MAGNA CHARTA 849 rentian library of the Medici. He produced no literary work of his own. MAGNA CHARTA, the Great Charter, or the " Charter of Liberties," as it is commonly called by English writers, a constitutional in- strument executed by King John of England, guaranteeing to the people in perpetuity the enjoyment of certain rights and privileges. Our word charter shows that the Latin charta, which meant simply paper, was at length used in the sense of a legal instrument, much as the word paper is sometimes used now. The word charter was however most commonly used to signify the written evidence of grants of land or of privileges from a feudal lord to an abbey or other religious house. From this it was extended to mean the records of all grants from feudal superiors to their sub- ordinates, whether civil or ecclesiastical, and all agreements between them. The Great Charter is of this description, but is from the sovereign to the people. It begins: "John, by the grace of God, king," &c., to various dignitaries and officers, describing them not by name but by office, and "his other faith- ful subjects : Know ye, that we, for the health of our soul, &c., and by the advice of [sundry persons enumerated], have granted . . . and confirmed, for us and our heirs for ever." But while, in form, the charter was only a gift of certain rights and liberties by the king, it was a very different thing in fact. The An- glo-Saxon institutions and usages, which were very favorable to liberty, had been almost sup- pressed by the Norman conquerors. The Nor- man kings, perhaps from the necessity which belonged to their position in England as sov- ereigns of an invading and conquering race, who needed to hold full and unchecked powers to enable them to preserve what they had won, had claimed and exercised an almost despotic authority. This began to alarm and perhaps to oppress the nobles ; and after some struggles and conflicts the feudal possessors of the land of England succeeded in wresting from the feeble hands of John the important concessions contained in the Great Charter. These were very far, however, from being original conces- sions. There is scarcely one of them, of any importance, which may not be traced back in its principle, if not in its form, to Anglo-Saxon times. The nobles found that these usages, or principles, were all that they wanted to secure their own rights; and by demanding them only they secured the cooperation of a great part of the clergy and of all the cities and bur- gesses, and thus were enabled to gain such a superiority over the forces which John could bring to his aid, as to compel him to a peaceful acquiescence in their demands. The prelimi- naries were agreed upon ; the principal pro- visions of the charter were determined upon and ratified in a preliminary instrument by the king ; and then he met the deputies of his no- bles, and some of his clergy, at Eunnymede, and there, on June 15, 1215, the charter was executed. It bears the seal of the king, and of a large number of nobles. Many copies were made at once, probably one for each county and diocese, and for some other bodies. Two of these originals, for all may be called so, are still preserved in the Cottonian library in the British museum ; and there are copies extant made at later periods. Some doubt still rests upon the text, however, in passages of some importance. That printed at the begin- ning of the first volume of " Statutes at Large," in folio, is in fact a translation of the great charter of Henry III., which purported to be a confirmation of the charter of John. It was however duly enacted by the three estates of parliament, which the charter of John never was. Sir William Blackstone published an edition of it from the Cottonian original (Ox- ford, 1759). It was drawn up in the Latin lan- guage, and the translations into English vary considerably. Thus the famous section 29 (sometimes numbered 45), which has been called the essence and glory of Magna Charta, runs thus: "No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized, or outlawed, or ban- ished, or anyways injured, nor will we pass upon him, nor send upon him, unless by the legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land." The phrase which we put in italics is an exact translation of nee super eum ibimus, nee super eum mittemus ; but it has been much disputed what this means. In Coke's opinion it is, that no man shall be condemned in the court of king's bench, where the king is sup- posed to be present, nor before any commis- sioner or judge whom the king may depute or delegate to try him. The meaning of some other passages is equally obscure ; but it is made so only by the lapse of time, and the disuse of phraseology once well understood. For the searching and thorough protection of right and suppression of all wrong afforded by the provisions of this remarkable instru- ment, and the singular force and precision of much of the language used, prove that those mailed barons had men among them, or at their call, who could employ in their service all the resources of the best cultivated intel- lects. It was regarded at the time as of so great importance, that the barons compelled the king to put into their possession the city and tower of London, to be held by them for a cer- tain time as a pledge for the due observance of the charter. They also required him to con- sent that 25 of their number should be chosen as " guardians of the liberties of the realm," with power to make war upon the king if he should violate the charter. In the subsequent reigns it was repeatedly confirmed, the sover- eigns of England finding that when they were in peril and their subjects disposed to resist them, they could do nothing so popular as make a solemn confirmation of the " Charter of Liberties." This circumstance, and the tra- ditional reverence for Magna Charta, together with its actual value, have caused some mis-
