The First Century of Magna Carta: The Diffusion of Texts and Knowledge of the Charter
2016; Routledge; Volume: 25; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1065-8254
Autores Tópico(s)Legal Rights and Human Rights
ResumoINTRODUCTIONMuch of the interest of historians and of the general public during 2015, the eighth centenary year of the ' Charter of Liberties, ' was focused on the dramatic events leading up to King John's concession of the Charter to his subjects in the meadow of Runnymede by the river Thames in June 1215. This Paper takes as its subject some of the story of what happened during the first century after Runnymede. In the first Section I will look at how knowledge of the text of the 1215 Charter and of the various revised reissues (those of 1216, 1217, and 1225) was spread by the making of multiple official copies for transmission to the localities and through instructions being sent for local public proclamation of their contents, and at how the similar arrangements made for the making of further multiple official copies of the authorized reissues of the 1225 version of Magna Carta-which took the form of letters of inspeximus and confirmation of the 1225 text issued by the king-in 1265, 1297, and 1300 were also accompanied by instructions for recurrent public proclamation of the reissued and publicly reaffirmed text. In the second Section I will look at what is currently known about the process through which unofficial copies of the text of Magna Carta (in one version or sometimes in multiple versions) started being made for institutional and individual use. In the third Section I will look at what is known of the further process of transmission of knowledge of the text through the translation of the Latin texts of Magna Carta into Anglo-Norman French and into Middle English. In the fourth and final Section I will look at the ways in which access to the content of Magna Carta came to be facilitated by the compilation of unofficial indexes to the text (and also at the connection between these finding aids and the numbering of the individual chapters of Magna Carta, which scholars and lawyers still use), and by the compilation of a precis version of the text.I. OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE DIFFERENT ISSUES OF MAGNA CARTA, 1215-1300Royal letters patent issued on 19 June 1215, not long after the sealing of the 'Charter of Liberties,' and addressed jointly to the sheriffs, warreners, custodians of river banks, and all other royal bailiffs of every county, spoke of the king's charter (evidently the 'Charter of Liberties') as something which the king had (already) ordered to be read out publicly throughout each official's 'bailiwick' (area of office) and firmly observed. An immediately following set of annotations on the Patent Roll of the King's Chancery for the seventeenth regnal year (or a variant on it) was sent (but as a pair of letters patent, with the other perhaps being sent to the community of each county) to almost every county via named intermediaries, as well as to the city of London and to the Cinque Ports in Kent.1 The late Sir James Holt (following earlier scholarly opinion) thought that this meant that copies of the Charter had indeed been sent to all these counties.2 More recent scholarly opinion has, however, been skeptical about whether the counties ever got their copies. it notes that the same memorandum on the Patent Roll that mentions the letters patent referring to the 'Charter of Liberties' also refers to the handing over of just thirteen copies of 'the Charter' and suggests that the ultimate recipients of these copies were the thirteen bishops of England who were then in post (several sees then being vacant) and further notes that these were the only copies of the Charter that were sent out in June 1215.3 It is certainly the case that three of the four surviving copies of the 1215 'Charter of Liberties' are now known to have been associated with particular bishoprics: Salisbury, Lincoln, and Canterbury.4 But there is also independent evidence, well known to historians from a 1974 article of the late Sir James Holt, to suggest that more copies of the 'Charter of Liberties' were made than those which were sent to the bishops. …
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