Magna Charta

Magna Carta (Latin for "Great Charter", literally "Great Paper"), also called Magna Carta Libertatum ("Great Charter of Freedoms"), is an English charter originally issued in 1215. Magna Carta was the most significant early influence on the extensive historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law today. Magna Carta influenced many common law documents, such as the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights, and is considered one of the most important legal documents in the history of democracy.

Magna Carta, or Magna Charta, is the thirteenth-century document regarded as the foundation of English constitutional liberty

Magna Carta was originally created because of disagreements between Pope Innocent III, King John and his English barons about the rights of the King. Magna Carta required the king to renounce certain rights, respect certain legal procedures and accept that the will of the king could be bound by law. Many clauses were renewed throughout the Middle Ages, and further during the Tudor and Stuart periods, and the 17th and 18th centuries. By the early 19th century most clauses had been repealed from English law.

There are a number of popular misconceptions about Magna Carta, such as that it was the first document to limit the power of an English king by law (it was not the first, and was partly based on the Charter of Liberties); that it in practice limited the power of the king (it mostly did not in the Middle Ages); and that it is a single static document (it is a variety of documents referred to under a common name).

Events leading to Magna Carta

One of the certified copies of Magna Carta made in 1215.

After the Norman conquest of England in 1066 and advances in the 12th century, the English king had by 1199 become the most powerful monarch in Europe. This was due to a number of factors including the sophisticated centralised government created by the procedures of the new Anglo-Saxon systems of governance, and extensive Anglo-Norman land holdings in Normandy. But after King John of England was crowned in the early 13th century, a series of stunning failures on his part led the barons of England to revolt and place checks on the king's power.