800 years ago this summer, a group of rebellious English barons forced King John to sign the Magna Carta. This document is often cited as the first document to establish human rights, but technically it was the first document to establish the responsibilities and limits of those who govern. Prior to the Magna Carta, those who governed did it pretty well however they wanted as their “God-given right”. The Magna Carta (Latin for “Great Charter”) changed the relationship of the governed and government forever.
This summer, Durham Cathedral–which is the custodian of three original copies of the Magna Carta–is offering a splendid exhibition for the 800th anniversary of this landmark document. Photos weren’t permitted, but we laid eyes on both a copy of the Magna Carta, and a slightly later revision called the Forest Charter, and we learned a lot about the Magna Carta that we had long forgotten or perhaps never knew.
A few of the interesting things we (re-)learned is that while the Archbishop of Canterbury had authored the document, King John later appealed to Pope Innocent III that he had been pressured into signing in, and the Pope, agreeing with the monarch, annulled the agreement. The barons rebelled again, King John died (of dysentery, not in battle), and the regency of his young son, King Henry III, issued a new version of the document which was signed and became the basis of future English rule of law.
Copies of the charter were made and distributed throughout the realm so that everyone would understand what the responsibilities of their government would be. This is how the Durham Cathedral wound up with several copies. Every year, for many centuries, the charter would be taken out and read to the public, lest anyone forget what their government owed them. Many of those copies were destroyed through the years: as new editions of the charter were issues, the older versions, considered obsolete, were discarded.
Another interesting thing we learned is that one of those rebellious barons was named Robert de Ros. We have no idea if there’s an ancestral connection here, but it’s certainly a curious (and fun) coincidence.
