There are four extant original copies of the Magna Carta of 1215. Two of them are held by the cathedral churches in which they were originally deposited— Lincoln and Salisbury —and the other two are in the British Library in London. The four “originals” were assembled in one place for the first time in February 2015 as part of a British Library commemoration of the 800th anniversary of the charter’s issue.

The enduring influence of the Magna Carta comes not from its detailed expression of the feudal relationship between lord and subject but from its more-general clauses in which every generation can see its own protection. The right to petition and habeas corpus and the concept of due process are derived from language in the Magna Carta, which also was a forerunner of Parliament , the Declaration of independence , the U.S. Constitution , and the U.S. Bill of Rights .

King John ’s successor, Henry III , reissued the Magna Carta on November 12, 1216, in the hope of recalling the allegiance of rebellious barons who were supporting French King Louis VIII ’s efforts to win control of England. It was reissued again in 1217, when the council reconsidered it clause by clause. In 1223 Pope Honorius III declared that the young King Henry III was old enough to make valid grants, and Henry reissued the charter in 1225.

Among the Magna Carta’s provisions were clauses providing for a free church, reforming law and justice, and controlling the behavior of royal officials. One of the charter’s 63 clauses tasked the barons with choosing 25 representatives to serve as a “form of security” ensuring the preservation of the rights and liberties that had been enumerated. Above all, the Magna Carta guaranteed that government, royal or otherwise, would be limited by the written law of the land.

The Magna Carta (“Great Charter”) is a document guaranteeing English political liberties that was drafted at Runnymede , a meadow by the River Thames , and signed by King John on June 15, 1215, under pressure from his rebellious barons. By declaring the sovereign to be subject to the rule of law and documenting the liberties held by “free men,” it provided the foundation for individual rights in Anglo-American jurisprudence .

Magna Carta , English Great Charter , charter of English liberties granted by King John on June 15, 1215, under threat of civil war and reissued, with alterations, in 1216, 1217, and 1225. By declaring the sovereign to be subject to the rule of law and documenting the liberties held by “free men,” the Magna Carta provided the foundation for individual rights in Anglo-American jurisprudence .

Origin of the Magna Carta

Know about the reign of King John of England and the events that led to the establishment of Magna Carta King John of England and the events that led to the signing of the Magna Carta. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. See all videos for this article

With his conquest of England in 1066, William I secured for himself and his immediate successors a position of unprecedented power. He was able to dominate not only the country but also the barons who had helped him win it and the ecclesiastics who served the English church. He forced Pope Alexander II to be content with indirect control over the church in a land that the papacy hitherto had regarded as bound by the closest ties to Rome. William’s son Henry I—whose accession (1100) was challenged by his eldest brother, Robert, duke of Normandy—was compelled to make concessions to the nobles and clergy in the Charter of Liberties, a royal edict issued upon his coronation. His successor, Stephen (1135), whose hold on the throne was threatened by Henry I’s daughter Matilda, again issued a solemn charter (1136) with even more generous promises of good government in church and state. Matilda’s son Henry II also began his reign (1154) by issuing a solemn charter promising to restore and confirm the liberties and free customs that King Henry, his grandfather, had granted “to God and holy church and all his earls, barons and all his men.” There developed, in fact, through the 12th century a continuous tradition that the king’s coronation oath should be strengthened by written promises stamped with the king’s seal.

Although the volume of common law increased during that period, in particular during Henry II’s reign (which ended in 1189), no converse definition had been secured in regard to the financial liabilities of the baronage to the crown. The baronage also had no definition of the rights of justice that they held over their own subjects. As the Angevin administration became ever more firmly established with learned judges, able financiers, and trained clerks in its service, the baronage as a whole became ever more conscious of the weakness of its position in the face of the agents of the crown. Compounding discontent among the nobility were tax increases during Richard I’s reign (1189–99), which resulted from his Crusade, his ransom, and his war with France. John was confronted with those myriad challenges upon his rise to the throne in 1199. His position, already precarious, was made even weaker because of the rival claim of his nephew Arthur of Brittany and the determination of Philip II of France to end the English hold on Normandy.

John (king of England) King John of England. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Rosenwald Collection, 1980.45.28

Unlike his predecessors, John did not issue a general charter to his barons at the beginning of his reign. At Northampton, however, Archbishop of Canterbury Hubert Walter, royal adviser William Marshal, and justiciar Geoffrey Fitzpeter summoned the nobility and promised, on behalf of the king (who was still in France), that he would render to each his rights if they would keep faith and peace with him. As early as 1201, however, the earls were refusing to cross the English Channel in the king’s service unless he first promised them “their rights.” In 1205, in the face of a threat of invasion from France, the king was compelled to swear that he would preserve the rights of the kingdom unharmed. After the loss of Normandy in 1204, John was forced to rely on English resources alone, and the crown began to feel a new urgency in the matter of revenue collection. Royal demands for scutage (money paid in lieu of military service) became more frequent. The quarrel with Pope Innocent III over the election of Stephen Langton to the see of Canterbury resulted in a papal interdict (1208–13) and left the English church defenseless in the face of John’s financial demands. The excommunication of the king in 1209 deprived him of some of his ablest administrators. It is not surprising then that when peace with the church was made and Langton became archbishop of Canterbury, he emerged as a central figure in the baronial unrest. Indeed, it was Langton who advised that the demand for a solemn grant of liberties from the king be founded on the coronation charter of Henry I.

John of England, from an early 14th-century illumination. The Granger Collection, New York