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Four Clauses from Runnymede: Reading the Magna Carta

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Four Clauses from Runnymede: Reading the Magna Carta

Source an adapted excerpt, then trace how courts and Parliament kept limiting the king.

Source the excerpt

Read the sourcing note and the excerpt. Then answer the questions.

Sourcing note. The Magna Carta ("Great Charter") was written in Latin and sealed by King John of England at Runnymede, a meadow beside the River Thames, in June 1215. John had lost most of his family's lands in France and had demanded heavy payments from his barons to fight wars to win them back. In May 1215 rebel barons captured London, and John agreed to the charter to make peace. Within a few months he asked Pope Innocent III to cancel it, the pope did so, and war broke out again. When the charter was written, only a minority of English people were "free men"; many peasants were unfree, bound to work a lord's land.

Excerpt: Four Clauses (adapted from an English translation of the Magna Carta, 1215)

Clause 12. No special tax for war shall be demanded in our kingdom without the general consent of the kingdom, except to pay a ransom to free us, to make our eldest son a knight, or to pay for the first marriage of our eldest daughter.

Clause 39. No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or have his land or rights taken, or be outlawed or exiled, or harmed in any other way, nor will we move against him or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.

Clause 40. To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay, right or justice.

Clause 61. The barons shall choose twenty-five barons of the kingdom. If we or any of our officials break any part of this charter and do not correct it within forty days, the twenty-five barons, together with the whole community of the land, may seize our castles, lands and possessions until the wrong is corrected.

1.
Based on the sourcing note, why did King John agree to the charter?
Question 1 options
2.
The barons pressed for clause 12. Using the sourcing note, what did they most likely want it to do?
Question 2 options
3.
A historian says clause 39 protected fewer people in 1215 than it seems to today. Which detail from the page best supports her?
Question 3 options
4.
Match each case from England in the 1200s to the clause that deals with it.

After 1215: courts and Parliament

Read the passage and the timeline. Then answer the questions.

From Charter to Courts and Parliament

1Even before the Magna Carta, England's courts were changing. King Henry II, who ruled from 1154 to 1189, sent royal judges to travel around the kingdom hearing cases. Their decisions were remembered and followed when similar cases came up later, so more and more of the same law applied everywhere in England. This became known as the common law, because it was common to the whole kingdom. Groups of local men, early juries, told the judges what they knew about crimes in their area.

2The pope's cancellation did not end the charter. After King John died in 1216, the advisers of his young son, Henry III, issued it again in shorter forms, and the version of 1225 was copied and read aloud for centuries. Each new version kept the promise that no free man would be imprisoned except by lawful judgment or the law of the land, and copies were sent to be kept in cathedrals and read out in public.

3Kings still needed money for wars, and the barons wanted a say in how it was raised. In 1265 Simon de Montfort, a baron who had rebelled against Henry III, called a parliament that included not only nobles and church leaders but also knights from the counties and representatives from the towns. In 1295 King Edward I called a parliament with the same groups to approve taxes. Over the next century, Parliament split into a House of Lords and a House of Commons, and it claimed the right to approve new taxes.

4These limits grew slowly. Kings still held great power, and many later rulers tested or ignored the rules. Yet each step, from judges who followed earlier decisions, to a charter that put the king under the law of the land, to a Parliament whose consent was needed for taxes, made it harder for one ruler to act alone. Centuries later, lawmakers in England and in the American colonies pointed to the Magna Carta when they argued that no ruler stands above the law.

Limiting the English Crown: A Timeline
DateEvent
1154–1189Henry II sends judges around England
1215King John seals the Magna Carta
1216John dies; the charter is reissued
1225Henry III issues the lasting version
1265De Montfort's parliament meets
1295Edward I's parliament approves taxes
5.
Sort each detail by the development it belongs to.
6.

Use the timeline. About how many years passed between the sealing of the Magna Carta and the parliament called by Edward I? years

7.
The pope canceled the Magna Carta within months. Using paragraph 2 and the timeline, why do historians still treat it as a turning point?
Question 7 options
8.
Underline the sentence from paragraph 3 that best shows how Parliament gained a lasting way to limit the king.

9.
How did common law, as paragraph 1 describes it, make it harder for a ruler or a local lord to treat people unfairly?
Question 9 options
10.
Claim: The Magna Carta mattered more for what later generations did with it than for what it did in 1215. Do you agree or disagree? Give two pieces of evidence from the sourcing note, the excerpt, the passage or the timeline, and explain your reasoning.