Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy ed. by Claire Breay and Julian Harrison (review)

Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy, the catalogue, was published in 2015 to coincide with the British Library exhibition of 13 March–1 September 2015, commemorating the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta. Although the Magna Carta was granted by King John in 1215, it continues to stand as a symbol of liberty from tyranny centuries after its inception, its principles evoked by freedom fighters like Mohandas Gandhi and Nelson Mandela in their struggle against oppression.

The editors of this catalogue, Claire Breay and Julian Harrison, hold illustrious credentials. She is head of Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern Manuscripts at the British Library and is a Co-Investigator of the Magna Carta Project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and he is curator of Pre-1600 Historical Manuscripts at the British Library. Together with a long list of distinguished contributors including Nicholas Vincent, professor of Medieval History at the University of East Anglia and principal investigator at the Magna Carta Project, and David Carpenter, professor of Medieval History at King’s College, London and co-investigator of the Magna Carta Project, they lend this Magna Carta Catalogue a wide breadth of intellectual depth and diversity. The book is divided into nine main sections: The Introduction, Kingship and Crisis, Runnymede and the Granting of Magna Carta, Revival and Survival, English Liberties, Colonies and Revolutions, Radicalism and Reform, Empire and After, and Magna Carta in the Modern Age. All contributors either wrote sections of the catalogue or the artifact description.

The exhibition features many items from the historical collections of the British Library, photographed and inserted with detailed accompanying text in the catalogue. It also features items related to the Magna Carta from all around the world. There is Thomas Jefferson’s handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence and an original copy of the United States Bill of Rights. The lenders to this exhibition were many, twenty-six public institutions plus private lenders: The Archives Nationales, Paris; The Bodleian Library, Oxford; Eaton College; Her Majesty the Queen and The Royal Collection, Windsor; The Houses of Parliament, London; The New York Public Library; and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London are just some of the distinguished institutions who made contributions to this exceptional exhibition.

The Magna Carta, or “The Great Charter” as it is colloquially known, forms the basis of the legal tradition for the democratic governments of a third of the world’s population. The exhibition is meant to explain this tradition but also to separate the two ideas of the Magna Carta. There is the Magna Carta that is evoked as a standard of shining liberty and the Magna Carta, the real piece of legislation which was entirely revoked but for a few clauses. Today, only three clauses are still in effect in England and Wales. Clause 1, which states “the Church of England shall be free,” Clause 9 which states that “the City of London shall have all the old liberties and customs that it had before,” and Clause 29 which states “No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his freehold, or liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled or any other wise destroyed; nor will we not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either justice or right.” Even if the myth and the reality diverge, the idea of the Magna Carta still remains in the collective consciousness as a powerful symbol of democratic foundation.

The principles of the Magna Carta have long been enshrined in various forms all over the world. In 1948, it was enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations General Assembly. Article 9 refers to Clause 39 of the 1215 Charter. It states that “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary detention or...