Magna Carta in United Kingdom

The Magna Carta was granted by King John, and afterwards re-enacted and confirmed by Parliament more than 30 times. The charter now in force is the statute 9 Hen 3. with which our statute book commences. It contains provisions to protect the subjects from abuse of the Royal Prerogative in the matter of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, and from amercements, purveyance and other extortions.

History of the Magna Carta

For a comprehensive review of the history of this document, read here.

Further Reading

Cantor, Norman F. Imagining the Law: Common Law and the Foundations of the American Legal System. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

Holt, James C. Magna Carta. 2d ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Pallister, Anne. Magna Carta: The Heritage of Liberty. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.

Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John, with an Historical Introduction, by William Sharp McKechnie (Glasgow: Maclehose, 1914).

Magna Carta and Medieval Law

Magna Carta and Legal History

Resources

See Also

• Status (in this legal Encyclopedia)
• Canon Law (in this legal Encyclopedia)
• Comparative Legal History (in this legal Encyclopedia)
• Negligence (in this legal Encyclopedia)

Bibliographies of English Law History

• Maxwell, William H. A Legal Bibliography of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Volume 1: English Law to 1800. London: Sweet and Maxwell, 1955-
• Beale, Joseph H. A Bibliography of Early English Law Books. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1926.
• Winfield, Percy H. The Chief Sources of English Legal History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925.