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Invoking Magna Carta: Locating Information Objects and Meaning in the 13th to 19th Centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2015

Alexander Lock  and
Jonathan Sims
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Abstract

This article by Alexander Lock and Jonathan Sims describes the context in which Magna Carta was obtained. It distinguishes different versions of the charter and signposts particular documents and publications in the history of its transmission and interpretation up to the early nineteenth century. It also identifies various texts and objects which have indicated the charter's significance for groups and individuals at particular junctures. These include information carrying objects which might support research on Magna Carta within the context of the circulation and reception of legal meaning. A major focus of the article is a chronological account of the charter's invocation from the thirteenth century to the early nineteenth century.

Keywords

legal historylegal sourcesMagna Carta
Type
Feature Article
Information
Legal Information Management , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , June 2015 , pp. 74 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2015. Published by British and Irish Association of Law Librarians 

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References

Footnotes

1 The papal bull annulling Magna Carta; (Bulla Innocentii Papae III. pro rege Johanne, contra barones. (In membr.) 1216. 151.) British Library: Cotton MS Cleopatra E I, ff. 155–156; http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-papal-bull-annulling-magna-carta - See more at: http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-papal-bull-annulling-magna-carta#sthash.d3ckkV6P.dpuf

2 Cheney, C.R., ‘The Eve of Magna Carta’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 38, 2 (1956), pp. 311-341CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Lecture delivered in the John Rylands Library, Wednesday 11 May, 1955). Cheney provides intimate discussion of the evidence; it is also perhaps significant to note Cheney’s assertion that Magna Carta did not appear in the Chancery Roll.

3 Magna Carta, 1215. British Library: Cotton MS Augustus ii.106; http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/magna-carta-1215

4 Magna Carta, burnt copy with the seal attached. British Library: Cotton Charter XIII 31A; http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/burnt-copy-of-magna-carta-with-the-seal-attached

5 Archives Nationales (France): MS J655 Angleterre sans date no. 11; http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/magna-carta-1216

6 Bodleian: Ch. Oxon. Oseney 142c; Magna Carta with the seal of Cardinal Guala, 1217 http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/magna-carta-with-the-seal-of-cardinal-guala-1217

7 Charta de Foresta; Westminster, 11 Febr., 9 Hen. III. [1225]. With great seal. British Library: Additional Charter 24712 http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-forest-charter-of-1225

8 Magna Carta, 1225; British Library: Additional MS 46144 http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/magna-carta-1225#sthash.Vd1YtRBw.dpuf

9 1 Statutes of the Realm xc 1235-1377: Table of the Charters

10 The Magna Carta http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/magna_carta/index.html

11 1 Statutes of the Realm xc 1235-1377: Table of the Charters

12 Magna Carta 1225; British Library: Additional MS 46144 http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/magna-carta-1225#sthash.Vd1YtRBw.dpuf

13 Richard Cassidy, ‘The evolution of the charters from the Unknown Charter to 1225’, and ‘Versions of Magna Carta’. http://magnacarta800th.com/papers/versions-of-the-magna-carta/ (13 October 2011)

14 Clark, David, ‘The Icon of Liberty: The Status and Role of Magna Carta in Australian and New Zealand Law’, Melbourne University Law Review, 24, 3 (2000), pp. 869-870Google Scholar

15 Magna Carta: an introduction http://www.bl.uk/treasures/magnacarta/basics/basics.html

16 Richard Cassidy, ‘The evolution of the charters from the Unknown Charter to 1225’. http://magnacarta800th.com/papers/versions-of-the-magna-carta/ (13 October 2011)

17 English translation of Magna Carta http://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/magna-carta-english-translation

18 Holt, J.C., Magna Carta (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 For example the Golden Bull, Hungary 1222 mentioned in Bingham, T., The Rule of Law (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2011), p. 11Google Scholar; Charters of the thirteenth century which reportedly made promises to uphold justice and established custom. Examples include, in France, the Statute of Pamiers, 1212, (Archives Nationales, France MS AE11207; http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/mc-the-statute-of-pamiers; King Magnus the Law-Mender's Landslov 1275, Norway. This re-codification of earlier provincial codes reportedly defines the powers of government, protects the sanctity of man's person, and expressly forbid trial without due process of law. (Ref. UNESCO Courier 1st October 1949 (Vol.2 No.9, publication 492)

20 BBC Radio 4: In Our Time: Broadcast 7 May 2009 21:30: Melvyn Bragg and guests Nicholas Vincent, David Carpenter and Michael Clanchy discuss the Magna Carta.

21 Bingham, T., The Rule of Law (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2011), p. 12Google Scholar

22 Kevin Guilfoy, ‘John of Salisbury, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. by Edward N. Zalta (2015), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/john-salisbury/

23 J. Sumption, 2015 Magna Carta then and now. Address to the Friends of the British Library. (pp.3-5) Lord https://www.supremecourt.uk/docs/speech-150309.pdf Sumption cites John of Salisbury's Polycraticus as the best articulation of this commonly held view of medieval kingship.

24 Poole, A.L., From Doomsday to Magna Carta 108-1216 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955)Google Scholar

25 Ibid. p. 386

26 Ibid. p. 20

27 Coronation charter of Henry I. Lambeth Palace: MS 1212 http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-unknown-charter, see also http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/coronation-charter-of-henry-i

28 Langton had also taught at the University in Paris.

29 Poole, From Doomsday, p. 421

30 Ibid. p. 422

31 The Articles of the Barons: BL Additional MS 4838 + seal http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-articles-of-the-barons

32 Early English Laws (IHR / Kings College London / AHRC) http://www.earlyenglishlaws.ac.uk/

33 Sumption, Magna Carta: Then and Now.

34 BBC Radio 4: In Our Time: Broadcast 7 May 2009 21:30 As above

35 Sumption, Magna Carta: Then and Now, pp. 14-15

36 Holt, Magna Carta, pp. 5-6. As above The authoritative Early English Laws project offers hope that establishing the contemporary legal sense of Magna Carta is less of a “will-o’-the wisp” ambition than when Holt wrote in 1992. (p.6).

37 Ibid. p. 20

38 Ibid. pp. 8-9

39 Ibid. pp. 16-17

40 Bingham, The Rule of Law, p. 12

41 A & Ors v. Secretary of State for the Home Department [2004] UKHL 56

42 Poole, Thomas, ‘Harnessing the Power of the Past? Lord Hoffman and the Belmarsh Detainees Case’ Journal of Law and Society, 32, 4 (2005), pp. 534-561CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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45 Turner, Ralph, Magna Carta through the Ages (Harlow: Longman, 2003), p. 123Google Scholar

46 Ibid. p. 112

47 Denton, Jeffrey H., Robert Winchelsey and the Crown 1294-1313: A Study in the Defence of Ecclesiastical Liberty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 167CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 Turner, Magna Carta, p. 113.

49 Musson, Anthony, Medieval Law in Context: The Growth of Legal Consciousness from Magna Carta to the Peasants’ Revolt (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), p. 254Google Scholar.

50 Champion, Justin & Lock, Alexander, ‘English Liberties’, in Breay, Claire and Harrison, Julian, ed., Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy (London: British Library, 2015), p. 107Google Scholar.

51 Baker, J.H., ‘Personal Liberty under the Common Law of England, 1200-1600’, in The Origins of Modern Freedom in the West, ed. by Davis, Richard W. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), p. 182Google Scholar; Thompson, Faith, Magna Carta: Its Role in the Making of the English Constitution (London: University of Minnesota Press, 1948), pp. 190-195Google Scholar; Brooks, Christopher W., Lawyers, Litigation and English Society Since 1450 (London: Hambledon Press, 1998), p. 217Google Scholar.

52 Bertram Wolffe, Henry VI (London: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 128; Thompson, Magna Carta, pp. 26-27.

53 Turner, Magna Carta, p. 112.

54 Champion & Lock, ‘English Liberties’, p. 107.

55 George Ferrers, The Boke of Magna Carta (London, 1534); Champion & Lock, ‘English Liberties’, pp. 112-114.

56 Cavill, Paul, ‘Debate and Dissent in Henry VII's Parliaments’, Parliamentary History, 25 (2006), pp. 169-170CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 173-174.

57 The British Library, Cotton MS Titus BI, f. 430r., Thomas Cromwell, ‘Remembrances’, c. 1535; Champion & Lock, ‘English Liberties’, pp. 115-116; Brooks, Christopher W., Lawyers, Litigation and English Society Since 1450 (London: Hambledon Press, 1998), p. 218Google Scholar.

58 Brooks, Lawyers, Litigation and English Society, p. 217; Halliday, Paul, Habeas Corpus: From England to Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), p. 144Google Scholar.

59 Champion & Lock, ‘English Liberties’, pp. 108, 112-114.

60 Pallister, Anne, Magna Carta: The Heritage of Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 46-48Google Scholar.

61 See Thompson, Magna Carta, pp. 354-374.

62 Champion & Lock, ‘English Liberties’, p. 125.

63 National Archives, State Papers, SP16/183, ‘Henry Earl of Holland to Dudley Carleton, Viscount Dorchester, Secretary of State’, 24 January 1631.

64 Champion & Lock, ‘English Liberties’, pp. 128-129.

65 British Library, Add. MS 5247, f. 47r., ‘Drawings of regimental banners’, undated; Young, Alan R., ed., The English Emblem Tradition, 3, Emblematic Flag Devices of the English Civil Wars 1642-166- (London: University of Toronto Press, 1995), pp. 167Google Scholar, 234-235; Linebaugh, Peter, The Magna Carta Manifesto (London: University of California Press, 2008), p. 81Google Scholar.

66 King Charls His Tryal: Or a Perfect Narrative of the Whole Proceedings of the High Court of Justice in the Tryal of the King in Westminster (London, 1649), p. 29Google Scholar.

67 Pallister, Magna Carta, pp. 8-9; Banks, Theodore H., ‘Sir John Denham's “Cooper's Hill”’, The Modern Language Review, vol. 21, no. 3 (1926), pp. 269-277CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 Champion & Lock, ‘English Liberties’, pp. 129, 131.

69 Pallister, Magna Carta, pp. 16-25.

70 The National Archives, C 66/1709, ‘The First Charter of Virginia’, 10 April 1606; also available online at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/va01.asp (accessed 23/4/2015).

71 ‘A Declaration of the General Court holden at Boston 4 (9) 1646’, in A Collection of Original Papers Relative to the History of the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay (Boston, MA, 1769), pp. 200-203Google Scholar.

72 Howard, A.E. Dick, The Road from Runnymede: Magna Carta and Constitutionalism in America (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1968), pp. 78-98Google Scholar.

73 Penn, William, The Excellent Priviledge of Liberty and Property (Philadelphia, PA, 1687)Google Scholar.

74 Lock, Alexander & Champion, Justin, ‘Radicalism and Reform’, in Breay, Claire and Harrison, Julian, ed., Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy (London: British Library, 2015), pp. 161-162Google Scholar.

75 Pallister, Magna Carta, pp. 59-63.

76 Lock & Champion, ‘Radicalism and Reform’, pp. 172-173.

77 Ibid., pp. 176-181.

78 Pallister, Magna Carta, pp. 67-71.

79 Baer, Marc, ‘Burdett, Sir Francis, fifth baronet (1770–1844)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)Google Scholar, online edn.

80 George, Dorothy M., English Political Caricature 1793-1832: A Study of Opinion and Propaganda, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959), vol. 2, pp. 125-127Google Scholar.

81 Lock & Champion, ‘Radicalism and Reform’, pp. 165, 185.

82 N.B. Penny, ‘The Whig Cult of Fox in Early Nineteenth-Century Scultpure’ Past and Present, vol. 70 (1976), p. 104.

83 Chase, Malcolm, Chartism: A New History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), p. 8Google Scholar.

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