It will be convenient to subjoin the original text of the passages here translated :

[Li baron] deviserent que il demanderoient al roi que il lor tenist les chartres que il rois Henris qui fu ayous son père avoit données a lor ancissours et que li rois Estievenes lor avoit confremées ; et se il faire ne le voloit, il le desfieroient tout ensamble, et le guerroieroient tant que il par force le feroit Si li couvint là tel pais faire comme li baron vaurrent; là li couvint-il avoir en couvent à force que jamais feme ne marieroit ou liu ù elle fust desparagie. Chou fu la miudre couvenence que il lor fist, s'elle fust bien tenue. O tout chou li couvint-il avoir en couvent ke jamais ne feroit pierdre home menbre ne vie por bieste sauvage k'il presist; mais raiembre le pooit: ces deus choses pooit-on bien soufrir. Les rachas des tierres, qui trop grant estoient, li couvint metre à tel fuer comme il vaurrent deviser. Toutes hautes justices vaurrent-il avoir en lor tierres. Mainte autre chose lor requisent ù assés ot de raison, que je ne vous sai pas nommer. Desus tout chou vorrent-il que XXV baron fussent esliut, et par le jugement de ces XXV les menast li rois de toutes choses, et toz les tors que il lor feroit lor adreçast par eus, et il autresi de l'autre part li adreceroient toz les tors que il li feroient par eus. Et si vorrent encore avoec tout chou que li rois ne peust jamais metre en sa tierre bailliu, se par les XXV non. Tout chou couvint le roi otriier à force. De cele pais tenir donna li rois sa chartre as barons, comme chil qui amender ne le pot.2

Author's conception of the Great Charter

In this summary, which is very incomplete, but accurate enough on the whole, the Great Charter appears as a purely feudal compact. What struck the minstrel, what evidently struck the men of his time, is that the king, under force and, compulsion, had to promise not to disparage heiresses, to diminish the rights of relief, to renounce the strict laws which protected his forests, to respect the rights of justice of the feudal lords, and to recognise the existence of a commission of twenty-five barons, charged to bring to his notice the grievances of the nobility. Not a word of the alleged alliance between the baronage and

1. This clause does not exist textually in the Great Charter. Cf. above, p. 125.

2. Histoire des ducs de Normandie, pp. 145-146, 149-150.

the rest of the nation. The barons are proud, puffed up |
with their importance, and think only of themselves.
"On the strength of this wretched peace they treated him
with such pride as must move all the world to pity.
They required him to observe quite faithfully what he
had agreed with them; but what they had previously
agreed with their men they were unwilling to observe."
The biographer of William the Marshal, in the
celebrated poem discovered by Paul Meyer, says in two
words "That the barons for their franchises
"History of
William the
came to the king" and afterwards relates
Marshal"
at great length the war which followed the
annulling of the Great Charter. But he says not a word
about the Great Charter itself, does not even quote it.
These are, it is true, chronicles written by minstrels
and heralds who are only interested in the doings of the
The "Unknown nobles and in feats of arms. But the
"unknown charter" which we have recited
and commented on above has by no means that character.
It is a summary of negotiations between John and his
adversaries, the work no doubt of an agent of Philip
Augustus, and that king had the greatest interest in
knowing the real grounds of the quarrel. Now we have
seen that it is concerned almost exclusively with conces
sions granted to the nobles.

Charter"

That the Great Charter was drawn up for the baronage and not for the nation as a whole is therefore our deduction from documents which Stubbs did not make use of. But it is also the deduction to be drawn from the chronicles which he used, and, lastly, from the Charter itself. Let us read again without preconcep

The classical narrativesWendover,

Coggeshall,
Barnwell

1. Avoec toute la vilaine pais, li moustroient-il tel orguel que tous li mons en deust avoir pitié. Il voloient que il moult bien lor tenist chou que en couvent lor avoit; mais chou que il avoient en covent à lor homes avant ne voloient-il tenir (Ibidem, p. 151.)

2. Que li baron por lor franchises vindrent al rei . . . Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal, ed. Paul Meyer, (Soc. de l'Histoire de France,) ii, pp. 177 sqq.

1

tion the three principal narratives of the crisis of 1215, those of Roger of Wendover,1 of Ralph of Coggeshall 2 and of the Canon of Barnwell.3 We see there that the insurrection is an entirely feudal one; they record only the complicity of the Archbishop of Canterbury and certain bishops and of the "rich men " of London The insurgents wished" to revive the liberties expressed in the charter of King Henry I.,"5 which guaranteed the Church and the baronage against a certain number of royal abuses.

་

4

These chroniclers speak neither of consent to taxation nor of national union against the king. The Runnymede assembly is composed of "tota Angliae nobilitas regni," and the Great Charter is a "quasi pax inter regem et barones."7 The chroniclers are perfectly in agreement with Innocent III., who, in his bull of the 24th August, 1215,8 speaks of the rebellion of the "magnates et nobiles Angliae," and with John Lackland himself, who calls the crisis the "discordia inter nos et barones nostros," and recognises that he is signing a sort of treaty of peace with his barons.

Let us take the text of the Great Charter, not to recommence clause by clause an analysis already made

1. In the edition of the Chronica Majora of Matthew Paris, (Rolls Ser.), ii, pp. 582, 583, 584-589.

2. Ed. Stevenson (Rolls series), pp. 170-173.

3. In the Historical Collections of Walter of Coventry, ed. Stubbs (Rolls series), ii, pp. 217-221.

4. "Favebant enim baronibus divites civitatis, et ideo pauperes obmurmurare (or: obloqui) metuebant" (Wendover, p. 587).

5. Chartam regis Henrici primi proferunt quae libertates exprimit quas proceres, olim abolitas, nunc resuscitare contendunt" (Coggeshall, p. 170).

6. Wendover, p. 589.

7. Coggeshall, p. 172.

8. Printed by (among others) Bémont, Chartes des Libertés Anglaises, pp. 41 sqq.

9. "Ad melius sopiendum discordiam inter nos et barones nostros motam (Great Charter, art. 61; see also art 1). Cf. art. 52: "in securitate pacis. . .

Text of the
Great Charter

by Stubbs, but to investigate whether in reality "the barons maintain and secure the rights of the whole people as against themselves as well as against their master," and whether" the, rights of the commons are provided for as well as the rights of the nobles," whether, again, the famous articles

12 and 14 "admit the right of the nation to ordain |

taxation.'

Clauses exclusively ✓ concerning clergy and nobility

2

3

Of the sixty-three clauses into which modern editors divide the provisions, often somewhat ill-arranged, of the charter of the 15th of June, 1215, about fourteen are temporary articles or relate tol the execution of the agreement. Of the forty-nine which remain two concern the, clergy, twenty-four specially secure the baronage against the abuse which the king made of his rights as suzerain. These articles, placed for the most

1. Const. Hist., i, pp. 572–579. This analysis is in general faithful and exact; but on many points, the interpretation is no longer acceptable. We refer our readers once for all to the excellent commentary by MacKechnie.

2. Const. Hist., i, 570 and 573.

3. We shall quote the Great Charter and the Articles of the Barons (which preceded it and form a sort of first draft of it authentic and approved by the king), from the excellent collection of Chartes des Libertés Anglaises of M. Bémont.

4. Arts 1 and 22.

5. Art. 2 to 12, 14 to 16, 21, 26, 27, 29, 32, 34, 37, 39, 43, 46. These articles of feudal law, precise and well drafted, restore ancient custom; two of them, articles 34 and 39, would to some extent have ruined the royal system of justice and the legal progress accomplished since the reign of Henry II, had they been applied in their letter and their spirit, and it is of them above all that we have been thinking in speaking of the reactionary character of the Great Charter: article 34 in fact forbade the king to call up suits touching property, and article 39 restored judgement by peers. They were evidently evoked by the disquieting development of royal justice at the expense of seignorila justice, and by the executions without sentence with which John Lackland had threatened the barons: "Nec super eum ibimus, nec super eum mittemus, nisi per legale judicium parium suorum vel per legem terre." I do not, however, believe that article 39 was drafted with the intention of denying the competence of the professional judges (Cf. article 18 on the iters), and Mr. MacKechnie seems to me to be wrong in seeing in the lex terre the old national procedure by battle, compurgation, and ordeal. The lex terre, is doubtless the custom of

part at the beginning of the document, are evidently its fundamental clauses in the minds of the authors of the agreement. Ten others concern the generall General clauses exercise of the royal justice.1 The benefit against the of them could not be confined to the barons abuse of royal power alone; but it is clear that it was of themselves that the barons were thinking when exacting these guarantees, which, without exception, have for them, directly or indirectly, a powerful interest.2 It is the same with the important articles which set a limit to the exactions of the sheriffs, to abuses of purveyance, etc. The special régime of the royal Forest was particularly hard on the poor people, but it very much annoyed and irritated the barons themselves.3

In conclusion, let us take the clauses which appear to be drafted specially in favour of the people of the towns! and villages. It is by a study of them that we can verify whether the Great Charter was made " to secure as well the rights of the common people as those of the nobles,' and whether "the demands of the barons were no selfish exaction of privilege for themselves."

"Let the city of London," says article 13, "have all its ancient liberties and free customs as well on land

the realm in a general sense, the lex regni; cf. the charter granted to the barons on the 10th of May, to settle the same question : nec super eos per vim vel per arma ibimus, nisi per legem regni nostri, etc.” (Bémont, p. 33, note).

1. Art: 17, 18, 19, 20, 24, 36, 38, 40, 45, 54.

2. Clause 20, for example, which might seem democratic," had a financial interest for the lords. See below. Article 17 similarly seems made for the smaller litigants: "Communia placita non sequantur curiam nostram, set teneantur in aliquo loco certo." But this definite fixing of the court of common pleas (that is to say of the suits which did not interest the king personally) at Westminster was not important for the smaller litigants only. The barons might be ruined by the journeys they were until then obliged to make in order to obtain justice. The case of Richard of Anesty, who had to follow the king and his court through England, Normandy. Aquitaine and Anjou for five years, is quite characteristic (See MacKechnie, pp. 309-310, and Stubbs, i, 642 and note 1. Anesty is Anstey in the county of Hertford; see Round, in Victoria History of Essex, i, p. 379.)

3. Clauses 23, 25, 28, 30, 31, 33, 35, 41, 44, 47, 48.