A Companion to Our Literary Journey/Magna Carta

We all know that Magna Carta is the great charter of liberties but it is sometimes difficult to see what the document that King John signed at Runnymede on 15 June 1215 is all about.

At school, they teach us that it has a direct connection to modern democracy, equality or, as Margaret Thatcher claimed, “representative government”. However, this perception is the result of an interpretation gone out of proportions. For example, it is a fact that the charter codifies the right that “no widow shall be forced to re-marry if she wishes to remain without a husband”.

This is the reason why we like to state that the charter is the root of the modern rights of women.

We are all charmed by the fact that the Carta even gave women property rights, in a very limited way, yes, but yet we all know that women in the XIXth century still had to give their dowry to their husbands who would administer them without event asking their opinion.

Actually, the way to equality has been long and it was started off with the suffragette movement in the early XXth century. What Magna Carta codified about women’s right actually remained a grand statement for over seven centuries.

In actual fact, Magna Carta has not expressly imposed a “trial by jury”, and it has not provided a theory of rights. Most of what it contains is practical rather than philosophical. No philosopher wrote this charter; actually, the barons also included selfish and petty requests. For example, chapter 50 states that “Gerard de Atheyes’s family is to be banned, so that for the future they will have no presence in England”. This part of the document is all about brutal power, not grand statements: the barons simply resented this nobleman named Gérard De Athée and wanted him removed from the King’s court.

The English-speaking world has based the common law on Magna Carta, and yet this document was written exclusively to the benefit of the English society. Although it contains important clause about Wales and Scotland, and it only mentions Ireland, it treats the non-English parts of the British Isles as the separate lands that they were.

The charter was signed in 1215 but it was amended, reasserted and changed from the moment it was signed. So, why is the fascination with this document ever present? Because its principles show a line of continuity with the present, as they are still applicable to fight injustices or simply to fight bullies in today’s world. Take Chapter 40: “we will never sell, deny or delay the right justice to anyone”. It is wonderful to think that 800 years ago those barons wrote something so concise and clear for living in a civilized society. Similarly, the proportion between offence and sentence in chapter 20 still sounds so right: you cannot have the same punishment for someone who steals an apple and someone who robs a bank. Moreover, the principle that a judge must know the law and know how to apply it, and that only a judge shall sit in judgment is so logical in the 21st century as much as in the 13th century.

For the legal scholar of this century Magna Carta is the foundation of all our laws and liberties.

On strict historical grounds, this is a mythological view of an historical fact. However, this approach to Magna Carta as a holy text has suppoeted throughout the centuries the idea that individual freedom is precious and must be defended and passed on from generation to generation to these days. It is an approach that allows to believe that the law is something sacred, and it is superior to bad rulers, whether they are medieval kings or modern politicians.