There are four surviving versions of Magna Carta from 1215. This eight-hundred-year-old document is housed in the British Library.
This image, King John and the Magna Carta, is from an 1850 book Pictures of English History. The king is depicted holding a quill pen instead of the seal that, in fact, was used to ratify the charter.
Part 1
The History of Kings, Barons, and the Commons
On its eight-hundredth anniversary, Magna Carta remains one of the most influential documents in history. It is the earliest example of an English monarch accepting the will of his subjects by allowing them to impose limits on his power. The charter presented to King John in Runnymede Meadow in 1215 would go on to become the foundation document for modern systems of democratic governance.
The supporters of Magna Carta, however, would be surprised by its current interpretation. In thirteenth-century England, democracy was synonymous with chaos, society was organized by a strict hierarchy, and the charter was written to bind the king to past precedents rather than new responsibilities.
Early Perceptions of Democracy
The Ancient Greeks practised an early form of direct democracy that inspired modern forms of government. Classical Athenian democracy (from the Greek dēmokratía or rule of the people — as opposed to aristokratia or rule of the elite) emerged in the fifth century B.C.E. Citizens were given the right to address the government and could be chosen by lot to form a ruling council. The definition of citizenship, however, was limited. According to the citizenship law, only sons of an Athenian father and mother were eligible to become citizens themselves. Women, slaves, former slaves, foreigners, and men under the age of twenty were all excluded from the political process.
Despite the exclusivity of Athenian citizenship, prominent Greek philosophers argued that democracy was little better than rule by the mob. Plato, author of The Republic, theorized that the ideal form of government was rule by philosopher kings who loved knowledge
The School of Athens by Raphael (1483–1520). The Athenian philosophers Plato (in purple and red) and Aristotle (in blue and brown) are depicted at the centre of the fresco.
for its own sake. In contrast, he saw democracy as a kind of anarchy where a vast lower class made decisions governed by their baser instincts, most notably the desire for wealth, breaking laws to achieve these goals. Plato’s student, Aristotle, judged democracy to be more moderate but still undesirable because it allowed the poor to rule in the interests of their social station without regard for the wider polity. Classical Athens, the society that invented a form of democracy, had strong doubts about the desirability of this system of government.
The Roman Republic (509–27 B.C.E.) drew upon Athenian political ideals but limited democracy to an even narrower group of people. It was a system designed to maintain the power of landowners over labourers. Membership in the Senate, the advisory body of the republic, was limited by age and property qualifications.
Roman citizens were divided into two classes, one that had the right to marry and accumulate property, and one that could vote and run for political office in addition to these basic rights. As Rome expanded its borders, the two-tiered citizenship structure allowed the elites of new regions to join the Roman political structure gradually without threatening existing interests. The Romans arrived in the British Isles in 43 B.C.E. and ruled much of modern-day England and Wales until 409 C.E., bringing their political traditions with them.
Plato and Aristotle in Discussion by Luca della Robbia, 1437. These two Athenian philosophers were skeptical of democracy as an effective political system.
After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, Germanic tribes from mainland Europe, including the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, invaded England. They divided the region into seven kingdoms while the Romano-British population largely settled in Wales and Cornwall. The Anglo-Saxons had their own political practices, which included hereditary kings whose decisions were informed by a network of family and tribal advisers. The earliest known law code from Anglo-Saxon England was commissioned by King Ethelbert of Kent around 594. He combined Germanic traditions of financial restitution for crimes with Christian reverence for the primacy of the church in his kingdom.
A scene from the Bayeux Tapestry depicting William of Normandy’s invasion of England in 1066.
Alfred the Great (r. 871–899), king of Wessex, united the English tribes against successive invasions by the Danes, and his grandson, Athelstan, went on to become the first king of all England in 927. By that time the role of king combined the primary roles of military leader and lawgiver. Although democracy did not exist in Anglo-Saxon England, the king’s power was constrained by the Witenagemot, the Assembly of the Wise, which consisted of senior nobles and clergy who ratified treaties and drafted changes to the law. When the succession was in dispute, this assembly selected the next king, passing over women and children in favour of experienced military leaders who were already part of the Anglo-Saxon ruling hierarchy. When King Edward the Confessor died in 1066, the Witenagemot selected his brother-in-law, Harold Godwinson, as his successor over the claims of Edward’s maternal cousin once removed, William, Duke of Normandy. William argued that Harold’s succession was unlawful because Harold had sworn an oath to support William’s claim to the throne. William raised an army in northwestern France and invaded England to seize the throne.
King William I of England and his three successors. Clockwise from top: William I, William II, Stephen, Henry I.
William defeated Harold at the Battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066, and was crowned King William I of England. William did not present his claim as an act of conquest, but, rather, as one of lawful succession supported by the papacy. The claim that he was Edward’s legitimate successor bound William and his successors to the legal and administrative framework of Anglo-Saxon England. In 1100, William’s youngest son, Henry, declared on his coronation day that he would follow Anglo-Saxon legal precedents, including the freedom of the church, assessment of just inheritance taxes, and consultation with a council of his barons. Henry I’s coronation charter became known as the Charter of Liberties, and future generations of barons and clergymen expected the king to obey the terms set down in this document.
Henry I’s successors — his nephew, Stephen, and grandson, Henry II — both faced challenges to their claims to the throne. Their coronation charters helped persuade the church and nobility that they would uphold their traditional rights. Henry II, like his predecessors, frequently summoned councils of prominent barons and clergymen to discuss key legislation after he took the throne in 1154. Henry II also dispensed justice in person during his travels around England and his numerous possessions in what is now France. The England inherited by Henry II’s sons, Richard I (r. 1189–1199) and John (r. 1199–1216) did not have a tradition of democracy, a concept that retained its association with social disorder, but there were accepted limits on the monarch’s power. King John’s eventual failure to uphold England’s political and legal customs would become one of the reasons for the drafting of Magna Carta.
King John in Popular Culture
There have been kings who have gone down in history as villains but received sympathetic treatment in modern popular culture. Richard III is both Shakespeare’s villain and the misunderstood hero of numerous modern historical novels. In contrast, popular culture portrayals of King John over the centuries have been remarkably consistent.