To understand the significance of the Magna Carta, one must know what preceded it.
England was invaded by "Dane" Vikings from Scandinavia in the 9th century.
They raided, pillaged, and plundered, destroying homes, churches, and libraries.
They were unstoppable, defeating all opposition, till they encountered 23-year-old King Alfred.
Forced into the swampy, tidal marshes of Somerset, Alfred, King of the Anglos and Saxons, began a resistance movement in 878 A.D.
According to biographer Bishop Asser:
"Alfred attacked the whole pagan army fighting ferociously in dense order, and by divine will eventually won the victory."
King Alfred's battle song was:
"When the enemy comes in a'roarin' like a flood,
Coveting the kingdom and hungering for blood,
The Lord will raise a standard up and lead His people ,
The Lord of Hosts will go before defeating every foe;
defeating every foe.
For the Lord is our defense, Jesus defend us,
For the Lord is our defense, Jesu defend.
... Some men trust in chariots, some trust in the horse,
But we will depend upon the Name of Christ our Lord,
The Lord has made my hands to war and my fingers to fight.
The Lord lays low our enemies, but He raises us upright;
He raises us upright.
For the Lord is our defense, Jesus defend us,
For the lord is our defense, Jesu defend.
... A thousand fall on my left hand, ten thousand to the right,
But He will defend us from the arrow in the night.
Protect us from the terrors of the teeth of the devourer,
Embue us with your Spirit, Lord, encompass us with power;
encompass us with power.
For the Lord is our defense, Jesus defend us,
For the Lord is our defense, Jesu defend."
Alfred drove the Danes back to England's coastal area of East Anglia, where he gave their King Guthrum the choice of sailing back to Scandinavia or converting to Christianity. He chose the latter.
Alfred's treaty let Guthrum rule 15 shires under a top-down "Dane Law."
G.K. Chesterton's narrative poem about Alfred, called "The Ballad of the White Horse," 1910, is said to have influenced J.R.R. Tolkien in his writing of The Lord of the Rings.
Afterwards, King Alfred the Great wrote his Law Code, drawing from as far back in history as:
- Lucius King of Britons, circa 156 A.D. "prayed and entreated ... he might be made a Christian";
- St. Patrick's Celtic "Senchus Mor" Laws, circa 438 A.D.;
- Laws of Æthelberht of Kent, circa 602 A.D. -- the first Saxon king in England to be baptized, by St. Augustine of Canterbury;
- Laws of Christian King Ine of Wessex, circa 694 A.D., and
- Laws of Christian King Offa of Mercia, circa 755 A.D.
Born in the county of Oxfordshire, King Alfred the Great's emphasis on learning and love of books has been credited with beginning what became Oxford, the oldest university in England.
He included in the preface of his Law Code:
- the Ten Commandments,
- passages of the Book of Exodus,
- Christ's Sermon on the Mount, and
- the Acts of the Apostles.
King Alfred wrote:
"These are judgments which Almighty God Himself spoke to Moses and commanded him to keep.
Now, since the Lord's only begotten Son our God and healing Christ has come to Middle Earth -- the Mediterranean World -- He said that He did not come to break nor to forbid these commandments but to approve them well, and to teach them with all mild-heartedness and lowly-mindedness."
King Alfred's book of laws was called the "Doom Book" -- "doom" being an old English term for "judgment."
Alfred's compilation of laws are considered the basis for English Common Law, and were important in the development of concepts such as:
- individuals had rights derived from the Creator which government should protect;
- liberty of the individual, family and church;
-
equal justice for all under the law; and
- a decentralized government.
Leviticus 19:15 stated "You shall do no injustice in judgment! You shall not be partial to the poor; nor defer to the great! But you are to judge your neighbor fairly."
Similarly, Alfred's Doom Book stated:
"Doom very evenly!
Do not doom one doom to the rich; another to the poor! Nor doom one doom to your friend; another to your foe!"
Winston Churchill wrote in his Nobel Prize winning book, A History of the English Speaking Peoples, 1956, volume 1:
"King Alfred's Book of Laws ... as set out in the existing laws of Kent, Wessex, and Mercia, attempted to blend the Mosaic code with Christian principles and old Germanic customs."
Around 911 A.D., "Norse" Vikings, called "Normans," invaded an area in northern France.
The land came to be called Normandy.
Through intermarriage with royal families there, the Normans eventually became Christian.
Beginning in 999 A.D., Normans sailed down to the Mediterranean and drove the Muslim occupying forces out of Sicily and Southern Italy.
Norman Richard the First of Capua took control of Calabria in the "toe of Italy," and pushed back Muslims raiders.
In 1061, Normans Robert and Roger Guiscard recaptured Sicily from Muslim Saracens.
In 1016, Danish King Cnut the Great took control of all of England, which he and his sons ruled under Dane Law till 1042 when Edward the Confessor became king.
Edward was very pious and would lay his hand upon the sick to be healed, a tradition which subsequent kings followed, being called the "royal touch."
In 1066, William the Conqueror left Normandy, crossed the English Channel and invaded England, winning the Battle of Hastings to become the first Norman King of England.
William replaced King Alfred's Law with a more top-down feudal-type of government with increased power to collect the "Danegeld" tax, as compiled in his "Doomsday Book" of judgments.
This power was abused by William's son, William the Second, but when he died, another son, Henry the First, introduced the Charter of Liberties in 1100, as a concession to gain support of leading barons and earls.
Meanwhile, the Seljuk Turks invaded the Byzantine Empire. Cities were destroyed and graves were desecrated, resulting in the bones of the Greek Saint Nicholas being removed to Bari, Italy, in 1087.
Byzantine emperor Alexios the First Komnenos begged Western Europe for help.
Pope Urban the Second appealed to European kings at the Council of Clermont and they responded by sending the First Crusade in 1095, to retake the Holy City of Jerusalem.
Jerusalem had been a Jewish city since the time of King David, circa 1000 B.C., then a Christian city since Emperor Constantine, 325 A.D, till it was conquered by Caliph Umar in 638 A.D.
In 1099, Crusaders led by Godfrey of Bouillon, regained control of Jerusalem, and held it in Christian hands till 1187, when it was reconquered by Saladin, the Sunni Muslim Sultan of the Ayyubid Sultanate of Egypt and Syria.
In 1189, Richard the First, "Lionheart," became King of England. His great-grandfather, Fulk the Fifth, had been King of Jerusalem from 1131 to 1143.
In 1189, Richard the Lionheart left England to go off and fight in the Third Crusade.
While away, his younger brother John was left in charge of England. The legend of Robinhood is considered to have originated during this time period.
After the Third Crusade, on his overland return trip to England, Richard the Lionheart was captured by a rival, Leopold V, Duke of Austria, and transferred to Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, who demanded a king's ransom of 150,00 marks.
Richard finally made it back to England in 1194 but was killed just five years later fighting in Normandy, leaving King John again to rule in 1199.
Though William the Conqueror had sailed from Normandy over a century earlier to invade England, in 1205, King John of England lost control of Normandy to King Philip II of France.
England's barons became frustrated by this loss and by King John's absolute and arbitrary despotism. They asked the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, for assistance.
Drawing from the Bible, Langton composed limitations on the King John's power. His document became called The Magna Carta.
Langton is also credited with dividing the Bible into the chapter divisions used today.
On June 15, 1215, twenty-five barons with their "Army of God" surrounded King John on the plains of Runnymede. There they forced him to sign the Magna Carta, the Great Charter of English Liberties,
British judge, Lord Denning, described the Magna Carta as:
"the greatest constitutional document of all times - the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot."
The Magna Carta limited the previously unbridled centralized executive power.
Winston Churchill stated in 1956:
"Here is a law which is above the King and which even he must not break.
This reaffirmation of a supreme law and its expression in a general character is the great work of the Magna Carta; and this alone justifies the respect in which men have held it."
Sir Edwin Coke stated: "The Magna Carta will have no sovereign."
The Magna Carta began the process of redefining government's purpose from dominating people's lives into guaranteeing individual rights, culminating in the U.S. Constitution.
Political power changed from top-down to bottom-up.
Sir Edwin Coke's book, Institutes on the Laws of England, which emphasized the importance of the Magna Carta, was studied by John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
Sir Edwin Coke had written in a 1610 case:
"When an act of Parliament is against common right or reason ... the common law will ... adjure such an act void."
When Britain imposed the hated Stamp Act on the American colonies, the Massachusetts Assembly responded that it "was against the Magna Carta and the natural rights of Englishmen, and therefore, according to Lord Coke, null and void."
The Magna Carta, Clause One:
"the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties unimpaired"
is reflected in the FIRST AMENDMENT:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
The Magna Carta, Clause Six:
"If ... our chief justice, our officials, or any of our servants offend in any respect against any man ... and the offense is made known to four of the said twenty-five barons, they shall come to us ... and claim immediate redress"
is reflected in the FIRST AMENDMENT:
"and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The Magna Carta, Clause Twelve:
"No scutage -- tax -- nor aid ... shall be imposed on our kingdom, unless by common counsel"
is reflected in the the Revolutionary phrase,
"No taxation without representation"
and the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
"deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
The Magna Carta, Clause Thirteen:
"We also will and grant that all other cities, boroughs, towns, and ports shall enjoy all their liberties and free customs"
is reflected in the
U.S. CONSTITUTION, ARTICLE FOUR, SECTION TWO:
"The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States"
and ARTICLE FOUR, SECTION ONE:
"Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State"
The Magna Carta, Clause Twenty:
"For a trivial offence, a free man shall be fined only in proportion to the degree of his offence, and for a serious offence correspondingly, but not so heavily as to deprive him of his livelihood"
is reflected in the EIGHTH AMENDMENT:
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."
The Magna Carta, Clause Twenty-Eight:
"No constable or other bailiff ... shall take corn or other provisions from anyone without immediately tendering money"
is reflected in the FIFTH AMENDMENT:
"nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
The Magna Carta, Clause Thirty-Eight:
"No official shall place a man on trial upon his own unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it"
is reflected in the SIXTH AMENDMENT:
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him."
The Magna Carta, Clause Thirty-Nine:
"No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him ... except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land"
is reflected in the FIFTH AMENDMENT:
"Nor shall any person ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"
and the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT:
"nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."
The Magna Carta, Clause Forty:
"To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice"
is reflected in the SIXTH AMENDMENT:
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury."
If King John did not adhere to the Magna Carta, the 25 barons promised to levy war against him.
The U.S. Supreme Court wrote in Bank of Columbia v. Okely, 1819 (17 U.S. 235, 244):
"The words from Magna Carta ... were intended to secure the individual from the arbitrary exercise of the powers of government, unrestrained by the established principles of private right and distributive justice."
In over 100 U.S. Supreme Court decisions, the Magna Carta is referenced regarding:
- due process of law;
- trial by jury of one's peers;
- the importance of a speedy and unbiased trial; and
- protection against excessive bail or fines or cruel and unusual punishment.
Acknowledging America's debt to the Magna Carta, the American Bar Association erected a monument to it in England at Runnymede in 1957.
Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., stated in a "Re-dedication Address to The American Bar Association's Memorial to the Magna Carta," 1985 (19 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 55):
"The Magna Carta, in Bryce's words, 'was the starting point of the constitutional history' ...
Throughout the 196 year history of the Supreme Court of the United States, the bedrock principles of the Magna Carta have had and continue to have, a profound influence over the Justices' deliberations."
The Magna Carta ends:
"... for the salvation of our souls, and the souls of all our ... heirs, and unto the honor of God."
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Image Credits: Public Domain; Description: King John signs the Magna Carta; Date: 1864; Source: Doyle, James William Edmund (1864) "John" in A Chronicle of England: B.C. 55–A.D. 1485, London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, pp. p. 226 Retrieved on 12 November 2010.
Author: James William Edmund Doyle (1822–1892) Blue pencil.svg wikidata:Q5120676; Engraver: Edmund Evans (1826–1905) Blue pencil.svg wikidata:Q4529602; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Chronicle_of_England_-_Page_226_-_John_Signs_the_Great_Charter.jpg
Author: James William Edmund Doyle (1822–1892) Blue pencil.svg wikidata:Q5120676; Engraver: Edmund Evans (1826–1905) Blue pencil.svg wikidata:Q4529602; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Chronicle_of_England_-_Page_226_-_John_Signs_the_Great_Charter.jpg
Thank you so much for your work,Sir !
Today, I am doubly blessed by it as I am learning about Lord Denning . Denning is my mother’s maiden name . This newfound information will give us fun research tone, I know ,to trace any family connection.
Your work and knowledge are clearly a gift from God yo all . I cannot thank you enough for your presentations and insight .
It is a true delight to read your work & to watch you on Lindell TV! You are a true intellectual giant and a societal treasure .
Wishing you all the best !
Sincerely,
Jill G. Howell, M.A.Ed.
Cullman, Alabama|Charleston,SC