The Magna Carta recently went on sale. It had belonged to Ross Perot, and he'd had it on loan to the US Archives. Now it is on sale. What a shame that the US doesn't own a copy.
Herald
Tribune Report
Thanks to the internet you can read it (with a dictionary) in translation from Latin and Middle English to English with middle English terms. You can read about it at several sites:
Avalon: http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0geu8ZU9PpGxBcAoV5XNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE5aHU2ZTNqBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDNQRjb2xvA2FjMgR2dGlkA0RGUjVfMTEyBGwDV1Mx/SIG=12b9l8hp4/EXP=1190938068/**http%3a//www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/medieval/magframe.htm
and http://www.magnacartaplus.org/magnacarta/
And of course there is the Wiki entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta
This document is linked to the Robin Hood legend through the agency of King John. The first reason is the "time." The Robin Hood story is often set during the period immediately before his reign. The second reason is that both stories have to do with the reality that "rights" require a constant struggle of people to work out their differences, adjudicate agreements, and spell out common rules.
The Magna Carta was granted for a number of reasons, but the principle one is that King John was the heir to an incredibly expensive and useless series of wars, and couldn't pay for them without the agreement of his "Magnates", and also of the Yoemen, Church Authorities, and other principal people of the country. What I like about he Magna Carta is that it was one of many "tipping points" and struggles that defined English common law and kept it from tipping completely over into tyranny. This struggle was a common one in European History. Indeed it is a common one in world history. Rarely do the common folks even get consulted in these struggles. In the dark and Middle ages, most of the rights struggles were between magnates and King as in the title of the Magna Carta. The common man only counts if he organizes and has a voice. Sometimes that organization is a positive thing. Sometimes it is more on the model of Robin Hood.
The Spanish Kings also faced Cities and Towns that demanded rights -- and for a Time England and Spain were not so different. England was blessed with relatively few external enemies. Spain was faced with conflict between religions, cultures and sovereignity. Eventually the Hapsburgs went the Chauvinist route and crushed opposition. Under the Motto "One Crown, One Religion, One people" they expelled first their Jews and then their remaining Moors, and launched wars to protect Catholicism first against Turkish invaders and later against Protestants. In the process they impoverished their nation to the point where one of their enemies became King an the Spanish Hapsburgs passed into history. It is the Bourbons who rule Spain to this day.
The English dynasty might have suffered a similar Fate. Charles the II lost his head, but the English could tolerate Kings even into modern times because of informal constitutions like the Magna Carta. The Magna Carta has lines demanding respect for Yoemen. I can imagine heirs of Robin Hood, bows in hand, standing side by side the Magnates facing King John. His memory might have lived on. Their demands were simpler than those of others. Of course nothing is forever, especially if the letter says forever, but I digress:
quotes:
General grant of rights:
"We have also granted to all freemen of our kingdom, for us and our heirs forever, all the underwritten liberties, to be had and held by them and their heirs, of us and our heirs forever."
Trial by Jury;
"No freemen shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor send upon him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land."
When the "Minutemen" marched -- it wasn't as "Americans" but as colonists seeking their "rights as Englishmen" -- and those rights had to be fought over over a period of centuries by generation after generation of determined people -- often struggling against their own compatriots and the winds of war, fear, invasion, religious chauvinism, or simple greed and ambition. Our Founders broke with England when we realized, that like the Colonies and allies of Athens who rebelled from Athenian rule in the Peloponnese war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloponnesian_War)
any country can repress the rights of citizens of outside lands, even while decrying the slightest infringement on their own citizens rights.
Chris
Posted by cholte at September 26, 2007 08:12 PM