What is the Magna Carta

A.� The Great Charter, the list of English liberties granted by King John in 1215 under threat of civil war and reissued with alterations in 1216, 1217, and 1225. John agreed to the demands of his barons and authorised that copies of Magna Carta be prepared on parchment, affixed with his seal, and publicly read throughout the realm. In doing so, he bound not only himself but his 'heirs, for ever' to grant 'to all freemen of our kingdom' the rights described in Magna Carta. In signing it, John put himself and England's future rulers within the rule of law. < xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

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Q.� So this was the first charter by a king

A.� No. Earlier kings of England - Henry I, Stephen, and Henry II - had issued them, making promises or concessions to barons, the king's local rulers. But these were granted by the sovereigns, not forced out of them, like it was with John.

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Q.� What was the background to Magna Carta

A.� Pressure was being put on the barons. The steady growth of a central administration during the 12th Century weakened the barons' position with the Crown. John, as regent, was forced to levy heavy taxation for the ransom of Richard I after his capture by the Holy Roman emperor Henry VI. This came on top of earlier heavy taxes to pay for the Third Crusade. The barons were getting angry. And then there was the Church, too...

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Q.� He fell out with the Church

A.� Yes, quarrelsome John was at odds with Pope Innocent III during 1208-13, so he taxed the English church heavily. In return, Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton directed baronial unrest into a demand for a grant of liberties by the king.

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Q.� The great charter

A.� Yes - initially known as the Articles of the Barons. The content was agreed and became the version that John sealed at Runnymede, beside the River Thames, between Windsor and Staines, Surrey, on 15 June, 1215.

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Q.� But what was in it

A.� I won't go into huge detail here, but Magna Carta is traditionally held to be a preamble with 63 clauses. It's divided into nine groups including the freedom of the Church; Crown lands, towns, trade, and merchants; reform of the law; behaviour of royal officials; and royal forests. A final clause was intended to make the king keep his word: If he infringed it, a council of 25 barons should have the right to levy war upon him.

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Q.� But what is its importance

A.� The charter meant more to later generations than to its contemporaries. The circumstances of its granting have made Magna Carta a battle cry against oppression. Later generations took it as a protection of threatened liberties. The Petition of Right (1628) and the Habeas Corpus Act (1679) referred to the Magna Carta clause that stated that 'no free man shall be ... imprisoned or disseised [dispossessed] ... except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land'. National and the state constitutions in America include ideas traceable to Magna Carta.

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Q.� Can I see it

A.� Yes. There are several copies. It was reissued and updated a number of times. Four of the 1215 originals exist, one each in Lincoln Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral, and two in the British Museum. You can read a translation by clicking on: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/mcarta.html

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By Steve Cunningham