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MAGNA CARTA(lat. Magna Carta Libertatum, eng. The Great Charter), a document sealed by the English king John the Landless, which guaranteed certain privileges and rights to his subjects. A group of rebellious barons forced the king to accept the Magna Carta on June 15, 1215 at Runnymede Meadow near London (on the right bank of the Thames between Windsor and Staines). The document is written in Latin, consists of a preamble and 63 articles and contains guarantees of those privileges and freedoms that formed the foundation of the British system of government. Two original copies of the Magna Carta are in the British Museum in London, one in Lincoln Cathedral and one in Salisbury Cathedral.

Historical background.

After the conquest of England by the Normans in 1066, skilled kings ruled here, who centralized the management system, created new institutions (for example, the treasury), and reformed the judicial system. By the time of Henry II (1154-1189) England had the most perfect system of government in Western Europe, but even that had a flaw - the danger of insufficient control over royal power. Therefore, a king like John the Landless (who ascended the throne in 1199 after the death of his brother Richard I) could, in fact, rule without observing any laws.

Most historians agree that John was a reasonable ruler, capable of significant things, but at the same time he was capricious, lazy, greedy and in the highest degree unreliable. He despised the accepted norms of behavior and was an inept military leader. By 1206, John had ceded all English possessions on the continent except Aquitaine. This loss, which discredited John in England, led the barons to look for ways to make amends for the damage they had done.

The barons did not like a number of things: the demand for excessively long military service or exorbitant monetary payment (scutagia) for exemption from it; selling positions, patronizing friends and extorting money from subjects; increasing old taxes and imposing new ones without proper vassal approval; disrespect for feudal law and its violations. The royal courts became the conductors of the royal will, cases were often decided according to the royal whim, excessively large fines and heavy punishments became more frequent. In addition, John's relationship with the church became so alienated, he so often encroached on its possessions, that the clergy also experienced fear and distrust of the king. In 1208, Pope Innocent III imposed an interdict on England, and in 1209 he excommunicated John from the church. But John did not seek reconciliation with the church and did not try to make amends for her damage until 1213. So on the eve of the adoption of the Magna Carta, John found himself in isolation from almost all of his subjects.

In January 1215, a group of barons presented the king with a list of demands, which he later accepted as temporary and sealed them with his seal at Runnymede in mid-June (the "Baronial Articles"). After several days of deliberation, the Magna Carta, a compromise based on the Articles of Barons, was worked out.

provisions of the charter.

Most of the 63 articles of the Magna Carta are devoted to the protection of the norms of feudal law. The Church was granted its traditional privileges. Several articles dealt with the rights of the urban middle class.

One of the articles said that the royal vassals should be called to meetings in order to make recommendations and give their consent in cases of important decisions. Another stipulated the right of vassals to choose if they were called up for military service by the king: go to serve or make monetary compensation, the so-called. scutagium (shield collection). Another mandated the imposition of all emergency taxes solely with the approval of the royal vassals.

Certain articles that belonged to the realm of law proved to be of the utmost importance because of the influence they had on legal procedures. John had to agree that henceforth justice could not be bought and sold. Article 39 states that no free person may be arrested, imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, expelled "or otherwise harmed" except by the lawful determination of the peers or by the law of the land. The king thereby promised that every free man should be brought before a judicial body before any action was taken against him. It is the germ of the fundamental principle of due process of law, which ensures that people cannot be arbitrarily deprived of their liberty or punished and that they are brought to justice. Although the jury trial for civil cases was introduced as early as the reign of Henry II, criminal cases began to be tried by jury later, by the middle of the 13th century. And yet in the 17th century. lawyers and historians have interpreted the Magna Carta as a document that provided for the introduction of just such a judicial procedure.

To ensure that John kept the promises he had made, a council of barons was established by section 61. The colossal significance of the Magna Carta in 1215 was that the royal vassals for the first time forced the king to agree to the rule of law.

Reissues and confirmations.

A little over a year after the granting of the Magna Carta, John died, his young son Henry III succeeded him. In November 1216, shortly after Henry's coronation, the Charter was reissued in his name, with some articles omitted. This reissue of the Magna Carta dealt mainly with matters related to the sphere of private law, and not to the system of government or control of royal power, since the barons were convinced that they could cope with a minor ruler. The second reprint of the Magna Carta, in which a revision of certain provisions was undertaken, took place in November 1217. In February 1225, shortly after Henry was declared of age, the third and last reprint appeared, almost identical to the reprint of 1217. It was this version of the Charter that was considered as the beginning of statutory law and repeatedly confirmed by the English kings throughout the late Middle Ages.

Historical meaning.

In the three centuries after 1215, the Magna Carta became a symbol of limitation royalty, and over time began to be regarded as the fundamental law of the country. However, only since the 17th century. it has come to be interpreted as an act of state providing constitutional control over royal power, containing a provision on the inadmissibility of imposing taxes or laws without the consent of Parliament, on the obligation to try criminal cases by jury and guarantees against arbitrary imprisonment and punishment, and also setting out the principles of a democratic form of government and impartial judiciary. During a fierce struggle with the kings of the Stuart dynasty at the beginning of the 17th century. jurists and members of parliament such as Edward Coke began to interpret the Magna Carta as providing for these rights. In the 18th century jurist William Blaxton introduced this interpretation into his famous Commentaries on the Laws of England (Commentaries on the Laws of England). Historians and statesmen 19th century extolled the Charter as the great guarantee of English liberties. In this interpretation, it influenced the political and legal ideas in America and played a key role in the colonial period of its history, during the American Revolution, in the development of the main provisions of the US constitution.

APPENDIX

MAGNA CARTA - GREAT CHARTA

John, by the Grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou, Bishops, Bishops, Abbots, Earls, Barons, Justiciars, Forestry Officers, Sheriffs, Bailiffs, Servants, and all Officers, and to your true regards.

Know that we are by God's inspiration and for the salvation of our souls and all our predecessors and successors, in honor of God and for the exaltation of the holy church and for the improvement of our kingdom, by the advice of our venerable fathers Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England and the Holy Church of Rome Cardinal, Henry, Archbishop of Dublin, William of London, Peter of Winchester, Joscelin of Base and Glastonbury, Hugon of Lincoln, Walter of Uster, William of Coventry and Benedict of Rochester; Master Pandulf, Seigneur of the Pope Subdeacon and member of his court, Brother Aymeric, Master of the Temple Host in England, and noblemen: William Marshall Earl of Pembroke, William Earl of Salisbury, William Earl Warren, William Earl Arondell, Alan de Galloway Constable of Scotland, Warren, son of Gerold, Peter, son of Herebert, Hubert de Burgo, Seneschal of Poitou, Hougon de Neuville, Matthew, son of Herebert, Thomas Basset, Alan Basset, Philippe d "Aubigny, Robert de Ropsley, John Marshal, John, son of Hugon, and other faithful of ours.

1. First, we have given our consent before God, and confirmed by our present charter for us and for our heirs for all eternity, that the Church of England should be free and possess her rights intact and her liberties inviolable, which is evident from the fact that freedom election, which is recognized as the most important and most necessary of the English Church, we, by pure and good will, even before the disagreement that arose between us and our barons, granted and confirmed our charter and received confirmation of it from the lord of Pope Innocent III, which we will observe , and we wish that our heirs also faithfully observe it for all eternity.

We also granted to all the free people of our kingdom for us and for our heirs for all eternity all the following liberties, so that they and their heirs have them and their heirs from us and from our heirs.

2. If any of the earls or barons or other holders who hold from us directly (in capite) for military service dies, and at the time of his death his heir will be of age and will be obliged to pay relief, then he (the heir) must receive his inheritance after payment of the old relief, i.e. the heir or heirs of an earl (must pay) for a whole earl's barony one hundred pounds (sterling), the heir or heirs of a baron for a whole barony one hundred pounds, the heir or heirs of a knight who owns a whole knightly fief, one hundred shillings at most; and whoever has to pay less, let him give less, according to the ancient custom of the fiefs.

3. If the heir of any of these (holders) turns out to be a minor and under guardianship, then, having reached the age of majority, let him receive his inheritance without paying relief and duty.

4. The guardian of the land of this heir, who is underage, must take from the land of the heir only moderate income and moderate ordinary payments and moderate duties, and without causing damage and ruin to either people or things;

and if we entrust the custody of any such land to a sheriff, or any other who shall give us an account of its income, and he ruins and devastates this land under his trust, then we will charge him a fine, and let the land will be entrusted to two full and honest people from this fief, who will give an account of income to us or to whom we appoint;

and if we give or sell to anyone the custody of any of these lands, and he makes ruin or devastation on it, then he will lose this guardianship, and it will be transferred to two full and honest people from this fief, who in the same way , as said above, will give us a report.

5. The guardian, while keeping the land in trust, will maintain houses, parks, livestock buildings, ponds, mills, etc., related to this land, from the income of this land and will be obliged to transfer to the heir, when he reaches the age of majority, all his land equipped with plows and other agricultural implements, how much is required in working time and how much you can have it, according to reasonable income from the land.

6. Heirs will enter into marriage in such a way that there is no unequal marriage, and in such a way that, before marriage, this is brought to the attention of close blood relatives of the heir himself.

7. After the death of her husband, let a widow immediately and without any difficulty receive her dowry and her inheritance, and let her pay nothing for her widow's part, or for her dowry, or for her inheritance, which her husband and she herself owned on the day of her husband's death. and let her remain in her husband's house for forty days after his death, during which time her widow's portion will be allocated to her.

8. No widow shall be forced into marriage as long as she wishes to live without a husband, so, however, that she must present a guarantee that she will not marry without our consent, if she keeps from us, or without the consent of her lord, from whom she keeps, if she keeps from someone else (and not from us).

9. Neither we nor our officials will seize either land or the income from it for debt, while the debtor's movables are sufficient to pay the debt; and the guarantors of the debtor himself will not be compelled (to pay his debt) so long as the principal debtor himself is in a position to pay the debt; and if the main debtor is unable to pay the debt, has no way to pay, the guarantors are liable for the debt and, if they wish, can receive the lands and revenues of the debtor and own them until they receive compensation for the debt that they previously for him paid, unless the principal debtor proves that he has already settled with these guarantors.

10. If someone borrows something, more or less, from the Jews and dies before this debt is paid, this debt will not give interest until the heir (of the deceased) is underage, from whomsoever he keeps (his land ), and if this debt falls into our hands, we will exact only the property that is listed in the promissory note.

11. If someone dies, remaining indebted to the Jews, his wife must receive her widow's share and is not obliged to give anything in payment of this debt; and if the deceased has left minor children, they must be provided with what is necessary in accordance with the maintenance of the deceased, and the debt must be paid from the remainder, but so that the duties followed by the seigneur (of the deceased) do not suffer any damage; in the same way it is necessary to deal with debts to others, not a Jew.

12. Neither shield money nor nocobie (auxilium) shall be collected in our kingdom except by the general advice of our kingdom (nisi per commune consilium regni nostri), unless it is for the ransom of our captivity and not for the knighting of the firstborn son. ours and not for the first marriage of our firstborn daughter; and for this, only a moderate allowance should be given; similarly should be done with respect to the allowances from the city of London.

13. And the city of London must have all the ancient liberties and free customs both on land and on water. In addition, we wish and deign that all other cities and burghs, and towns, and ports have all the liberties and free customs.

14. And in order to have a general council of the kingdom in the imposition of allowances in other cases than the three above mentioned, or for the imposition of shield money, we will order the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls and senior barons (majores barones) to be called by our letters under our seal ;

and besides, we will order to call indiscriminately, through our sheriffs and bailiffs, all those who keep from us directly (in capite); (we will command to call all of them) by a certain day, i.e. at least forty days before the due date, and at a specified location;

and in all these draft letters we will explain the reason for the invitation; and when the invitations have been thus sent out, on the appointed day the work will be set to work with the participation and advice of those who are present, even though not all those invited have appeared.

15. We will no longer allow anyone to take an allowance from his free people, except to ransom him from captivity and to knight his firstborn son and to marry off his firstborn daughter in first marriage; and for this it is necessary to take only a moderate allowance.

16. No one should be forced to do more service for his knightly fief or for any other free tenure than that which follows from him.

17. General lawsuits should not follow our curia, but should be settled in some particular place.

18. Inquiries into a new takeover, the death of a predecessor, and the last admission to parish shall be made only in their own counties, and in this way: we, or, if we are outside the realm, our High Justicar, will send two judges to each county four once a year, who, together with four knights of each county, chosen by the county, will have to examine in the county on a certain day and in a certain place of the county the above-mentioned assizes.

19. And if, on the day fixed for the county meeting, the above-mentioned assizes cannot be considered, then so many knights and free holders must remain from those who were present that day in the county meeting, so that judgments can be duly drawn up with their help. , according to whether each of the cases (subject to their decision) will be more important or less important.

20. A free man will be fined for a minor offense only according to the type of offense, and for a major offense he will be fined according to the importance of the offense, while his main property (salvo contenemento suo) must remain inviolable; in the same way (will be fined) both the merchant and his goods will remain inviolable; and the villein will likewise be fined, and his inventory will remain untouched if they are subject to a fine on our part; and none of the above-named fines will be imposed except on the basis of sworn testimony of honest people from the neighbors (the accused).

21. Earls and barons will be penalized only through their peers, and not otherwise than according to the type of offense.

22. The cleric will be penalized as the holder of his secular holding in no other way than the others (holders) named above, and not in accordance with the size of his ecclesiastical benefice.

23. Neither the community nor the individual should be compelled to build bridges on the rivers, except those who have been obliged to do so by right of old.

24. Neither the sheriff, nor the constable, nor the coroners, nor our other officers shall deal with cases within the jurisdiction of our crown.

25. All counties, hundreds, uepentecs and thirds, must be farmed out for a fee, which is established from ancient times, without any extra charge, with the exception of our domain estates.

(England was divided into counties, and counties into hundreds; the county of York - Yorkshire - was divided into thirds - trethingi, otherwise ridings - and thirds into wapentakes. Approx. Translator)

26. If anyone who holds a secular fief from us dies, and our sheriff or bailiff presents us with an order for the payment of a debt that the deceased owed us, then let our sheriff or bailiff impose a prohibition on the movable property of the deceased found in the secular fief. , and draw up an inventory for him in the amount of the amount of this debt, in the presence of full-fledged people, so, however, that nothing will be alienated from this property until the debt is fully cleared to us;

and the remainder shall be left to the executors, that they may carry out the will of the deceased;

and if he did not owe us anything, then let all movable property be left to the deceased, while his wife and children should be provided with the parts he follows.

27. If any free man dies without a will, let his movables be distributed by the hands of his close relatives and friends under the supervision of the church, and the payment of debts to everyone to whom the deceased owed should be secured.

28. Neither a constable nor any other of our officials should take bread or other property from anyone except by immediately paying money for it or by obtaining from the seller the voluntary consent to a deferral (of payment).

29. No constable shall force a knight to pay money in return for guarding a castle, if he wishes to guard it personally or through another honest person, if he himself cannot do this for good reason;

and if we lead or send him on a campaign, he will be released from the duty of guarding the castle in proportion to the time during which he was on a campaign at our command.

30. No sheriff or bailiff of ours, or anyone else, shall take horses or wagons from any free man for carriage except with the consent of that free man.

31. Neither we nor our officials will take wood for fortification or for our other needs except with the consent of the person to whom this wood belongs.

32. We will not retain the lands of those who are accused of serious crimes for more than a year and a day, and then these lands must be returned to the lords of these fiefs.

33. All dams for the future should be completely removed from the Thames and from the Medway and throughout England, except for the seashore.

34. The order called Praecipe should no longer be issued to anyone for any holding, and, as a result, a free person could lose his curia.

35. Let there be one measure of wine throughout our kingdom, and one measure of beer, and one measure of bread, namely the London quarter, and one measure of dyed and undyed cloth and cloth for shells, namely two cubits between the edges; the same as for measures, let them also apply to weights.

36. Nothing should henceforth be given or taken for an order to inquire into life or members, but it should be given free of charge and should not be refused.

37. If someone keeps from us per feodifirmam or per socagium or per burgagium, and from someone else keeps land for military service (knightly service), we will not have guardianship over the heir and over his land, which he holds from another, on the basis of this feodifirmae, or socagii, or burgagii; nor shall we have guardianship over this feodifirma, or over socagium, or over burgagium, if this feodifirma itself does not oblige military service. We shall not have custody of an heir, or of any land which he holds from another for knightly service, on the ground that he (at the same time) also holds land from us by right parvae sergenteriae, bound to give us knives or arrows or something like that.

(Feodifirma, socagium and bargagium are different types of free, but not military, not knightly holding, namely: monetary holding, simple free holding and city holding, i.e. holding under city law. Approx. Translator).

38. From now on, no official should bring anyone to account (in court, with the use of ordeals) only on the basis of his own oral statement, without involving credible witnesses for this.

39. No free man shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or dispossessed, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any (other) way dispossessed, nor shall we go upon him or send upon him otherwise, as by the lawful verdict of his equals (his peers) and by the law of the land.

40. We will not sell rights and justice to anyone, we will not deny them to anyone or slow them down.

41. All merchants should be free and safe to leave England and enter England, and to stay and travel in England, both by land and by sea, in order to buy and sell without any illegal duties, paying only old and just, customary dues, except in time of war and if they are from a land that is at war against us;

and if they also find themselves in our land at the beginning of the war, they must be detained without damage to their body and property until we or our great justiciar find out how the merchants of our land, then in the land that is at war against us, are treated;

and if ours are safe there, then those others must be safe in our land.

42. Let everyone henceforth be allowed to leave our kingdom and return in complete safety, by land and by water, only remaining faithful to us;

the withdrawal is made, in the interest of the general good of the kingdom, only for some short time in war time; those who are imprisoned and outlawed according to the law of the kingdom are excluded, as well as people from the land that is at war with us, and merchants, with whom it is necessary to do as said above.

43. If anyone held land belonging to any escheat fief, such as the barony of Wallingford, Nottingham, Boulogne, Lancaster, or other escheat fiefs, which are in our hand and are baronies, and died, then his heir will give not any a different relief and will carry no other service, but only the relief that it would give to the baron, and the service that it would serve the baron if the barony were in the hands of the baron (himself); and we will hold her in the same way as the baron (himself) held her.

44. People who live outside the forest district shall no longer appear before our forest judges by virtue of general invitations, unless they are a party to the case or guarantors of any of those brought to the forest court.

45. We will appoint judges, constables, sheriffs and bailiffs only from those who know the law of the kingdom and have the desire to faithfully execute it.

46. ​​All barons who have founded abbeys, and have charters of the kings of England, or old tenures in respect of them, shall have guardianship over them for the duration of the vacancies, as they should have.

47. All forests that have become protected royal forests with us must immediately cease to be them; the same should be done with the rivers that we declared reserved.

48. All bad practices that exist regarding the protected royal forests and reserved places for hunting reserved therein, as well as officials in charge of these forests and places, sheriffs and their servants, rivers and their guards, must immediately be subjected to an investigation in every county. through the intermediary of twelve sworn knights from the same county, who are to be chosen by honest men of the same county, and within forty days after the investigation is made, must be completely destroyed by them, never to be renewed again, so, however, that we have been notified in advance of this, or our justiciar if we are not in England.

49. All hostages and (all) letters that were issued to us by the British in order to secure peace or faithful service, we will immediately return.

50. We will completely dismiss the relatives of Gerard de Athyes, so that they no longer hold any position in England, Angelard de Cygony, Peter and Gion and Andrew de Cancellis, Gion de Cygony, Geoffroy de Martyny and his brothers, Philippe Marc and his brothers and Geoffrey his nephew, and all their offspring.

51. And immediately after the restoration of peace, we will remove from the kingdom all foreign knights, shooters, sergeants, mercenaries who arrived with horses and weapons to the detriment of the kingdom.

52. If anyone has been deprived by us, without a legal verdict, of his peers, (their) lands, (their) castles, (their) liberties or his right, we will immediately return them to him;

and if there is any litigation about it, let it be settled by the judgment of twenty-five barons, of which mention is made below, where peace is dealt with;

but as regards all that which any one has been deprived of without the lawful judgment of his peers by King Henry our father, or King Richard our brother, and which is in our hands or which others have under our security, we shall receive a reprieve until the end of the ordinary term. those who accepted the cross;

the exception is that which has already been litigated or investigated at our command before we accepted the cross;

when we return from our pilgrimage, or if it happens that we refrain from our pilgrimage, we will immediately do full justice regarding this.

53. We will have the same reprieve in the same way and in doing justice to the forests that should cease to be protected royal forests, and those that remain protected royal forests, which Henry, our father, or Richard, our brother, declared protected. royal forests, and regarding the guardianship of lands that are part of someone else's fief, which (guardianship) we have hitherto had on the ground that someone (holding land from another lord) at the same time held a fief from us for knightly service , and concerning the abbeys, which were based on someone else's fief, and not on ours, in respect of which the lord of the fief claimed his right; and when we return, or if we refrain from our pilgrimage, we will at once render full justice to this.

54. No one shall be arrested and imprisoned on the complaint of a woman if she complains on the occasion of the death of someone other than her husband.

55. All fees that have been paid to us unjustly and against the law of the land, and all fines paid unjustly and against the law of the land, let them be completely forgotten or let them be dealt with by the sentence of twenty-five barons, which are mentioned below, where it goes it is a question of a guarantee of peace, or by the majority of them, together with the aforementioned Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury, if he can be present, and with others whom he wishes to call with him for this; and if he does not have the opportunity to be present, nevertheless, let the case proceed in such a way (at the same time) that if any or any of the above-mentioned twenty-five barons appear in such a lawsuit, then they are eliminated, since the case it is about the decision of this lawsuit, and in their place and only for this, others are appointed by the rest of these twenty-five and take an oath.

56. If we have deprived the Welsh of lands, or liberties, or anything else, without a legal sentence of their peers in England or in Wales, let them be restored to them immediately; and if there is (already) litigation about it, then let her deal with the (Wales) mark by their peers, the English tenure under English law, the Welsh tenure under Welsh law, the tenure within the mark under the right of the mark. So let the Welsh do to us and to ours.

57. As to that which any Welshman has been deprived of without a lawful judgment of his peers by King Henry our father, and King Richard our brother, which we hold in our hand, or which others hold by our surety, we shall have reprieve. up to the end of the usual term for those who have accepted the cross, except for what has already been filed or investigated at our command before our acceptance of the cross; when we return, or if it happens that we do not go on our pilgrimage, we will immediately do them full justice in this respect according to the laws of the Welsh and in accordance with the localities indicated above.

58. We will return the son of Llewellyn immediately, as well as all the Welsh hostages and letters that were issued to us in securing peace.

59. We will deal with Alexander, King of Scots, regarding the return of his sisters and hostages, and regarding their liberties and their right, in accordance with the way we will deal with our other English barons, unless it should be done (with him) otherwise in the power of the charters we have from his father William, once king of the Scots; and this shall be done by the judgment of their peers in our Curia.

60. All the above-named customs and liberties, which we have deigned to recognize as subject to observance in our kingdom, so far as it concerns us in relation to our (vassals), all in our kingdom, both laity and clergy, are obliged to observe, so far as this concerns them in relation to their vassals.

61. After we, for God's sake and for the improvement of our kingdom and for the more successful pacification of the discord that was born between us and our barons, granted all of the above, desiring that they use it firmly and indestructibly for all eternity, we create and we grant them the guarantee described below, namely: that the barons elect twenty-five barons from the kingdom, whom they wish, who must with all their might observe and protect and force them to observe the peace and liberties that we have granted them and confirmed by this present charter of ours, in such a way that, if we, or our justiciar, or our bailiffs, or any of our servants, commit any offense against anyone, or violate any of the articles of the peace or guarantee, and this violation is indicated to four barons from the above-mentioned twenty-five barons , these four barons will come to us or to our justiciar if we are outside the kingdom, pointing out the violation to us, and demand that we correct it without delay.

And if we do not correct the violation, or if we are outside the kingdom, our justiciar does not correct (it) within the time of forty days, counting from the time this violation was indicated to us or our justiciar, if we were outside the kingdom, then the aforementioned four barons report this matter to the rest of the twenty-five barons, and those twenty-five barons, together with the community of the whole earth, will coerce and oppress us in every way they can, that is, by seizing castles, lands, possessions, and in all other ways that may, until it is corrected (infringement) according to their decision; inviolable remains (while) our person and the person of our queen and our children; and when the correction is made, they will again obey us, as they did before.

And whoever wants to in the country will take an oath that in order to fulfill all of the above, he will obey the orders of the above-mentioned twenty-five barons and that he will push us to the best of his ability along with them, and we openly and freely give permission to everyone to take an oath, who wishes to take it, and we will never prevent anyone from taking an oath.

All in the country, however, who themselves will not voluntarily wish to swear an oath to twenty-five barons regarding the compulsion and oppression of us together with them, we will force them to take an oath by our order, as said above.

if any of the twenty-five barons dies or retires from the country, or is otherwise deprived of the opportunity to do the above, the rest of the above twenty-five barons shall, by their own decision, elect another to take his place, who shall likewise take the oath as the rest .

In everything that these twenty-five barons are entrusted to perform, if it happens that the twenty-five themselves are present, and disagreement arises between them about something, or if some of them, having received an invitation to appear, will not or will not be able to appear , let it be considered decided and firm that the majority of those who were present decided or commanded, as if all twenty-five had agreed on this;

and the above-named twenty-five shall take an oath that all the above will be observed faithfully and compel (others) to observe by all means in their power.

And we will not seek anything from anyone, either ourselves or through anyone else, due to which any of these concessions and liberties could be canceled or reduced;

and if any such thing be gained, let it be considered null and void, and we shall never avail ourselves of it, either ourselves or through any other.

62. And any malice, hatred and malice that arose between us and our vassals (homines), clerics and laity, since the time of discord, we release and forgive everyone.

In addition, all the offenses committed in connection with this strife from Easter in the year of our sixteenth reign until the restoration of the world, we completely forgive everyone, clergy and laity, and, as far as it concerns us, we completely forgive.

And besides, we caused them to write open certificates on behalf of the lord Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, the lord Henry, archbishop of Dublin, and the above-named bishops and Master Pandulf about this guarantee and the above-named awards.

63. Therefore, we desire and strongly punish that the English Church should be free, and that people in our kingdom should have and keep all the above-named liberties, rights, concessions and awards properly and in peace, freely and calmly, in fullness and integrity for themselves. and for their heirs from us and from our heirs in everything and everywhere for all time, as said above.

An oath was taken, both on our part and on the part of the barons, that all of the above would be observed in good faith and without malice.

The witnesses were the above and many others.

Given by our hand in the meadow which is called Runnymede, between Windsor and Stans, on the fifteenth day of June, in the seventeenth year of our reign.

Literature:

Yesayan E.S. Magna Carta and its place in the history of English law. Tbilisi, 1988



Has one very bright distinguishing feature. It lies in the fact that it does not contain a document that would be the basic law for the United Kingdom. Democratic English society has long been living without a constitution, and all thanks to the fact that in 1215 the Magna Carta was adopted in the country. If we compare at what level of development public relations during these years there were other countries, then the emerging democracy in England (thanks to the charter) causes great respect.

Since its inception, the Magna Carta has remained at all times the symbolic and main part of the unwritten, but clearly enforceable English constitution. The word "charter" is literally Greek translates as "handwritten document". It is most often used in figurative meaning, namely, as the words: "rights", "privileges".

How did it happen that it was in England that this amazing document was born, which changed the lives of people for many centuries and ensured a decent existence for its inhabitants?

The Magna Carta was read out and signed on June 15, 1215, in the Thames Valley, near the town of Runnymede. At that time, King John the Landless ruled, and he was famous for his unjust administration. Arbitrariness and bribery reigned in the country because of his connivance. The Magna Carta was created as a necessary measure to combat the existing lawlessness, which every year grew more and more in the country.

The situation was so complicated that, for example, the king himself could take lands from a vassal without trial or impose fees at his own discretion, which exceeded the established ones. He imposed excessive payments and taxes under any pretext, pursuing the only goal - enriching the treasury. Court cases were handled carelessly, and whoever had the most money won. In fact, an official bribe was given to a government official. The judicial system was paralyzed. In addition, King John the Landless unleashed a wasteful war with France, thereby ruining the country.

He was opposed by the opposition in the person of the barons and the church, which was on the side of the indignant and showed sympathy for them. The participation of the latter was not unreasonable, since the king led his reign so unreasonably that he even ruined relations with him.

The Magna Carta of 1215 was precisely the document that was supposed to restore order to the country. It was written in Latin and featured 63 historical articles. This document had another name - "Baron Articles". King John was forced to agree to the terms of the rebellious barons, and the Magna Carta of 1215 was born. It provided for the most important thing - this is the limitation of the power of the king by creating a special council of 25 barons. According to this document, after submitting an application from four members of the council, it was allowed to “press the king by all means” (Article 61 of the charter).

Important changes followed this in the relationship between the king and the church, as well as between barons and free people. The king ensured the freedom of the church, gave it special privileges and guaranteed inviolability. He also promised that taxes and fees would be collected by decision of the general council of the kingdom.

Article 13 guaranteed liberties for London and other cities, and Article 36 gave a significant impetus to the successful development of trade and crafts. The Magna Carta of 1215 contributed to the consolidation and stabilization of the United Kingdom. Articles 41 and 42 became no less important. They ensured freedom of entry and exit for foreign and local merchants. In addition, the Magna Carta secured the rights of large feudal lords to own property.

Article 39 turned out to be the most significant, since it was in it that the guarantees of property, as well as personal immunity of each citizen were named. It stated that a free person could be arrested, imprisoned, or deprived of property only by the lawful decision of judges. Article 45 obliged to elect qualified judges, as well as worthy officials. The Magna Carta guaranteed that it would provide relief from arbitrary legal fees (Article 40). The result of its creation was the beginning of the abolition of feudal dependence, and its provisions became the basis for further development great democratic country.

Magna Carta was adopted after the revolt of the barons against the English king John the Landless. On May 24, 1215, two thousand knights, not counting many foot and mounted servants, occupied London and moved against the monarch. They met John between Stans and Windsor, and here, on an island called Ronnymede Meadow, forced him to accept their demands, which were set out in the "Articles of the Barons" and in the "Magna Carta of English Magna" (June 15, 1215).

The Magna Carta of 1215 is not like those previously voluntarily issued by the English kings HeinrichI, Stefan and HeinrichII upon their accession. It was a treaty made between John and the barons, forced upon the king by the nation. In essence, the Magna Carta did not change the previous letters, but it precisely defined what they expressed in a general form. The Magna Carta established strict rules in the fields of feudal inheritance, guardianship and marriage, the acquisition of immovable property, inheritance law, and the system of ecclesiastical office; she streamlined judicial organization by transferring civil cases to the permanent section of the royal court and establishing three-month court sessions. It relaxed the system of fines and "acknowledgements" (amerciaments), which had been the source of so much abuse. She protected personal freedom, ruling that no one can be arrested, detained, subjected to personal or property punishment except on the basis of the law and by the verdict of their "peers". The Magna Carta provided merchants with the right to free trade, established monotonous measures in the kingdom, approved trading privileges for cities, towns and ports in general, and London in particular. She put an end to the expansion of the royal forests and limited the omnipotence of royal officials. She forbade the lords to collect any assistance, with the exception of three extraordinary cases (captivity, marriage of the eldest daughter and knighting of the eldest son). feudal aid or shield tax, according to the Magna Carta, could be charged only in these three cases; in other cases, this required the consent of the General Council of the kingdom, which, however, was no different from the large congresses that met under Henry II and Richard. The Magna Carta determined only the form of the call to this council: the king had to invite the prelates and major lords by a special and motivated letter, the rest by a general decree issued by the sheriffs in the counties no later than six weeks before the day of the meeting. In addition, the king undertook to release foreign mercenaries and appoint a supervisory commission of 25 members elected by the barons.

Copy of the Magna Carta from the British Library

If the king, or any of his agents, were to break the liberties recorded in the Magna Carta, four commissioners specially appointed for that purpose were to address the king with a warning; if, after forty days, they had not been given satisfaction, they had to report this to the entire commission, and the latter could resort to force.

The Magna Carta of 1215 ushered in a new era history of england. In the XII century. incessantly referred to the more or less vague customs followed Edward the Confessor or Henry I; in the thirteenth century the nation advocates and seeks to extend a very precise and detailed act. In addition, the Magna Carta concerned all classes of the people, which unite for its defense; the struggle continues for a whole century, but it completes the spiritual unification of England and lays the foundation for her political freedom.

Among all the charters of the XII-XIII centuries. in England, the Charter of 1215, called the Great, is the most extensive list of not only material, but also novel political demands presented to the king. Its legal source can be considered, first of all, the feudal custom, the observance of which is insisted on by many articles of the Charter, as well as the Charter of Henry I. The main starting document for the Charter of 1215. were the so-called Baronial Articles - a petition of the barons, presumably dated June 10, 1215. and representing a list of "articles that the barons ask for and to which the king agrees." The final version of the Charter allows us to judge that the Baronial Articles have undergone significant editorial processing and some additions, although their main content has remained unchanged.

The original text of the Charter of 1215. set out on Latin, without division into articles, and does not have a clear system of presentation.

The Magna Carta is, first of all, a feudal treaty that defines the rights of vassals and overlords. It largely repeats the paragraphs of the letter of Henry I, but it also has features that we will not find in that letter. The emergence of new relations (a society where citizens are subject to the same laws, consisting of a homogeneous mass of free people) was reflected in the composition of the Charter. Some of its paragraphs were caused by the desire to put a limit to the arbitrariness and abuse that the king omitted, developing the state character of his power. These paragraphs not only did not lose their meaning with the disappearance of feudalism, but even became widely used with the development of new state relations and became the basis of a new state order.

The Magna Carta itself is in the form of a royal grant. “We have welcomed,” we read at the end of her first article, “all the free people of our kingdom ...” This seemingly unilateral act of the royal will was inspired by the king, according to him, exclusively by internal motives, in a mystical way. True, the words of paragraph 63 of the Charter do not quite agree with these statements, that “an oath was taken, both on our part and on the part of the barons, that all of the above will be observed in good faith and without malicious intent,” and the content of paragraph 61 is completely refutes them, revealing the true state of things. Here we are already talking about “the strife that has occurred between us and our barons” and about the guarantee that the king gives to the barons, ensuring them the inviolable and eternal enjoyment of their liberties.

This guarantee was as follows. The barons will elect 25 people from their midst and they will be entrusted with the duty of guardians of the "granted" liberties by the king. If the king or any of his officials "violates any of the articles of this peace treaty", then four of these twenty-five barons must be informed of this, and they will turn to the king or his deputy with a demand within forty days restore the violated right. If the king fails to comply with this requirement, all 25 barons, together with the “community of the whole earth”, will try to force the king to this by force, leaving, nevertheless, the person of the king, queen and their children inviolable. Everyone was obliged to take an oath to the barons that they would “force and oppress the king” with them, and 25 barons, in turn, swore that they would conscientiously fulfill their duties. Decisions in the committee of twenty-five were taken by majority vote.

The Magna Carta is a real peace treaty between the warring parties, a real surrender. It contains articles demanding the surrender by the king of the hostages he has taken, on the dissolution of mercenary units, etc. We will not deal with these articles, which were purely temporary, and will go straight to the main paragraphs of the Charter, talking about rights and liberties English people and each of its individual groups.

The material demands of the opposition, which boiled down mainly to the requirements to limit the arbitrariness of the crown in the field of vassal-fief and fiscal relations and to respect the ancient feudal customs in this matter. It is quite natural that the barons, as leaders of the movement and its representatives at the final negotiations with the king, enshrined in the Charter primarily their material requirements. Other participants in the opposition, who spoke together with the barons and entrusted the barons with the consolidation of their demands, despite the strength and decisive role of this support, received immeasurably less, and in some ways they suffered damage in favor of large feudal owners. At the same time, it should be taken into account that the chivalry did not have its own program, significantly different from the baronial one, and the barony, seeking to limit the arbitrariness on the part of the king, was not interested in limiting its fiscal claims against its own holders. Therefore, it limited itself to a few very abstract promises in favor of its vassals and, if we have in mind knighthood, its class allies. The townspeople generally belonged to a different class and estate, and where the interests of the king and barons conflicted with the interests of the townspeople, the latter were simply deceived.

In the first place of the Magna Carta were the church and the barons. In its first paragraph, the Charter declares the English Church free and inviolable of its rights and liberties and confirms the charter issued before that by John on the freedom of church elections (paragraph 1). According to this document, the elections of the higher and lower hierarchs of the church were to be made freely in all churches and the king must approve them, unless there is a good reason for refusal. In this, the Charter was similar to the charter of Henry I, which in the same way, before all other concessions, ensured the rights and peace of the church. The Church, as the most powerful part of feudal society, always at the head of the dissatisfied, naturally demanded the sanctification of its rights first of all.

The 7 paragraphs immediately following this (items 2 - 8) are occupied exclusively with feudal issues (about the reliefs paid to the king by the heirs of his military holders who take possession of their fiefs, about the rights of guardianship belonging to the king over the minor heirs of the deceased royal holders, about the rights their heirs and widows). The Magna Carta establishes the amount of relief (from earls and barons - 100 pounds sterling each, from knights - 100 full-weight shillings each - item 2), which is a continuation of the charter of Henry I. The charter required that the overlord during guardianship keep the wards in good condition possession, and also confirmed the instruction on the vassal's widow, who was supposed to receive a certain part of the property after the death of her husband (items 4 - 5; 7 - 8).

Purely feudal relations more than twelve paragraphs of the Charter are occupied, treating about the duties of the holders of knightly fiefs, about the lands of convicted criminals that ended up in the possession of the king, about the rights of feudal guardianship (items 16, 29, 32, 37, 43, 46). All this is a simple statement of the main points of feudal law, necessary in view of their constant violation by John the Landless, but hardly introducing anything new into them. Even the Magna Carta of Henry I formulated these points, albeit with somewhat less detail.

S.p. have a different character. 12, 14 and 34. Paragraph 34 decides that henceforth the royal curia will not issue orders to anyone to transfer a claim for ownership of this or that holding from the feudal curia to the royal curia, thereby causing damage to a free person (!). Here the barons are trying to stop the systematic unifying work of the central government in the sphere of jurisdiction, begun by Henry II, who so decisively curtailed the civil jurisdiction of the feudal lords with his assizes. This was an attempt on the part of the barons to slow down the path along which the political development of England had been going since the Norman Conquest.

Even more significant in this regard are paragraphs 12 and 14 of the Magna Carta. Section 12 states that neither shield money nor any relief shall be raised in the English realm except with the consent of the common council of the realm. In this paragraph we read: “... and in order to have this general council of the kingdom, we will order the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls and senior barons to be called by our letters under seal and, in addition, ... we will order to call ... all those who keep from us directly ... to a certain day ... and to a certain place; and in all letters we will explain the reason for the convocation.

The question of subsidies to the king was the most sore point of English society at that time. Finance was just the area in which society had to suffer the most from the arbitrariness of the king. Here everyone was equal, without distinction of classes and conditions, and it was quite natural that the barons who raised the uprising should first of all take care of finding ways to protect themselves and others from the unceremonious bossing of the government for the future. This, in essence, was perhaps the most important question posed to English society by the reign of John the Landless.

Paragraphs 12 and 14 of the Charter set themselves the goal of turning the Great Council into an institution that would authoritatively and systematically limit the royal will and thereby deprive it of the opportunity to freely dispose of the means of society. But the most intimate acquaintance with these paragraphs is enough to immediately catch the eye of a purely feudal setting of this goal. We are talking here exclusively about the feudal tax (shield money) and the feudal allowances levied by the king from his immediate vassals. Not a word mentions any other charges from which, for example, cities suffered especially.

As for the procedure for convening the Great Council, upon careful reading of paragraph 14, we understand that this is a real feudal diet. The barons completely ignored all the conditions that were created by the Norman Conquest and treated England as a purely feudal state. It was a very serious step, a real feudal reaction. Having conquered the royal power, the barons were able to communicate to their political tendencies the form of the indisputable basic law of the kingdom, and they took advantage of this opportunity.

The Magna Carta devotes a very prominent place to the cause of justice, while not forgetting even the lowest strata of English society. The fact is that the English feudal lords could count on an influential political role only in alliance with the masses. Until now, such an alliance was out of the question. Only the reign of John Landless could cause the unification of various elements of society to repel a common enemy. This gave victory to the initiators and leaders of the movement, and they could defend their estate interests, only taking into account the interests of their allies, all the free people of the kingdom. In pursuing their own interests, the barons had to reckon with reality, so the opinion that political egoism was alien to the barons has no basis. Taking into account the above circumstances, the barons were obliged to ensure the correct functioning of the judicial institutions for the masses. Nevertheless, it can be said that the “center of gravity” of the fundamental significance of the Charter lies precisely here, and the most famous paragraphs of the Magna Carta (39 and 40) refer precisely to the court case.

The barons recognized the beneficial influence of royal intervention in the field of court and law. They sought only to destroy the arbitrary nature of this intervention, defining in the Charter the legal boundaries and forms for everything that had been done in this area even under Henry II.

Paragraph 17 of the Charter finally fixes the creation in Westminster of the Court of General Litigation, until then still a traveling body and moving with the king. Now it has been turned into an institution that exists independently of the personality of the king. Paragraphs 18 and 19 improve the procedure for the traveling judges created by the reform of Henry II to deal with land claims. Paragraph 23 repeats the prohibition issued by Henry II to sheriffs and other royal officials to decide the so-called "crown cases", that is, especially important criminal cases that should be under the exclusive jurisdiction of the royal courts, and, thus, recognizes the perniciousness of combining administrative and the judiciary.

Paragraphs 20, 21 and 22 govern the collection of fines in favor of the king. When collecting them, it was necessary to conform to the type of offense and its importance. At the same time, the main property of the person being fined, his fixed capital must remain inviolable (the goods of the merchant, household equipment of the villan, etc.). In paragraph 26, the King promises that he will henceforth not take anything from his office for a decree ordering an investigation into the case of a person arrested on a charge of a criminal offense, and will not refuse a request to issue such a decree. Section 38 forbids royal officials to bring anyone to trial at their own discretion without bringing credible witnesses.

Paragraphs 18,19,20,38, among other things, formalize the procedure for investigating civil and criminal cases with the help of juries as witnesses or prosecutors. Consequently, this institution, introduced by Henry II, is firmly rooted in English litigation, as well as the system of court orders (p. 36). At the same time, the “judgment of God” with ordeals and judicial duel, which has become obsolete, has not yet completely disappeared from practice. This is evidenced, albeit indirectly, by the content of paragraphs 38 and 54. The last article, at first glance very strange, was intended to reduce the number of fights that take place on the complaint of women and often have an unfavorable outcome for the accused: women - plaintiffs could put any knight, while the accused was forced to fight on his own.

The personal freedom of the citizens of the English kingdom was protected by paragraph 42, which provided everyone with the right to free movement by water and land, to leave the state and return to it.

But, pointing to these paragraphs of the Magna Carta, we should not forget in connection with them paragraph 34, which we have already noted, which leaves no doubt that not all barons wanted to preserve the judicial system created by Henry II, decisively eliminating everything that was going on. contrary to their purely estate feudal interests. In this regard, the most famous paragraphs of the Charter, 39 and 40, also deserve attention.

According to the generally accepted view, these paragraphs are a brilliant conclusion to the specific articles of the Magna Carta now cited, a solemn proclamation of general principles that retain all their vitality and strength at the present time, being the foundation of the so-called. civil liberties. “No free man will be arrested and imprisoned or deprived of property or ... in any other way destitute, and we will not go against him or send him except by the lawful verdict of his equals and by the law of the land.” This is what paragraph 39 says, and it is supplemented by paragraph 40 immediately following it: “We will not sell rights and justice to anyone, we will not deny them to anyone.” charter liberties vassal gradzhansky

Under the free man in paragraph 39, the barons meant primarily themselves, and not the entire free mass English population. The purpose of Article 39, according to E.V. Gutnova, was to remove the barons from the ordinary royal courts, placing them in a particularly privileged position. There is good reason for this assumption. Even if we translate “court of peers” as “court of equals”, we will see that the requirement for such a court is contained in the Charter in paragraphs 21,52,56,57,59, i.e. only when it comes to interests the largest feudal lords. From the context of paragraphs 52 and 55, one gets the impression that it is the 25 barons, which are discussed in detail in paragraph 61, that should act as a “court of peers” to resolve all disputes between the king and subjects.

Serfs were excluded from the common law privileges in relation to the free. Thus, the terms "free man" and even simply "people of the kingdom" quite naturally for feudal law removed the bulk of the population - the serfs - from the enumerated rights.

Only much later, in the XVII - XVIII centuries, in the midst of the political struggle in these paragraphs, that broad sense which made them the embodiment of a theoretical principle. In the 17th century, the famous "Habeas Corpus Act" was developed from paragraph 39, according to which every Englishman has civil liberty, placed under the protection of laws.

Expecting to win over to their side the broadest possible circles of English society, the barons had to take into account the individual interests of each of its main groups. Citing paragraph 20, we saw that the barons did not forget even about the lowest stratum of society - the villans. What role this agricultural mass played in the movement of 1215, we do not know, but we have data on the role of cities and, above all, London. We know how decisive it was for the outcome of the movement that the capital joined the movement. And the Magna Carta quite definitely reflects the interests of the townspeople.

Paragraph 12 of the Charter, which lays down the general council of the realm to authorize shield money and other allowances to the king, and requires that these allowances should not be excessive, adds that this also applies to the allowances levied from the city of London and all other cities and ports. City liberties for John Landless and his predecessors have always been a source of the most lawless extortion. Constantly violating them, they forced the townspeople to pay them large sums for their confirmation. It was a chronic disaster, heavily reflected in the economic development of cities, the Magna Carta affected their most pressing interests.

It must be said that the Charter provided for the "liberties and free customs of the cities" in a very concrete and therefore more effective way. In particular, in paragraphs 12 and 13 of the Charter, the king undertakes not to collect, without general advice, not only shield money, and subsidies from his vassals, but also the same subsidies, as well as the usual compulsory collections from London and other cities.

Unlike the articles concerning the church, the articles concerning London made no mention of John's former charter guaranteeing London the right to elect an annual mayor.

41 articles were inserted into the final version of the Magna Carta, which clearly ran counter to the interests of the cities that had done so much for the victory. This article gives all foreign merchants the right to freely leave England, enter it, live in it and travel for trading purposes, paying only customary duties, without being subject to illegal collections (except in wartime). Granting foreign merchants the right to freely compete with the English was, of course, in the interests of the barons, and the inclusion of Article 41 in the Magna Carta demonstrated to what extent they were real politicians and oriented in the then political and social situation. They did not pretend to the role of disinterested political enthusiasts, imposed on them by later politicians and historians.

Uniformity of weights and measures was a very important condition for the normal functioning of commercial and industrial life, and paragraph 35 guarantees this condition. Paragraph 28 of the Charter forbids royal agents to take bread or other things from anyone except by immediately paying money to the seller or obtaining from him consent to a deferral of payment. Section 30 forbids sheriffs, bailiffs, and other royal officials to take horses or carts from a free man for transportation except with his consent.

The right to stay and requisitions was limited. No free landowner could be forced to build bridges if such a duty did not previously exist (paragraph 12). From all the forests and rivers selected in the reign of John for the royal hunt, the prohibition was lifted (n. 47), and. etc.

Having considered the main content of the Magna Carta from the point of view of the interests expressed in it various classes English society, we have every reason to assert that, raising the movement, the barons quite realistically understood their task, and the program they put forward reflected the full breadth and complexity of the political and social reality that surrounded them. This reality was far from the simplicity of relations of a purely feudal type, and therefore the program of the barons was quite real, it formulated the interests of the whole society and thanks to this it could well become a real social force, could unite all elements of English society around the barons under a common banner and ensure their victory.

Raising the movement, the barons, of course, had in mind primarily their own, feudal interests. They not only sought to protect these interests from violence and arbitrariness on the part of the royal power, but also had a very definite goal to introduce this power into a purely feudal framework, in which it has never been enclosed until now (we see this from paragraphs 12 and 14). By this, the barons undoubtedly took a major step back from the statehood that had developed in England since the time of the Norman Conquest. A broad state union, with a strong central authority and a whole system of central and regional institutions, is interpreted by the barons as a purely feudal, contractual association of vassals and their overlord, the king. The most important issue - the issue of taxation, in their opinion, was their issue, and it had to be decided at their general meeting, at the feudal diet of the king's vassals. The barons here not only ignored the general relationship of social and political forces, but also did not want to reckon with the forms of their local organization, inherited from the Anglo-Saxon era and constituting elements of the nationwide organization of English society.

And meanwhile, under the conditions that were created by the whole of the previous history of England, a correctly and normally set up central organization of the kingdom would certainly have to start from local non-feudal organizations, risking otherwise being completely groundless and ephemeral. The “General Council of the Kingdom”, in the setting that the Charter gives it, turned out to be a completely ephemeral product of the political creativity of the barons who raised the uprising of 1215.

With all the realism and sober understanding of the surrounding conditions, the barons were primarily feudal lords and, entering into an agreement with other elements of society, they primarily had in mind their own class interests, which they brought to the fore. They did not want to admit that with all the power of certain representatives of their estate, as a whole, as a social group and as a political force, they far from played a key role in English society and in the English state.

It cannot be said that the barons did not at all take into account the masses of the people. They had to take into account the interests of the groups that made up it, wanting to win them over to their side in the struggle they had begun with the king. But at the same time they completely pushed the masses of the people away from political life making it exclusively its monopoly. It was an attempt to turn the historically determined political development of England in a different direction, an attempt doomed to complete failure. English society was already cramped within the framework of that almost despotic statehood that had been created by the entire course of previous development, and the restriction of royal power was only a matter of time. But this restriction could be accomplished in a completely different way, which, in essence, was outlined by the entire course of the political development of England: on a broad national basis, the established state power could be limited to the whole nation, and not to one of its constituent parts. By the end of the 13th century, this had already become a fait accompli, and this restriction was sent precisely from local all-class organizations, so resolutely ignored by the initiators and leaders of the movement of 1215.

Thus, the success of the movement raised by the barons was ephemeral, as they ignored local organizations and tried to build an institution that limited the royal arbitrary on a purely feudal basis. But since they considered the interests of the whole of English society and its individual elements, their cause was national and the Magna Carta is a constitutional charter that goes far beyond feudal forms and ideas. For the figures of 1215, the articles of the Charter (even the most famous of them) did not have such a broad fundamental meaning. Rising against John the Landless, the barons thought first of all about ridding themselves of certain evils associated with certain abuses and violence on his part and wanted to put his power in a purely feudal framework, within which it would be difficult for him to violate their rights.

And yet, the Magna Carta is of great fundamental importance. But one should not look for it in the content of the Charter. The Magna Carta is a peace treaty concluded by the king with the barons after the victory of the latter, won jointly with other elements of English society. Having defeated the king, the barons forced him to solemnly recognize as legally unshakable both their own rights and that civil order that protected the rights and interests of all free people of the English kingdom and legitimize the protest of the "community of the whole earth" against their violation by him or his officials. England was moving into a new phase of political existence and was becoming a state of law. True, this was only the first step, but a decisive and irreversible step, followed by other steps along the same path, which led to the reorganization of the state system on the basis of popular representation. By the end of the century, the task unresolved by the Magna Carta was solved and England finally switched to a constitutional regime.

INTRODUCTION 3

1. Features state development England after the Norman Conquest 4

2. Adoption of Magna Carta 1215 7

3. Legal status of groups of the population of England according to the Magna Carta 8

4. Significance of the Magna Carta of 1215 in the history of the feudal state and law. eleven

CONCLUSION. 13

LIST OF USED SOURCES.. 14

INTRODUCTION

The Magna Carta is a controversial document. It very clearly reflected the contradictions that existed at the beginning of the 13th century within the ruling class of England, and was the result of a broad agreement that ended the political conflict that took place between barony, knighthood and the head of the feudal state - the king. Owing to its internal inconsistency, the Magna Carta as a whole cannot be regarded either as a document of feudal reaction, or as a document with exclusively progressive tendencies. It intertwines both.

The purpose of this work is to analyze the Magna Carta of 1215. Based on the goal, the tasks listed below are set:

· to characterize the state and political system of England during the period of the Norman conquest;

· to analyze the content of the Charter;

· reveal the significance of the Magna Carta in the history of foreign law.

1. Features of the state development of England after the Norman conquest

Anglo-Saxon society lagged behind in its development from many societies on the continent by about two centuries. The Anglo-Saxons were dominated by public ownership of land and the corresponding nature of social relations.

The bulk of the population was made up of members of the community - girls. They received from the community a gaida - an allotment of 120 acres of land. Community issues were resolved at a village meeting - galimotye.

The community nobility was called earls. In the process of mastering Britain, the Anglo-Saxons created seven kingdoms - Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex, Kent, Wessex.

The power of the king over the population was rather illusory. Rural communities were united in districts, the so-called hundreds, which were governed by meetings of community representatives.

The larger territorial units were the counties, governed by assemblies of representatives of the hundreds. Sheriffs ruled the counties. Their duties included: supervision of the observance of the privileges of the king in the county, control over the performance of duties, and the performance of police functions. The alderman was the head of the county.

At the expense of communal lands, large-scale landownership quickly grew. Large landowners were the king, earls and aldermen.

In 1066 Anglo-Saxony was conquered by the Normans.

The Normans were the last wave of barbarians to attack Europe. Sea pirates who left the north because of poverty or the crimes they committed, at first did not think about anything but robberies, but finally "settled down". Neustia, plundered by them, suddenly turns into the duchy of Normandy - the most prosperous land of France.

Yu. Latynina expresses an interesting point of view on the reasons that contributed to the adoption of the Magna Carta.

Conquest is usually a catastrophic event, but the conquest of England by William the Conqueror not only united the country, but also turned it into the most centralized state then Europe. The "Book of the Last Judgment" was compiled - a detailed and unique inventory of the lands and possessions distributed to the holders. “And it’s shameful to talk about it, but he didn’t consider it shameful to do this - he didn’t leave even a single bull, not a single cow and not a single pig without adding them to his inventory, and all these inventories were then presented to him” . In England, imperial accounting and control began to emerge. Whether due to political far-sightedness or due to the gradual conquests, the lands granted to the barons usually did not constitute continuous territories, and this unusually weakened the nobility.

Immediately after the conquest, the struggle between the king and the nobility began. Perhaps its most characteristic feature is the complete absence of national feeling. It is the Norman barons, fighting against the Norman king, who claim that he "illegally invaded the noble kingdom of England, unjustly killed or drove into cruel exile the natural heirs of this country" - it is the Anglo-Saxon people who support the kings.

The people can be understood. For what do the barons reproach the king for? In the fact that he “gave barren lands to the conquerors covered with wounds”, and then “took them away completely or in parts, prompted by self-interest”; in the fact that noble widows and heirs are subjected to oppression and forced marriage. Strange thing, the people were indifferent to the torment of noble widows and destitute winners. The people understood something else: the barons fought not for freedom, but for unlimited arbitrariness in their own domains.

Until the 13th century, until the reign of John the Landless, the people needed a strong sovereign, and the nobility needed a weak one.

When the troops of the two pretenders to the English throne, Stephen of Blois and the future Henry II, came together for battle, “the barons stood up, or rather traitors to England, and began to arrange an agreement, although they loved nothing more than disagreement, for they knew that while one of the opponents afraid of another, he could not exercise royal power over them.

The barons got their way. The reign of Stephen of Blois was the true embodiment of the baron's freemen. Then "in England there were as many kings, or rather tyrants, as there were owners of castles, and everyone had the right to beat his own coin." And with each other, they “... fought with mortal hatred, ravaged the most beautiful regions with fire and sword, and in the country that was once the most fertile, they destroyed almost all the bread ... And when the unfortunate inhabitants had nothing more to could give them, they plundered and burned all the cities, so that it was possible to walk all day and not meet a single person settled in the city, or cultivated land "...

So it was in other countries, but the Liberty Charter did not end.

Two features distinguished England. Unlike other feudal lords, here the king preferred to take from his barons not military service, and tax - "shield money": Norman statehood from the very beginning was clearly fiscal in nature. And the tax - in contrast to the baronial service - fell on the shoulders of all segments of the population. And secondly, many poor, but free, that is, armed, people have survived in England: you can ignore the mob, but it’s hard to take into account the armed people.

There is one more circumstance. In the Middle Ages, no less than in our time, they liked to give the appearance of legitimacy to conquests. William the Conqueror, claiming that it was to him that King Edward bequeathed the kingdom, was crowned with all the formalities observed in the coronation of elected Anglo-Saxon kings, and declared his laws to be the renewal of the "laws of King Edward."

The ideological fictions of the Middle Ages, however, had a remarkable property: they often turned into reality. The barons gradually got used to demanding confirmation of the "laws of King Edward" - the Magna Cartas. But the language of jurisprudence, by its very nature, speaks of the general and not of the particular. The very fact of the written existence of the Magna Carta teaches us to see in freedom not the private property of the king or lord, but the public domain.

John the Landless, who came to the English throne in 1199, belonged to the worst kind of rulers. He was a mediocre commander and a quarrelsome, indecisive tyrant: "this king had as many enemies as he had barons."

The king insulted the barons personally. He offended the people (wealthy people) with taxes and extortions, which went like sand into military failures. He happened to convene in 1201 and 1213 the militia not for a campaign, but in order to take away the money taken from the militia for military expenses, and disperse them to their homes.

Finally, he quarreled with the church and began to correct the upset finances of the kingdom by confiscating church property. The Pope excommunicated him from the church, and gave England to the French Philip-Augustus. John was horrified, repented, accepted all the conditions of the pope and gave the kingdom to the holy throne, becoming the pope's servant. He rushed to France, ripping off an exorbitantly high shield tax from the barons who did not follow him, and was defeated there.

2. Adoption of the Magna Carta of 1215

Signing of the Magna Carta English king John the Landless in June 1215 completed the first stage of the struggle, which led already at the end of the 13th century to the formation of an estate monarchy in England. At this stage, along with the barony, the chivalry, and partly the townspeople and the top of the free peasantry, also took part in the struggle to limit royal power. In the course of the armed struggle with the king, the barons who led the movement made demands to the king, known as the "baronial articles", which formed the basis of the official text of the Magna Carta, issued on behalf of the king. The Magna Carta as a political and legal source is interesting, first of all, because it reflected the general balance of socio-political forces in the country at that time, the reasons for the dissatisfaction of different segments of the population with royal policy, the economic and political demands of various social elements of the opposition, as well as the general state of the judicial and administrative system of the English feudal state at the beginning of the XIII century.

Church, barons and cities united against the king and presented him in 1215 with a list of articles. He read it and exclaimed: “Why, along with these unjust demands, do the barons not also ask me for my kingdom?” However, there was nothing to do - John signed the Magna Carta.

3. The legal status of groups of the population of England under the Magna Carta

The full text of the Magna Carta has 63 articles, which are arranged without a definite system and relate to a wide variety of issues.

All these articles can be divided into three main groups:

1) Articles reflecting the material interests of different social strata (Articles 1-11, 13, 16, 27 and others).

2) Articles claiming to establish new political orders, in particular to limit royal power (Articles 12, 14, 39, 61), are the so-called constitutional articles.

3) Articles confirming the previously existing or newly created procedure for the work of judicial and administrative bodies, as well as suppressing the abuses of the royal apparatus in the center and in the field (Articles 17-22, 24, 25, 34, 36, 38, 40, etc. .).

a) the rights and privileges of the great barons;

In the first group, the main place, of course, is occupied by the material demands of the barons - the immediate vassals of the king - both in terms of the number of articles and the specificity and detail of their formulation. The charter defines the feudal rights of the king and the duties of his vassals, limiting the fiscal arbitrariness of the crown in relation to them (especially Art. 2-11).

Most of the articles of the Charter reflected and protected the interests of the feudal aristocracy. They guaranteed the prelates the freedom of ecclesiastical elections (Art. 1), the observance by the king of feudal customs in relation to his vassals-barons (Art. 2-11), forbade the king to take feudal assistance and shield money (skutagii) from them without the consent of the "general council of the kingdom ”(Article 12), i.e. the council of the immediate vassals of the king (Art. 14), forbade judging the barons except by a court of peers equal to them (Art. 21), arrest and deprive of property without their verdict (Art. 39). The Magna Carta abolished the right of the king, established after the reforms of Henry II, to interfere in the jurisdiction of the feudal curia (Article 34). Article 61 provided for the observance of the Charter: the barons elected 25 persons from among themselves to supervise the observance of liberties. If the king violated the Charter and within 40 days, at the request of at least four barons, did not correct the violations, all 25 barons could resort to violence against the king, i.e. take away his lands and castles, sparing only his person and family. Each subject could support these barons in the fight against the king.

b) the reflection in the Magna Carta of 1215 of the interests of knights and townspeople.

Knighthood and free peasantry also received significant rights: the barons were forbidden to demand more services and duties from them than was customary (Articles 15, 16, 27, 60), all free people were guaranteed protection from the arbitrariness of officials. Article 39 laid the foundation for the freedom of the individual: no free person could be arrested, imprisoned, deprived of property or the protection of laws, exiled or subjected to any other punishment except by the court of his equals and according to the laws of the land. Article 20 limited the amount of administrative fines: a free person retained property in the amount necessary to maintain social status, when collecting these fines, the goods of the merchant and the inventory of the villan were declared inviolable. Cities received confirmation of their privileges (v. 13); the unity of measures and weights was established throughout the country (Article 35); freedom to enter and leave England in times of peace. Articles 18, 19, 20, 32, 40, and others approved the new judicial and administrative procedures that were established after the reforms of Henry II and were generally beneficial to the general population. Subsequently, in the XIII-XIV centuries, they entered the English national feudal law.

The Magna Carta upheld the widespread use of jury trials in property claims (Articles 18, 19, 20), the priority of the royal courts in the analysis of all cases under their jurisdiction, proclaimed the waiver of fees for the consideration of criminal cases in the royal court (Article 32 ). Such articles, along with the interests of the crown itself, undoubtedly reflected the interests of the chivalry, the top of the free peasantry and partly the townspeople, who needed to strengthen the centralized judicial and administrative system, and were unfavorable to the barons.

However, the barons were able to negotiate some concessions on this issue as well. Among these general articles of the Magna Carta there are two articles that clearly contradict the established judicial system, removing representatives of the barony from its operation. This is article 21, which, in contrast to article 20, forbade the king to impose a fine on earls and barons without the decision of their peers, that is, the court of estates, while all other free people were fined by the decision of the ordinary court, based on the testimony of the jury (v. 20); and Article 34, which forbade royal intervention in the affairs of the feudal curiae by the order of the Praecipe. Although in this article, as in the 39th, we are talking about the rights of "every free person", but since the owners of the judicial curia in reality could only be a feudal lord and, moreover, usually a big one, it is obvious that this article reflected the interests of the barony.

4. Significance of the Magna Carta of 1215 in the history of the feudal state and law

The Magna Carta has played an important role in English history. Despite the fact that John Landless at the end of 1215 annulled it, it was repeatedly reprinted by Henry III (1216, 1217, 1227) with various changes. It was confirmed by Edward I and Edward II, excluding from it constitutional articles that weakened the power of the king. It contributed to the formation of the English estate monarchy (starting from 1297, all subsequent confirmations of the Magna Carta were supplemented by new, more relevant political articles).

The Charter played a big role in the formation of the legal consciousness of the English people. No wonder such prominent historians as G. Gallam, M.M. Kovalevsky, D. M. Petrushevsky and others considered it the cornerstone of English freedoms and the rule of law as a constitutional monarchy. At the beginning of the XVII century. The Magna Carta was rediscovered by forces opposed to absolutism as the first document in the history of England that limited the power of the crown and proclaimed the rights and freedoms of subjects. On the eve and during the years of the English Revolution, it was widely used to justify the demands for democratic freedoms and the right to fight against royal tyranny. Since the villains, that is, the personally dependent peasantry, in the 17th century. in England no longer existed, the rights that the Magna Carta granted to all free citizens acquired a new, democratic meaning. Along with the theory of the "Norman Yoke", Magna Carta became the banner of the struggle against absolutism. A number of her articles have been developed into the Habeas Corpus Act and the Bill of Rights.

CONCLUSION

In the words of Stebbs and Gibbon, the legal history of England is nothing but a commentary on the Magna Carta. But, as is often the case, the comment is more important than the text.

The Magna Carta is by no means a declaration of the rights of man and citizen. This is a declaration of the rights of the church and the nobility.

The first paragraph grants the king's consent that "the English Church be free, possess all her rights and her liberties inviolably."

The second place is occupied by guarantees to noble barons from royal arbitrariness. From now on, the king cannot extort ruinous sums for the transfer of a barony or fief by inheritance, marry widows without their consent, in case of confiscation of the land of a traitor, he will return it after a year and a day to the lord of this fief, etc.

But the Magna Carta is also a national document. It promises that all the liberties which the king grants to his vassals will be observed by those vassals with respect to their own people; no free man can be arrested, dispossessed, exiled except by the verdict of peers and by the law of the land.

The Charter played a big role in the formation of the legal consciousness of the English people. Many scholars consider it the cornerstone of English freedoms.

LIST OF USED SOURCES

1. Gutnova E. V. The emergence of the English Parliament. M., 1960.

2. Latynina Yu. Birth of representative democracy.// Knowledge is power 2005. No. 10.

3. Petrushevsky D. M. Magna Carta. M., 1918.

4. Monuments of the history of England 11-13 centuries. M., 1936.

5. Anthology of monuments of the feudal state and law of European countries. Edited by Z.M. Chernilovsky. M., 1961.