threatening the Angevin crown at that point was to acknowledge and accept Magna Carta. But it also required the circumstances in which the King is a nine year old. You know, John had objected to it because it impl. Impinges so much on a king's authority. So having a nine year old allows it to fall into place, having someone as respected by both sides as William Marshal allows it to come together. So it's an interesting combination of factors that come together to allow it to be reissued in a pragmatic way to end the war.
- [11:09]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, I completely agree about that. I wouldn't talk about reissue. It's a new version. So it is quite significantly different from the 1215 charter, but I never thought of that before, really, Matt. And that's quite right, isn't it? There was no king to object, Henry II to go along. But it'd be interesting to think if John had had a of age son, what line, what input he would have had into those crucial decisions. I think for William Marshal, it was probably an easy decision because, you know, a great baron, he's going to benefit from the baronial chapters in the charter just as much as any rebel would. And in fact, when he died and his son succeeded him in 1219, the inheritance tax he paid was not the hundreds or thousands of pounds which John would have demanded, but merely £100 in accordance with the charter. And so William Marshal's descendants immediately benefited from Magna Carta and probably could see that coming up. So it was both pragmatic but also self interested. It saved the dynasty, but it also in a sense saved themselves.
- [12:20]
Matt Lewis
And you mentioned that this was effectively a new document because it was stripped of some of the most controversial elements of 1215. What were the striking things that were missing and what were perhaps the most striking things that were still there?
- [12:32]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, well, the most striking thing which was missing was something called the security clause, and that was there in the 1215 charter. And that appointed 25 barons to actually enforce the charter. So if John broke it, they were empowered by John himself to seize John's castles, to seize his lands and to force him to keep the charter. They also had a wider brief in that they could put right any malpractices which came to their notice. Now, that was the way of therefore enforcing the charter. And of course it showed deep suspicion as to John's veracity, John's honesty in actually agreeing it. But now that chapter was left out and that meant that the subsequent versions, the 1216 Charter, the 1217 Charter and then on to 1225, have no constitutional means of actually enforcement. It didn't mean to say they weren't going to be obeyed because sort of general political climate made for obedience to at least some of the chapters. But there was no actual 25 barons any longer who are going to force the King to keep it. So in that sense, the 1216, 1217 versions on. On 1225, much weaker. But and here we come to the introduction of the actual name Magna Carta. From 1217 onwards, the restrictions are much tighter and more extensive because alongside the original charter, a new charter altogether was issued in November 1217, governing the running of the Royal Forest, and that's called the Charter of the Forest. And it's only at this point that the term Magna Carta is introduced. It's introduced to distinguish the physically larger charter from the smaller charter of the forest. So there's a wonderful copy of the proclamation of 1218 when the term Magna Carta first appears, and there's this little arrow under the line in which the clerk thinks, how am I going to describe the big charter? And he thinks, oh, I'll call it Magna Carta. And so a little arrow and above the line. And that's the very, very first appearance of the term Magna Carta. Little did the clerk was going to go around the world, but what it meant was not that this is a grand high status charter, it just meant it's physically bigger than the physically smaller charter of the forest. So David Cameron ought to remind you that because, remember, he got into trouble because he couldn't actually remember or think on an American TV interview what Magna Carta meant. He should have, I'm sure if he'd thought about it more, he would have realized it meant great charter. And then if he'd been really knowledgeable, he would have gone on to explain what that actually meant in 1218, though of course in later generations it was thought of in terms of its wonderful status. So from 1217 onwards we have two charters, Magna Carta and the Forest Charter and gone.
- [15:32]
Matt Lewis
Medieval listeners are now equipped better than David Cameron was to explain what Magna Carta is and why it's called that.
- [15:38]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
The other central way in which the 1225 charter was different from all its predecessors and helped its implantation into English political life and embedded in English society, was that for the first time the Church comes in full square behind the charter. And what Archbishop Langton did was to promulgate sentences of excommunication against all who break the charter. And that had never been done before. The Church, no census, excommunication were promulgated in 1215, 1216 or 12. And I think the way Langton was able to do that, because he thinks this is now it, this is now a consensual document which everyone agrees about, it's not a partisan document. And so the sentences of Excommunication go on 1237, 1253 and so on. I think he was quite sincere in accepting the charter, even though he lacked the grip on the drive to actually set in place a mechanism to enforce it. On the other other hand, 12:25 doesn't quite finish the question about validity because the King is still underage, he doesn't actually become 21 till 1228. So the final cap came in 1237 again, in return for another Tax in which Henry confirmed the charter of 1225, although, as he says, I was then underage. So, you know, you could say 1237 puts the final icing on the cake of 1225, but most people seem to be quite happy with 1225. Whereas the 1225 charter was copied again and again and again with its witness list, the statement about the tax and so on, the 1237 letter in which Henry says, you know, it's valid, although I was then underage, that was very rarely copied. So people seem on the whole to have thought 1225 was it and was enough.
- [17:47]
Matt Lewis
It's always struck me, and I don't know whether you think I'm in the right ballpark about this, but for most people in England in 1217, perhaps Magna Carta would have felt like something with some, some lofty ideals that was really aimed at the barons, but the Charter of the Forest was something that would have affected the day to day life of ordinary people much, much more. It's kind of restoring a lot of rights to more ordinary people. Is that fair?
- [18:10]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I don't think that is entirely fair, Matt, if I might say so. First, Magna Carta, yes, certainly. It's often been branded and lampooned as a selfish baronial document. And it's perfectly true that the very early chapters, and they come first, benefit the great barons. But from the word go, it had a much wider reach than that and I think that was why it survived. It survived because it doesn't have. It's not just a baronial document, it's not sounding out some sort of high principles in a vague way. It's regulating in a very nitty gritty way the whole operations of royal government across finance, justice, local government and so on. And who benefits beyond the great barons? Obviously there's a crucial chapter on the Church, crucial chapter on London. Magna Carta was treasured in London. All the regulations about justice and local government benefit wide sections of society. And sorry, but that also comes back to 1217 because I said, in some ways, with no security clause, 1217 is weaker. But actually a whole new chapter was introduced in 1217 into Magna Carta itself, not the Forest Charter, regulating the running of local courts, the county in hundred courts and things like the view of Frank Pledge that would have benefited even unfree peasants. So the charter from the word go has this Even more in 1217 has a wide breach about the Forest Charter. I know that's often said, but actually the key chapters in the Forest Charter really benefit great men more than anybody. Else, because the key thing was to reduce the area of the Royal Forest. Why was the Royal Forest so unpopular? It meant that if you had your own wood within the subject of forest law and within the bounds of the Royal Forest, and that's the key thing, that many landowners had their own land and their own woods within the Royal Forest, it meant you couldn't cut down trees, you couldn't exploit the land without being punished, and equally, you couldn't hunt the various restricted beasts of the forest. So what these great landowners want to do is to reduce the area of the Royal Forest so they can exploit the woodland more vigorously. So in some ways, far from actually protecting the environment, as people sometimes say about the Forest Charter, it was actually meant to allow landowners to exploit the environment more intensively. So I'm not quite sure about the Forest Charter like that, but it is true that there was one important chapter in it which would have benefited ordinary people poachers, because it said that no one was to lose life or limb any longer for a forest offence. And that would, I think you're right, go right down in society, because the people most likely to lose life and limb are poachers and they're most likely to be peasants. And so peasants, I think, did benefit from that chapter in the Forest Charter.
- [21:21]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. So as we move towards 1225 and we're here to talk about a 1225 issuing of Magna Carta, what are the problems that linger from 1217? Why are we getting into the 1220s and finding that it's being revisited?
- [21:35]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
That's an absolutely key question. And the answer can be given by one of John's most rebarbative ministers, whose name was William Brewer. Matthew Paris St Albans said, Brewer by name and Brewer by nature. He'd been a baron of the exchequer, a very unpopular sheriff. Anyway, at a great council meeting in January 1223, he actually said, none of these charters are valid. They've all been extorted from the King by force, by war. That was clearly the case in 1215. In a way, though, you could say it was the same of 1216 and 1217, because, you know, they're clearly the products of war. So Brewer said, you know, you don't have to obey them. Now, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, key figure in conceiving the 1225 charter, sort of hurried him away and told him to shut up and, you know, don't disturb the peace of the kingdom. But there is that doubt about the validity of the 1216 and 1217 charters. And there was Another reason for doubt, which, of course, the King is underage. He's 9 in 12 16, 10 in 12 17. He has no seal of his own. So who has sealed the 1216 and 1217 charters and the Forest Charter of 1217? It's not the King at all. It's William Marshal as regent and Gwala as papal legate. So, you know, there a really serious doubt as to the validity of the 1216, 1217 charters. And I think that's the background to what happened in 1225. I think Stephen Langton, as Archbishop of Canterbury, has a very strong ideological attachment to the charter. And his biblical studies, Book of Samuel, make him believe profoundly in a kingship limited by law, the justicia. Hubert de Burgh, later Earl of Kent, who's in charge of government, but a close ally of Langton, he has no ideological attachment to the charter, but he realized it's a practical necessity. Now, all this comes together in 1225, when, in a way, Langton, I think, sees his chance of resolving all these doubts about the charter. And not for the first time, the exigencies of the dynasty's continental empire impact on English political life and on Magna Carta. Just as the 1215 charter, in a way, the product of that was the huge amount of money John had taken from the kingdom in order to try and recover Normandy. And that creates all the financial grievances. So in 1225, what has happened is that the King of France has overrun Poitou and is threatening the dynasty's one remaining continental possession, Gascony. So a gigantic effort is going to be needed in 1225 to actually preserve Gascony, possibly recover Poitou. And the only way to do that is to levy a great tax on the kingdom. Now, that tax is simply unobtainable without the general consent of a great council, what would later be called parliament. And so what Hubert de Burgh and that Archbishop Langton conceived is a deal in which the tax will be granted, and it was a huge tax in return for a concession of the charter. Now, this puts the charter on a totally different level from the previous charters, because clearly it's a freely entered bargain between the King and the kingdom. No one any longer can say that it's been extorted from the king by war and by force. And there are a whole series of ways in which, in the charter itself, the charter of 1225, this is actually demonstrated. So textually and visually, the 1225 charter looks quite different from its predecessors. And that's why it's able to survive and become the final definitive version of the Charter?
- [25:51]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. Do we have any sense in that period in 1223-1225, as all of this crisis is beginning to unfold and we're moving towards this new issue of Magna Carta, of how Henry felt about it? Do we see maybe, is he encouraging William Brewer to ask questions about the validity of the charter, or would he have been horrified that the piece was being rocked by someone?
- [26:14]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Well, that's a really good question. And actually, we do know that the account of William Brewer's remark is in chronicler Roger of Wendover. And he says the King actually intervened and said verbally, what I have conceded, I will stand by. And that's actually Henry III's really first political pronouncement. And I think in making that, he was probably very influenced by Langton, who already shut Brewer up, and by Hubert de Burgh. But that's really key thing. And I think Henry was a willing participant in the grant in 1225. And that takes us to the actual charter itself. There were two things in it which indicated Henry's consent. The first was there was a new preamble which said that the King had now granted this charter out of his spontaneous and free will, and that had not been in any previous charter and hadn't been in the charter of 1215. And secondly, it's authenticated with his seal. The King now has the seal and perhaps the most beautiful original at Durham Cathedral, the great seal of Henry, perfectly preserved, still hangs behind it. Admittedly, the archivists at some point, spilt ink all over this lovely 1225 original, but still, the seal is still there. So, you know, looking at the charter, reading the preamble, looking at the seal, no one could any longer doubt, or at any rate, the doubts were much less that the King had consented to it. And there was one other very crucial thing which I think Langton must have thought of this. The fact that it was conceded in return for the tax is actually stated in the charter itself. So the final bit of the charter says we have made these concessions because everyone in the kingdom, everyone has granted us this tax. And I think that was absolutely crucial. And I think one way you can see that is in recent research, in a lot of research has gone into collecting unofficial copies of the Charter made in the 13th century. And what you find, some people who'd actually, first of all copied the 1217 charter, which of course hasn't got this thing about the tax, and then they doctor it and they alter it to include the statement about the tax at the end so people absolutely realize how utterly vital this bargain this concession was. As I said, and the unofficial copies show that.
- [29:10]
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- [30:33]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
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- [31:25]
Matt Lewis
I think it's interesting because in many ways, including that element of the taxation at the end frames this Magna Carta much more like a contract. There is, there is an offer, there is acceptance, and there is consideration there. So you could frame it as a legally binding contract that has been made. The King has got something in return for giving it.
- [31:44]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Sure. And I think just to add to that, it was very soon regarded in the later 13th century as the first statute. This is the first statute law. And I think the criteria of that were, one, that it was sealed by the king, but secondly, that it was conceived in a parliament. It's an act of Parliament, in a way. It's shown in the huge witness list. Now, that's the other most striking physical attribute of the 1225 charter, which sets it apart again from all its predecessors. 1215, 1216, 1217. There's no witness list to speak of at the end, whereas at the end of the 1225 charter, there's this huge list of all the people who've witnessed it, all the people who've consented to it, has clearly been agreed in a prototype parliament. And it's laid out that, first of all, there's Archbishop Langton and all the bishops, then there are all the abbots, then there's Hubert de Burgh heading all the earls, and then there are all the barons. And then the date is given 11th of February at Westminster, in the 9th year of the King's reign, 11th of February, 1225. So, you know, I think the witness list again, which people copied again and again because they realized how very important important the witness list is. And it included, of course, both rebels and loyalists. So, you know, the whole community have come together. Of course, it's all men, there are no women there, and they are all great nobles. But nonetheless, this is the top of the political community as it then was in 1225, and they're all supporting the charter. And that's how it survives. It survives because all later kings, they just confirm the 1225 charter. That's the last version. Edward I, 1297-1300, he confirms the charter of his father, sets out the whole text, and then with his own witness list, and then later kings all do the same. It's chapter the 1225 charter, which are still on the statute book of the United Kingdom today. When in 2015, the Lord Chief justice protested against the government scheme to charge court fees to bring litigation into the civil courts. And he said, this is against Magna Carta. What he was talking about was Chapter 29 of the 1225 Charter, in which it says justice is not to be sold. So that's what's gone down the ages. And as I say, of course, until late on, no one thought of King John's charter as Magna Carta at all.
- [34:25]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, fascinating. And I guess the big difference seems to be that in 1225, the king is Kind of on board. Do we have a sense whether Henry was really happy to have all of this confusion cleared up once and for all, or was he sort of less grudging than his father, but still not keen on the idea?
- [34:45]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I think Henry iii throughout his reign, was committed to the charter, however much there were complaints that it was not obeyed. And, I mean, there are other cases where famous sentence of excommunication against all who break the charter in 1253, and Henry stands there with his hand on his heart and says, I have sworn this as a consecrated king and as a knight and I will believe it. What Henry lacked was the will to actually create the administrative structures by which, in detail, the charter might be enforced. But I think his rule in some ways was congruent with the charter. It was certainly very, very different from his father.
- [35:33]
Matt Lewis
And if we were to broadly divide the people of England at this point into three, so we've got the nobility, the Church and the ordinary people, what would be the highlight of the 1225 issue? For each of those three parties, how are they benefiting? What is it that brings consensus from all of those groups?
- [35:49]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I think you' got a really important point there, because the charter does reach out to wide sections of society. If it hadn't have done, it would never have survived. For the great nobles, the great barons, the first chapters are absolutely the vital ones. And I think one more than any other was that it fixed the inheritance tax, called the relief of a baron and an earl, at £100. That was a colossal change because King John and his predecessors, Richard and Henry ii, had often charged thousands of pounds for barons to inherit their land. So for it now to be £100 is a dramatic change, reduces both the King's revenue but also his power. What John sometimes did was to charge colossal reliefs which he knew couldn't be paid, and so seize somebody's castles as security for payment, or until you do pay. So the King is reduced both in terms of revenue and in terms of power. So that's for great nobles. Now for the Church, obviously, Chapter one is absolutely vital, for it guarantees the freedom of the Church. And the Church appealed to that again and again throughout the 13th century, when it thought the royal government was impeaching on the liberties of the Church. You talked about ordinary people. Of course, they break down into all series of groups and in particular a fundamental distinction between the free and the unfree. Now, that was another important change, because the 1215, 1216 and 1217 charters had only been granted to people who were free. So difficult to work it out in the division between. But, you know, a very large slice of the population, perhaps half, were unfree peasants. Technically speaking, they were gaining nothing from the charter. But in 1225, and again, I think we can see Langton's influence, the old preamble was left there, but there was a new preamble which said, the liberties are being granted to everyone in the kingdom. Everyone in the kingdom. Now, to what extent was that in any way true? Well, the local government chapters, and remember, they were beefed up in 1217, I think they do benefit wide sections of society. They certainly benefited knights and free men, but in regulating the running of the local courts and in particular, things like the view of frank pledge and so on, unfree peasants too would benefit from that. So I think even down to the bottom layers of society, there is something for the unfree. And by the end of the century, some peasant communities were indeed appealing to the Charter. You might ask also about women. Now, that's a nuanced thing. On one sense, women were put on a very lower level. The charter is granted to free men or granted to men homo. Did that include women? Well, of course it could do, because homo, as in the Bible, and this was contemporaries were well aware of, this could mean person, human being, it could be non gendered. And I think if you'd ask the drafters of the charter, does homo mean people? I think they would probably have said yes. These chapters do benefit women, particularly free women. Now, within that context, yeah, there are specific, very important chapters which benefit widows and widows, and these are basically high status widows are not to be forced into remarriage by the king. And they're also to have their landed estates, their dower inheritance, marriage portion without having to pay for it. Those were very important chapters and very different from what had happened before, because John had charged the widows huge sums of money to stay single, not be forced into marriage, or had just forced them into marriage, whereas now they don't have to. And that was another chapter which was obeyed. And there were lots of merry widows in the 13th century who used that chapter to stay single and to run their large estates for themselves. So in that sense, and that has been called, you know, a stage in the emancipation of women. On the other hand, the charter did place women on a lower level than men when making accusations of homicide. So this is chapter 54 of the 1215 charter, and it was carried over to all the subsequent things. So if, Matt, you accuse me of killing your brother, I am arrested before trial. Indeed, if you accuse anyone of homicide, they are of any kind of homicide, they're arrested by trial. But if a woman accuses me of killing her brother, I'm not arrested before trial. The only circumstances in which if a woman accuses someone of homicide, the person is arrested pretrial. The only circumstances are if the accusation is that the person has killed her husband. And indeed, in some legal texts that was drawn even more narrowly, the husband has to die in your arms. In other words, you have actually to witness the killing of your husband. It's no good for simply saying, oh, my husband's body has been drifting down a river where I found it in a field and I accuse Matt Lewis of killing him. That wouldn't do. You would have to be able to say Matt Lewis in an affray and I was there, killed my husband. So women are definitely put on a lower level than men. There's a suspicion about the veracity of women in the charter. Instead, that's the only clause where the name woman appears, femina. So it's a nuanced picture. But the charter does reach out, as I've said, in different ways and different levels. Obviously the barons gain Moses, but the local government clauses, the clauses on justice benefit knights, free men, even to some extent peasants. The chapter on amercements, which means fines, actually goes all through society. Earls, barons, churchmen, merchants, free men and vilaines are all there in that chapter.
- [42:10]
Matt Lewis
And I guess cycling back to the Church a little bit, the inclusion of the freedom of the Church is hugely significant. I mean, it shows Langton's probable influence and input. But this is also the settling of an argument that had been going on for more than half a century, which had ultimately culminated in Thomas Becket's murder, about whether the King had authority over the Church in England. So the Church is finally getting that question settled once and for all with the agreement of the King.
- [42:35]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yes, I mean, the King's rights over the Church are still there and he could have a lot of influence over appointments to bishopric's in particular. He still, and this isn't challenged, can take the revenues of a bishopric in a vacancy, although he's supposed to fill up the vacancy very, very quickly. But there is a huge area, partly from the Becket dispute, where the King's government does not interfere. And of course the most famous was Criminus clerks, so that clerks accused of serious crime throughout the 13th century, until the reign of Henry VIII, if they're accused of crime, they hold up their hands and say, I'm a clerk. And then they go off and are subject to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. So a clerk accused of murder or robbery or anything like that would not be punished in the secular courts. There might be a pre trial in the secular court so that the ecclesiastical authorities knew who just exactly what the person had done. But they were routinely then handed over to the ecclesiastical authorities, to an agent of the bishop. That was the result of the Becket dispute. And yes, the Church vigorously defended that liberty, that privilege, under the terms of Magna Carta. So Magna Carta does confirm this separation between ecclesiastical and secular jurisdiction. I'm always slightly puzzled why Langton didn't actually have that confirmed specifically in the charter. But he probably thought what he had was enough. I mean, he was very disappointed. I think Langton, in that that chapter was actually slightly weakened as between 1215 and 1216 and 1215, and Langton must have put this in. John says, I guarantee the liberties of the Church. And I also confirm the charter I issued earlier about the free elections so that the Church can freely appoint its own bishops. And that was put into the 1215 charter. It was left out of the subsequent one, I think, because in the Circumstances of the 1216 Civil War, free elections might mean just freedom to appoint John's opponents. I think Langton would have loved to have got it back in. And he did actually say, I was slightly disappointed about the 1225 charter, despite his great achievement. I think Langton is a great hero here in a way. I mean, he's a very sighted man. I mean, he could be ruthlessly pragmatic and actually profited from one of John's most notorious exactions, in that a large amount of the. The notorious 20,000 mark fine made by Geoffrey de Mandeville to marry the Countess of Gloucester was actually assigned to Langton as compensation for all the damage done to the Church. So Langton actually had no qualms, or he may have had qualms, but he in the end decided to profit from one of John's, you know, most exacting financial impositions on a great baron, which Magna Carta itself would certainly have forbidden. And yet on the other hand, I think he did believe ideologically in the charter. And no one did more to try and preserve the 1215 peace, the 1215 charter, than Langton. I mean, in a very statesmanlike way, he on the one hand, tried to tell the barons, don't take too much, and yet, on the other hand, supported the barons in trying to force the King to keep the charter. It's really statesmanlike. It all collapsed in the end. But I've always very admired that. And then I've certainly in 1225 he with Hubert de Meux crafts this deal which actually does preserve the charter as a consensual document which the whole kingdom can support. So I think, you know, a very great deal was owed to this remarkable man.
- [46:42]
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- [47:12]
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- [47:57]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, and having got the 1225 Magna Carta issued, sealed, accepted by everybody, I guess we then need to think a little bit about what the sprawling consequences of that are and how difficult it is to measure the importance of the 1225 Magna Carta. I mean, is it the beginning of Parliament? Because when we see Parliament being set up up, it's initially always this balance of if you want taxation, we want reforms against the charter, which is essentially the basis on which Magna Carta is issued money in return for reform of behaviour. So it's almost setting a template for Parliament.
- [48:33]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, well, I think it was in a way. And you could say that the charter of 1215 has the first constitution for parliament because chapter 12 says no taxes to be imposed without the common consent of the kingdom. And then chapter 14 goes on to define the assembly which can give that consent. It's largely a baronial assembly, but you know, you could say that's the first constitution for Parliament. Now more generally going on after 12:25. Of course, there's a huge debate then and now as to how far the 1225 charter made a difference. Is it say, a watershed between lawless and lawful rule rule or is it simply high sounding principles which made no difference. I think it does have a profound influence on the development of what you might call the tax based parliamentary state. And that appears for the first time in the reign of Henry III. King John's son appears in the 1240s, 1250s, 1260s and on into the reign of Edward I. So how does Magna Carta to influence that? I think in two ways. First of all, it did stop up traditional sources of revenue and thus weakened the financial position of the King. And we've seen that with the inheritance tax as just one example. And so that meant the King became all the more needed. Henry III needed in a way his predecessors had not done to the same extent, needed general taxation to plug the gap. So Magna Carta makes the King more dependent on general taxation. The traditional sources of revenue are no longer so lucrative. And there was a broader reason for that too, which was the decline of the revenue from land. The huge landed estate inherited with the achieved with the conquest had all been given away in the 12th century. So the King now needs general taxation. But that's where Magna Carta kicked in again, because Magna Carta, as just seen, said you can't have 10 or taxation without the consent of what in effect was Parliament. Now, curiously enough, that chapter was left out, the chapter on general consent was left out of the subsequent charters. It's not there. But I don't think that made much difference because everyone still knew about this chapter. The 1215 charter was still copied a great deal and in practical terms, the King could get no tax without general consent. So I think that in those two ways, in reducing the traditional source of revenue and saying if you want taxes, you have to get general consent, Magna Carta does lead on to the development of the tax based parliamentary state which we see emerging in the rest of the 13th century. So I think it did have a profound influence on the whole operation of English politics and if you like, on the future of quotes, the constitution, and.
- [51:42]
Matt Lewis
I guess to some extent it slightly changes the nature of English kingship for the rest of the medieval period and up until the Civil War and things like that, maybe in that it's almost like a fairy step towards a constitutional monarchy. The King is restrained. We've now established the King is beneath the law, which is what John had sort of been fighting against. The King can only sort of rule in, in almost partnership with this emerging body of Parliament. I'm overstating it slightly. I'm not saying that Parliament suddenly becomes hugely powerful and the King is devalued, but can we see it as a Fairy step towards a change in English monarchy.
- [52:17]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, no, certainly. I mean the monarchy from the mid 13th century onwards into the 14th century and beyond. I mean, it's very, very different from what it had been in the 12th century. Partly because of Magna Carta, the King is subject to the law. I mean, he may often break the charter, but nonetheless the principle there, it's a very important principle. It's asserted not in, as I said, high sounding platitudes, but across the whole nitty gritty of royal government and in a way which appeals to many sections of society. But secondly, you know, from the reign of Henry III onwards, from the 1240s, 1250s, 1260s, kings need taxation from Parliament and so they have to negotiate, make concessions and so on. Some were better at that, that than others. But the Parliamentary, the term Parliament first appears in 1237. It's given increasingly to great assemblies. From 1240s, 50s onwards, 1258, there's the first, if you like, constitution of Parliament. It's to make meet three times a year to discuss the great affairs of the kingdom, the kingship. The reign of Henry III onwards is very different from what it had been before, which isn't to say the kings before, of course, going back to Anglo Saxon times, had needed the consent of great assemblies to legislate, to make war in practice of all kinds of things. What's different is that we now have the great lever of parliamentary power down the ages, which is that from the 1240s onwards, kings need taxation which only Parliament can grant. And so parliament from the 1240s onwards is perfectly capable of saying yes but no, unless you make all these concessions. And that remains true until, well, it's always remained true after that. Whereas the 12th century kings, partly because they had this huge landed estate, partly because they were not restricted by Magna Carta, they didn't need taxation from Parliament in exactly the same way. So it's a profound change. I always think one way summing it up is that if you look at a document called the Fine Rolls, the Fine Rolls are fascinating documents because they record all the offers of money to the King for concessions and favors. If you look at the fine roll of King John in the 1200s, I mean up to around 20, 25, 30,000 pounds are offered to him, sometimes in gigantic sums of money to recover his goodwill, to escape his anger, to inherit land and so on, gigantic sums of money are being offered to him by great nobles. If you turn it on to 100 years later, to Edward I, who is in some ways just as Masterful. A king as King John, in place of about £20,000, £25,000 being offered him, it's just two or three thousand pounds. I mean, the king no longer has the ability, other than perhaps, you know, occasionally under the dispensers later on, Edward ii, but look what happened to them, has the ability to, you know, extract large sums of money by his force and power from his subjects. And I think that is again, a profound difference and also one which is due to Magna Carta. I always remember my old supervisor, a Dr. John Preswich, once said to me, the difference between the middle and late Middle Ages is in the Middle Ages, he's Talking about the 12th century, I suppose, the barons owed money to the king. In the later Middle Ages, the king owed money to the barons. And that was because, you know, he was now having to pay them to do all kinds of military things and so on. It's a very big difference. Which isn't to say, of course, that clearly under Edward ii, Richard ii, you know, the king could, could act in an arbitrary and tyrannical way, but then, you know, they often precisely said to be breaking Magna Carta, which is the 1225 issue.
- [56:23]
Matt Lewis
It feels like when we think about that document that is important around the world, that becomes foundational to constitutions of other countries, and that people are always seem to be quite keen to quote, often incorrectly. Today we're really talking about the 1225 reissue of Magna Carta. So why do we still think of 1215 as the Magna Carta?
- [56:45]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Right. Well, it took an awful long time for that to happen, because when the famous lawyers Edward Coke and Coe cited Magna Carta to resist the tyranny of the Stuarts, they still cited the 1225 charter. They hardly mentioned King John. And indeed, in Shakespeare's King John, there's no reference to the charter at all. No one particularly thought of King John as associated with the charter. Now, that all finally changed in the middle of the 18th century due to a great lawyer called William Blackstone. And Blackstone was the first person to actually sort out and print the texts of all the various versions in 1759. So. So he actually printed the texts of 1215, 1216, 1217, both Magna Cart and the Charter Forest and 1225. So he finally sorted it all out and he simply decided to call the 1215 charter, no bones about it, Magna Carta. And I think his reason for that was perfectly reasonably, he said, well, all the others are founded on the 1215 charter, so let's call it Magna Carta. And that stuck from there onwards, because Blackstone was so dominant, he finally sorted it all out. Everyone started to call the 1215 charter Magna Carta. So if we come on to the last century, one of the most famous books written about Magna Carta by J.C. hulk came out in 1265. Subsequent editions. Magna Carta is essentially a book about the 1215 charter. And that's true of all books since. And it's perfectly reasonable in a way in that, as I say, that the 1225 charter is clearly founded on 1215, although, as we've seen in our discussion, it has profound differences. It didn't alter the ultimate legal position, though, because as I said, what's on the statute book today is still not the 1215 charter, it's the charter of 1225. I mean, there are only a few chapters left still there, but they are from 1225, not 1215. But it's due to Blackstone that this change took place.
- [59:04]
Matt Lewis
Fascinating how these things happen. And I wonder if we could just end on putting to bed once and for all, what chapters of Magna Carta, the 1225 version, are still on the statute book today?
- [59:15]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Oh, golly. Of course this changes. And I'm not sure I necessarily sort of checked up. I think there's the preamble, there's the chapter on the Church, and then I think there's the chapter, the most famous chapter, which was 39, 40 in 1215, it becomes 29 in 1225. And that's no free man is to be outlawed, imprisoned, be deprived of property, or anyway proceeded against, save by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. And then the next one, which is what the Lord Chief justice appealed to in 2015, no one is to be denied justice. No one has to pay for justice. Justice will not be delayed, anything like that. In the mid 14th century, no free man was glossed as no one of any condition. So it was made broader. And that gloss is normally always taken with no free man. And as I've said also, no free man is homo, no liber homo, but probably includes women as well. But maybe your viewers will be able to go online if you go online under Magna Carta repeal, or I think you can actually see this, and maybe I got that wrong. I wonder if the chapter on London is still there. Maybe not. I thought if I was to London, I wish it would be. But anyway, way I'm not sure.
- [60:48]
Matt Lewis
Fascinating. That's a rabbit hole for all the listeners to go and have a dig through. Now to find out if they can work out how Much of the 1225 issue is on the statute books. But if ever you're quoting the 1215 Magna Carta to give you some kind of rights, you're clearly wrong because that is not on the statute books. Well, thank you so much for joining us again, David. It feels like we could have prolonged this conversation to at least twice its length because it's so fascinating to get into the detail of hows and whys and the people that were all involved that either made this happen or allowed it to happen. So thank you so much for your time. It's been absolutely fascinating.
- [61:20]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Well, thank you Matt. I really enjoyed it. As always.
- [61:24]
Matt Lewis
You can hear David's previous visits to Gone Medieval to talk about Henry III and most recently King John in our back catalogue, along with a recent episode Eleanor did about the myths that surround this seminal document. There are new installments of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please come back and join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all of your friends and family that you've Gone medieval. You can sign up to History Hit to access hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week and all of History Hit's podcasts ad free. Sign up up now@historyhit.com subscribe. Go on, you know you want to. Anyway, I better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with History.
- [62:42]
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Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
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- [62:57]
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