Pod Insights Gone Medieval Myths of Magna Carta About this episode Did you know that Magna Carta wasn't originally intended as a beacon of civil liberties? Dr. Eleanor Janega is joined by Steven Franklin of Royal Holloway, University of London to delve into the myths and realities of the Magna Carta. They discuss how this foundational document, sealed by King John in 1215, spawned iconic clauses like trial by jury, how it's still referenced today and why lesser-known yet impactful documents like the Charter of the Forest might deserve more attention.
Eleanor and Steven reveal how Magna Carta transformed into a mythologized symbol of justice and is considered a cornerstone of British law.
Gone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega. Edited by Amy Haddow, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.
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2:03 Eleanor Janega? Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Yanaga, and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were and how we got here.
2:35 Eleanor Janega? Magna Carta is one of those big medieval names that gets dropped a lot in very knowing tones. It's become a sort of modern catch-all to push back against what are seen as the overreaches of government. If you asked the American founding fathers, Magna Carta meant that the 1765 Stamp Act, levied to pay for the Seven Years' War, was an null and void. According to the Massachusetts Assembly, it was, quote, "against the Magna Carta and the natural rights of Englishmen," unquote. Because, you know, these guys understood Magna Carta so well, they called it "the Magna Carta." It's Latin, guys, pull it together.
3:18 Eleanor Janega? More recently, in the UK, Magna Carta was used by an ex-footballer to claim that he could keep his soft play center open during COVID restrictions. It was an interesting argument, which found him fined £4,500. Now, I'm making light of these arguments, but if you aren't a medieval scholar, it might not be so obvious why all of this is actually really ridiculous. Because there have been centuries of myth-making centered on this document in particular. It's a timely discussion, given that 2025 is the 800th anniversary of the reissue of Magna Carta, which, in and of itself, should tell you that the original document wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Today, I'm joined by
4:02 Eleanor Janega? Magna Carta scholar Dr. Stephen Franklin to see how a fairly dry legal document aimed at protecting the interests of the rich gained such an outsized legacy.
4:14 Speaker 04 Stephen, welcome to Gone Medieval.
4:17 Speaker 05 Thank you very much, Eleanor. Thanks for having me.
4:19 Speaker 04 I am absolutely delighted to have you here, but first off, I need to apologize to you because I sound like I've swallowed a frog. And this is because Matt Lewis and I went wassailing in Devon earlier this week, which there's going to be a program all about this later in the week over on Matt's show. And somebody, I'm not naming any names, lost her voice because she was singing silly songs in a wet field next to a smoky fire. But, you know, it's neither here nor there. And I was too excited to talk about Magna Carta to put this off any longer. So thank you for putting up with me.
4:56 Speaker 05 I mean, to be fair, I've heard, you know, one of the rumors that have been circulating out for where I'm based is like, you shouldn't go wassailing with Matt Lewis. So, you know, you only have yourself to blame, really, Eleanor.
5:08 Speaker 04 True. It's true. Absolutely. All right. Well, Stephen, I brought you here today because you are one of my favorite people to talk about Magna Carta with generally. And I don't think that a lot of people realize that 12/25 is actually, you know, a big date for Magna Carta. So it's an anniversary this year in 2025. But, I mean, before we get into all that, I think we have to kind of begin at the beginning with just the elementary school question, what was Magna Carta?
5:39 Speaker 05 Oh, now you're testing me. Say Magna Carta. Sealed famously by King John at Runnymede at the behest of his barons in 1215, on the 15th of June, 1215. It's a famous date that lingers long in the memory of, I'm going to say, English history and then later British history, because obviously it happened whilst the kingdoms weren't united. And very much a seminal moment for the history books. Now, one of the interesting things is actually, we don't really know what took place in that very wet and boggy field. There is no sort of remnants left. We don't know where it was sealed. We know it was somewhere. But anyone that's visited sort of that Surrey-Berkshire border will know that it's a fairly
6:23 Speaker 05 Expansive location, so very little archaeological remains. And we only have sort of very few scattered manuscript sort of material that says this is where it happened. So obviously, bad King John, probably everyone familiar with, probably most likely because of his portrayal in Disney's Robin Hood. And I actually think that, you know, whilst that was clearly quite an exaggerated interpretation, it's probably not too far from the truth. You know, he was quite spoilt. Unfortunately for him, was a second child and his older brother was far more successful. If, as you know, English of Richard the Lionheart obviously had his own issues that people seem to neglect.
7:06 Speaker 05 You know, and he did get captured whilst on crusade. But regardless of that, you know, John is John is the lesser of the two brothers. And you do get that feeling with John that, you know, he sort of does suffer from a little bit of imposter syndrome and a need to impress daddy. And that sort of thing. So, you know, he comes to the throne and it's basically a menace, a tyrant. And, you know, I guess we also probably need to contextualize that statement. He is a tyrant, but hey, show me a medieval king that wasn't a tyrant. So, you know, he's no worse than the others, but he just does. An incredibly large amount in a very short amount of time to really, you know, put a sense of distrust between him and his sort of barons.
7:50 Speaker 05 So, you know, after continued moments of overtaxation, of stealing their wives. Of, you know, disinheriting, disemboweling them of their lands, of getting the country excommunicated. People and the barons have had enough and they're like, yo, John.
8:08 Speaker 04 Could you not?
8:10 Speaker 05 Yes, that's exactly, that's exactly what they went, yo, John, it's time we meet in the field in Runnymede. Obviously, that's a very truncated and simplistic sort of version, but that is what Magna Carta is. It's the document that emerged from that meeting on a very wet and boggy field on the, sorry, Berkshire border.
8:28 Speaker 04 Okay, so when these people are standing in a wet and boggy field, unlike me, while sailing.
8:35 Speaker 04 And they come up with this document, is it really that significant in 1215? Like, does this make a huge difference to how life is conducted in England in 1215?
8:47 Speaker 05 That's a really interesting sort of question. And I think the general sort of, you know, historical summary or agreed historical sort of line of thinking is that, no, for the average Joe, it doesn't make much difference at all. It's sort of 25 barons that are incredibly annoyed, thwarted by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, Stephen Langton, doing their utmost to ensure that they no longer are getting bullied, for want of a better word, by by King John. So a lot of those 63 clauses that are sort of agreed, inverted commas, at Runnymede are very much tied to what the barons want. So for your average medieval person, Magna Carta is probably an insignificant thing for them.
9:31 Speaker 05 You know, there's argument to whether they actually have any sort of awareness of what's going on. I mean, obviously, the fact that you've got two sort of armies descending on a field, probably for the locals, would be a little bit inconvenient. But essentially, this is a list drawn up of 63 clauses that are demands by the barons to in order to keep King John in check, to ensure that he is no longer able to legally, inverted commas, to take advantage of his royal authority and prerogative, to the point that even there's a last clause or one of the last clauses is sort of references a legal council of 25 barons, which means that basically 25 of them,
10:14 Speaker 05 if in agreement, could go to and wage sort of revolution and war, go to war with the king if they disagree with what he's doing. So there is that security clause, as it's known, in there. But for the average person on the medieval street, it's not really for or about them.
10:30 Speaker 04 I think that that is such an important point because I think that in terms of the mythology of Magna Carta, everyone says, oh, and then there were rites for men. And it's like, well, you know, it all, that all depends on which men we're talking about, right? If you're one of those 25 barons, sure, right?
10:47 Speaker 05 Correct, yeah.
10:47 Speaker 04 But I suppose then we have to ask the question, now we talk about it in this like quasi-mythological way.
10:56 Speaker 04 How does it get the symbolic status as like the seminal founding document for English law?
11:03 Speaker 05 This is a question that's vexed me for for years and not only vexed me, but actually is sort of really quite interesting in the amount of nuance and layers that it has. I think a start of statement Magna Carta is potentially best described as a bit of a palimpsest. It's layers of layers of layers of meaning, interpretation that has evolved over those 800 years or 810 years. So, you know, that's part of the reason. And I also think another reason to which you've just alluded to is that during that duration, Magna Carta, the document and also the event, is almost elevated to a position of foundational myth for, you know, a country and a nation.
11:44 Speaker 05 It's transmuted into a document that becomes a sort of shorthand for legal representation, for the rights of the individual, for the common man. And it also becomes sort of a rallying point of nationhood. What is it to be British, to be English? What does that mean? Well, part of that is tied up in the events of 1215 or what we tell ourselves what happened in 1215. So it's a lot of things going along and, you know, part of that, the beauty of the myth is it's actually sort of a reflection of itself, that the meaning is drawn from the stories that we tell and how those
12:26 Speaker 05 stories evolve. And each continual Magna Carta moment, so whether it's 1217, 1225, 1297, you know, and if you go through to the sort of Stuart period, the Glorious Revolution, the Whigs, the Victorian era, all these moments, they're harking back to a, almost a fictitious, highly romanticized version of what they want that moment in history to be and what they want that document to be. They want it to be something that they can actively use for the benefit of their own, um, on day, cop purpose and sort of circumstance, not using it for its, you know, ability to sort out issues of 13th century governance.
13:08 Speaker 04 Yeah, I mean, I think that you're really bang on there. It becomes one of these things where you see where what you want to see. If you are attempting to make a case against, for example, what you perceive to be an overreach of royal power, it becomes this obvious document to kind of pull out and show around. And I'm I think that that starts happening already like about the time of the English Civil War, like in the 17th century.
13:33 Speaker 05 Yeah, it really does. And, you know, I guess if you were sort of looking at it in a simple comparison, James the First, definitely Charles the First, there are echoes of the sort of things that they're using royal prerogative, their sort of concept of divine right of kings and sort of the behaviour of John. It's again, it's the way in which they're using their sort of conceived notion of royal authority and legitimacy and the way in which the public, in this instance, 17th century, you're looking more at members of the House of Commons, the likes of John Pym, Sir Edward Cook, how these people are responding to an overreach and executive, for want of a better phrase. So, you know,
14:15 Speaker 05 Charles the First definitely is well known for overburdening the country with excessive taxation. His belief in his royal authority leads him to sort of get rid of Parliament for 11 years. You know, and all of these concessive, consecutive moments and add up. And it's Sir Edward Cook, the sort of legal jurist and politician, who really, sort of the classic interpretation is reinvents Magna Carta. So the traditional historiography of Magna Carta tends to say that, you know, it's a big thing in the 13th century. After 1297, people forget about it. Edward Cook reimagines it, rediscovers it in the sort of early 1600s. He uses it in his institutes and his legal writings
15:00 Speaker 05 as a vehicle to justify the notion of time immemorial, so ideas and concepts of rights that are present and particular to the English people that go back to sort of Anglo-Saxon and beyond. And he argues that Magna Carta was basically just a written down form of these ideals that had long existed before 1215. And yes, he's using this moment, this document to argue that actually what the kings, what Charles is doing, what James is doing are particularly, you know, against sort of what people have always regarded as acceptable in England and sort of Britain.
15:41 Speaker 04 I think there's so much layered in that as well, which is so interesting because of course you have James the first being the first Scottish king, you know, and this idea of trying to drum up an imagined Englishness and an idea of English rights that everyone has always definitely agreed on, you know, and then you like say, wah, here's Magna Carta, you know? And I mean, I think certainly we also see it in play in an American perspective. I certainly know, for example, one of the things that we were taught in high school is that there was just sort of a, oh yes, you know, this glorious and longstanding tradition of free men get these various rights and the founding fathers were simply reiterating this. Whereas of course, you
16:24 Speaker 04 know, the founding fathers don't really particularly care about the rights of a lot of men. Let's just say, you know, unless you're a rich landowner and if you're an enslaved man, forget about it, right? But they love to kind of point to a medieval document because this shows that time immemorial thing, even though they're just making something up for their own benefit at the time.
16:43 Speaker 05 Yeah, it really, it legitimizes things to my mind. There's nothing stronger than being able to point back to sort of a sense of tradition and the argument, well, it's always been done like this. I wouldn't say it's the most persuasive of arguments, but people do use that sort of thinking quite often. And, you know, interesting that you referenced the founding fathers. I mean, obviously the pilgrim fathers, when they sail from England across to, you know, the new colonies in the States or what is later to be the States, you know, they're taken with them that sort of legal interpretation that's been devised by the likes of William Blackstone, Sir Edward Cook, and a lot of the sort of language of the original sort of founding charters of each
17:24 Speaker 05 States, it's very much echoing that sort of legal fiction of Cook. But then also you can see it echoing the ideas that were sort of instilled and enshrined in Iverna Comers within Magna Carta. So, you know, in terms of if you were thinking about drawing a straight line in a lineage, you could, if you were feeling particularly naughty, probably argue that actually, you know, within an American context, they probably have more direct ties to that history than potentially the British do now. But that opens a whole new can of worms.
17:57 Speaker 04 How many episodes can we get?
17:58 Speaker 05 Correct. But then I sort of think, you know, and that goes outside of the gone medieval sort of remit. But interesting when you think about that and then you sort of talk about the development of the special relationship in the 20th century, you know, so that there is these commonalities that have endured for centuries. And, you know, Magna Carta plays its part, albeit it's more in that.
18:18 Speaker 04 Well, I think that you're kind of touching here on one of the things that I find most interesting about these mythologies of Magna Carta. Because on the one hand, some people interpret it as, oh, yes, and this is just reiterating these old ties that have a real sense of what it means to be English, and these are things that have always existed. But then, on the other hand, it's often put forward as some form of novelty, as though this is the first time that anyone has ever managed to assert their rights before royal authority, which I suppose leads me to my next question, which is, are the ideas that we find written down in Magna Carta particularly novel in 1215?
19:00 Speaker 05 In 1215, the ideas are not novel at all. In fact, the novelty probably is most encapsulated within the golden clauses 39 and 40. So those are the right to trial by jury. And then, you know, we shall not delay, we shall not delay, we shall not refuse the right for justice. Those are probably the most novel, and those are also the most enduring and famous of the clauses. The interesting thing about those two clauses is that if you were to think about a construction of a very important legal document, if they were really that important. They would have either probably been at the top and they're just buried in the middle amongst the minutiae of fishwhirs and,
19:40 Speaker 05 you know, other sort of stuff. So actually, if we were to look at it from a logical perspective, you could make an argument that this is just sort of a couple of things thrown in for good measure. But I think the beauty of those things and what is quite novel is they are open to abstraction and interpretation. And then also to, to your point, are there other documents within global history that are doing the same sort of thing at this time? Yes, there are. So, you know, Magna Carta isn't, you know, unique in that perspective of either. There's a Hungarian example, for instance, of a similar time where, you know, a monarch is sort of held to account. So, yeah, no, I don't think there is anything particularly novel beyond
20:22 Speaker 05 those two very certain special clauses that are novel because of just how abstract they are within the context of a document that is anything but abstract and is very much focused on the minutiae of 13th century legal and, you know, politics.
20:38 Speaker 04 So within this as well, I'm quite interested in, I suppose, earlier conventions, earlier laws that influenced this. Because we have a big example over in the Holy Roman Empire. A lot of the time when you have legal documents that are written down, they often very specifically refer to what they say is the old and customary law. So there's this idea that there are customs, there are laws that have existed before that are just being written down now. And everyone sort of knows about them. You could talk about them in a verbal way, but you don't necessarily have a law code which shows that. And then now something is being written to reflect that. Are these sort of earlier conventions a feature of Magna Carta as well?
21:21 Speaker 05 Difficult to tell. I mean, those ideas, there are examples within the history of these sort of ideas and being exercised before they are written down. So could argue that, again, these aren't particularly novel in that sense. There is that tradition, that custom. It's a concrete example of where that sort of act and the way in which people Have been sort of going about their daily lives gets sort of made permanent, made a permanent fixture of a country's sort of legal system by the very act of writing it down and getting a seal or place to it. I mean, I think in terms of the trial by jury and fair and justice,
22:02 Speaker 05 John particularly was very bad at sort of breaking those very obvious and very sort of sacred on a personal level kind of ideals. So, you know, you could make, you can, we should be cognizant of that. So actually, whilst they are very abstract and open, they're not precise or not as precise as some of the other clauses of 1215 charter. They are still within that context of how John had been operating.
22:28 Speaker 04 So, I mean, is it arguable that Magna Carta just in some ways was simply putting down and writing extant legal conventions that had already existed with the, you know, the possible exception of these particular clauses?
22:42 Speaker 05 Yeah, I would say, you know, that would be a fair, a fair summary.
22:47 Speaker 04 Great, done. Thanks, Stephen.
22:51 Speaker 04 No, I mean, okay, I think, but I just think it's an important point, right? Because it's not necessarily trailblazing if what you're doing is like, John, seriously, mate? You know how things are done. Knock it off, you know, and it's kind of just reiterating. You know what the rules are. Sign here.
23:08 Speaker 05 Yeah, exactly. No, you're completely spot on. And, you know, I think it's Magna Carta in 1215 is never supposed to be a beacon of civil liberty, a foundation of law. What it's supposed to be is essentially a peace treaty to stop John and his barons from fighting. So the reason that they meet at Runnymede is because John is being kicked out of London and he's sort of at Windsor. The barons at this day, the day before are based in Staines and Runnymede is a convenient middle spot for the two to meet. So Magna Carta was never supposed to be a legal beacon and a definition of civil liberty. It was just meant to be a peace treaty and pretty much it was an abject failure in that regard.
23:51 Speaker 05 Cause they, you know, start fighting pretty much eight weeks later. It's inold by the Pope. So. It should really have been a forgotten footnote in history, but yet somehow it persists as a sort of cornerstone of our culture and our sort of conception of what it is, conception of modern day foundations of law and also civil rights, civil liberty.
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27:58 Speaker 04 See, I find this such an important point because I think that people bang on so often about 12:15, you know, and oh, and then this changes everything. And it's like, well, now according to Innocent the Third, you know, and let's also be clear that Innocent the Third is perhaps the most legal pope that there ever was. I mean, this man is a lawyer, right? And he's got problems because he's like, well, actually, the church owns rather a lot of land, I think you'll find. So you can't just go around issuing charters without us. Thank you very much. And, you know, eight weeks later, there it goes. And you only have a few things that really do hang around. Like, how, how many parts of Magna Carta are still on the books today, really?
28:40 Speaker 05 Clause 39 and 40 basically become truncated into one, and they, they exist. The other guarantees the freedom of the church and the other guarantees the freedom of London. But in reality, most of those laws on statute are superseded by the European Convention of Human Rights and, and other acts that have been brought in. So even sort of functionally within our modern day, you wouldn't be using those to, to get anywhere with an illegal argument.
29:12 Speaker 04 See, and I find this an incredibly important point, though, because I think you and I chatted about this, I think it must have been back during the pandemic or something like that.
29:20 Speaker 05 What good old days they were.
29:22 Speaker 04 I know. Great times. And I got a lot of hate mail as a result of it from people who genuinely believe that Magna Carta still applies in its entirety now. And, you know, it was happening during the pandemic, for example, that people thought you could keep your businesses open if you displayed Magna Carta in your windows and things like this. And which is just, I mean, I think it's partially it shows how desperate people were during the pandemic. But also, I, I think that there's this interesting kind of belief that persists about it. Do you have any insight on why they might think that is?
29:58 Speaker 05 I think there's something peculiar that has sort of always existed or seems to be, you know, this idea of British exceptionalism. And it is that, coming back to that idea of, well, we've always done this. You can't sort of, you can't take away my, my freedom, my, my civil liberties, my, my rights to do X, Y and Z. I think it pertains to that. And I also think that a lot of it comes down to the way in which people with influence, whether that politicians or others sort of fling around, you know, Magna Carta was almost that shorthand in a way that is quite unhelpful
30:37 Speaker 05 because it doesn't really unpack the actual complexities of what we're talking about now. And I guess, you know, other sort of more funny humorous takes, you know, your rights at one, your rights were run at running me and, you know, the Ladybird history book and also, you know, 1066 and all that. They propagate this idea that, you know, something big happened and it truncates that history and that event and that document down to just a single sentence is your rights were won here. So that's what I think's going on, but this is an incredibly complex, you know, circumstance where you're seeing the mix of exceptionalism, the idea of, you know, nationalism, the idea of
31:22 Speaker 05 civil liberties and the law and all of these things being fused. And again, it's interesting that it comes, or those particular instances that you refer are moments where the conversation is actually about the limits of the executive versus the freedom of the individual. So, you know, that would be another reason why people again sort of could potentially be, you know, looking to Magna Carta as their sort of white horse.
31:50 Eleanor Janega? I think it's such a shame for us because it's such a great and easy, simple story. Oh, since 1215, you've had rights, wonderful. And then, you know, nerds like us come along and say, oh, actually it's a lot more complicated than that. And, and you know, that's not sexy.
32:03 Speaker 05 No, it's not.
32:04 Eleanor Janega? It's way, it's way sexier to just say, there's this document right here that says I could do what I want, you know? And I guess it's just such an uphill battle against that, but.
32:13 Speaker 04 One of the things that I'm always kind of arguing for in terms of, you know, team complex argument about these is I've got a favorite legal document from around this time, which I think is way more banging than Magna Carta, and that's the Charter of the Forest.
32:28 Speaker 05 Oh, yes.
32:29 Speaker 04 So in the Charter of the Forest, it comes in in 1217.
32:32 Speaker 05 It does, yeah.
32:32 Speaker 04 And it's got all kinds of things for regular people in it, you know, saying, you know, you can have access to common lands.
32:39 Speaker 05 Yep.
32:40 Speaker 04 You can go into the forest to get firewood. Here's the things that ordinary people can do, and it lasts up into the 1970s, I think it is.
32:50 Speaker 05 Yeah, I think it's.
32:50 Speaker 04 It's on the books.
32:51 Speaker 05 Yep.
32:51 Speaker 04 So like, it's got like a 700 year run, absolutely beats the pants off Magna Carta, and everybody talks about it, you know, but I guess I'm out here fangirling about a charter, which is a normal thing to do. But do you think that maybe this kind of comes in as a result of instances of law that Magna Carta doesn't pick up on, or is it just a whole new shebang?
33:13 Speaker 05 I think it does very much. So, you know, as you've sort of referenced, issued in 1217, and the interesting thing about 1217 of is, well, yes, basically, it's a reissue of Magna Carta in which most of the more clauses that were pertaining to King John are stripped out. It's a streamlined version of Magna Carta and a lot more expanded version for the common man. So that's the sort of circumstance. And, you know, I agree with you that actually the Charter of the Forest is a far more interesting document for historians to look at and consider because it is more, its efficacy is more on the common man or woman.
33:54 Speaker 05 So, yeah, do I think it was as a result of what Magna Carta lacked? I agree. It's an expanded version of some of the ideas obtained in 1215.
34:03 Speaker 04 Yeah, for me, this is the more significant document. Just, it just fundamentally is, but I suppose it's because I'm team common people.
34:09 Speaker 05 There's nothing wrong with team common people.
34:11 Speaker 04 You know, come on, I love it. I love a peasant. And where are they going to get their wood for the winter? That's what I want to know. You know, I don't particularly care what 25 barons are doing. I want to know what, you know, Jim the Swineherd is up to. That's, that's my guy.
34:25 Speaker 05 Correct, yeah. And there was, you know, sort of an interesting side note here or anecdote that just in the lead up to the 800th commemorations at Runnymede, there was a offshoot of the Octopi movement that basically set up camp in the woods on Cooper's Hill illegally. I mean, they argued it wasn't illegal because it was, you know, contained within, you know, the rights of Magna Carta. And there was, you know, an interesting moment of which I was involved, where a number of us from sort of Roar Holloway in the local community sat down with them and discussed about sort of why they felt that Magna Carta was the correct document to be citing. And again, many of their arguments sort of fell down on this idea of, you know,
35:05 Speaker 05 freedom of right and civil liberty. But, you know, actually, they were very interested in hearing of the sort of activities of the levelers and the diggers in the 17th century, and also about the Charter of the Forest and actually how that was probably more in line with their agenda and sort of their point they were making than the Magna Carta. But obviously, you know, given the circumstance and the context of where they were and when they were there, Charter of the Forest would have been a little less of a headline grabbing document to refer to.
35:36 Eleanor Janega? Yeah, I'm going to start making a Charter of the Forest awareness T-shirts, you know, ask me about the Charter of the Forest.
35:42 Speaker 05 Well, I think it could be a really effective sort of merchandise run for Gone Medieval.
35:47 Eleanor Janega? Absolutely.
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37:44 Speaker 04 Yeah, right, but we've talked a lot about, you know, concepts of rule, law, concepts of right. But there's a lot of clauses within Magna Carta, and you've already touched on this. You know, some of the only ones that are still on the books actually have to do about the church and protections for the church, which have absolutely nothing to do with legal rights for individuals. Could you talk a little bit about them?
38:10 Speaker 05 Yeah, they sort of feature heavily because John, during his reign, manages to get England excommunicated. It is ironic then that it is the Pope that comes to John's aid for, you know, John's aid by declaring that Magna Carta is null and void. Because, you know, it wasn't only, it was only a couple of years ago where they weren't on speaking terms. So, yeah, we need to understand that religion is sort of fundamental to the psyche of the medieval person. And then any moment in which the country is essentially forbade from observing any religious practice is going to be awful dark times. Obviously, sitting here from
38:52 Speaker 05 My current position in 21st century, I can't even begin to fathom or imagine how that sort of having that world turned upside down and having sort of the very basics of how you live your life taken away and sort of made illegal. So, you know, you can't bury your dead, you can't, you can't pray, you can't, can't do a lot of those fundamental things because it's not allowed. So, yes, protecting the freedom of the church is essentially being used to prevent that from happening again. And again, to, you know, essentially ensure that a secular authority cannot mess with, you know, the religious church.
39:32 Speaker 04 I think some of my favorite areas of governance, though, although you're bang on here. It's all the fishing wares, isn't it, mate? Half of this is about fishing wares.
39:41 Speaker 05 That is the most famous clause in Magna Carta, isn't it, the fishing wares clause? I can just tell in my voice that I've got excited about fishing wares. It really does demonstrate exactly how precise and specific Magna Carta of 1215 is to the context to which it's sealed. So, the reason that fishing wares are included is, is not because they, you know, are looking to protect the fish. It's because actually they are looking to maintain the Thames and the Medway as a sort of shipping merchant route. And fishing wares were essentially blocking those, those trade lanes. So that's why fishing wares is included. And it's the one that stands out because it seems so foreign against everything else. And it's even more foreign when you're comparing it to 39 and 40.
40:23 Speaker 05 It actually is just another instance of the specificity of the document to the gripes that were present against John and sort of the time.
40:34 Speaker 04 I mean, I suppose it's one of these things where, again, nerds love this. You know, I simply love a fish and we're chat. But, you know, it gets lost in this discussion of legal aspects and what the legalities of it mean. And it's not that I'm not interested in that. Of course, I do think that legalities are interesting, but. How Magna Carta really functions as a very interesting document now are these little tidbits. It tells us a lot about what life is like in 1215. If you're able to sort of take off your rose tinted glasses and consider what all people need in order to have a good life and where they need protections and what has to happen
41:19 Speaker 04 in order for the kingdom to function well.
41:21 Speaker 05 Yeah, and I mean, to your point on the fishing whiz, you know, if we were to to follow your your logic, the reason that people are putting fishing whiz in the terms is clearly because of a need for to get fish, whether for food or to to trade as, you know, subsistence and a commodity. So, you know, it is very, if you are, if you have enough time to think and ask, well, why might this be included? Why is this being included? Then nine times, probably 10 times out of 10, you'll find the context and the reason within 1214 or John's reign that has particularly led to that having an inclusion.
42:04 Speaker 05 I guess that's one of the privileges of being a historian and, you know, taking an interest in history, isn't it? But you have that natural curiosity to ask those questions and you also have the space and the sort of time to sort of do that more contextual reading to sort of work out and join those dots. That's where I think that for others who maybe don't have that luxury or interest, then it does seem to be a little bit odd of a mixture, jury by peer, fish whiz, freedom of the church. But, you know, I guess, you know, this is where I stand on my soapbox, then, you know, there's an obligation on us to sort of to tell people and and sort of get into those
42:47 Speaker 05 conversations to, you know, ensure that history isn't being used in a deliberately wrong way.
42:53 Speaker 04 No, I think you're absolutely bang on. And, you know, also, I bring up the fishing whiz within this context because I think they encapsulate the irony of using Magna Carta as an argument for universal human rights in 1215 because a conception of trade or needing to keep the Thames or the Medway open for trade, I mean, sure, yeah, that's great at a really high level. If you're one of the inhabitants of a small village along the Medway. You probably don't really care if the train lines are open to France. You know, what matters to you is are you going to get to have a fish with dinner tonight? And so actually, you have this real tension coming into play where the impoverished need to eat.
43:38 Speaker 04 And they're being told, I'm sorry, you cannot have a weir across this river because, uh, you know, the King's Bordeaux is coming in. And that is a real point of conflict between ordinary people and the very fanciest of lads, which is who Magna Carta is meant to serve.
43:57 Speaker 05 Yeah, totally, totally. And it's that sort of, I guess, if you were to, to look at the historiography, most of that historiography is about the king and the lads that are going to benefit from this document. I think increasingly, you know, this more social element is being explored, is being spoken about. You know, the likes of Nicholas Vince and David Carpenter and others are increasingly situating it and explaining it within a much wider context and, and sort of unpicking. They're telling us all through, through written word or verbal presentation, you know, the, the reason why these things are occurring. But, but no, totally.
44:36 Speaker 05 It is sort of an element of the story that hasn't made its way into common perception.
44:44 Speaker 04 And I mean, I guess that this is the issue in general is that common perception tells this nice sexy story that everyone can kind of get behind because everybody likes rights. You know, everybody wants to have their own rights and everyone wants to be able to say, I'm reflected in history and history is doing something for me. You know, as an American, this is an incredibly seductive, uh, way of talking about history that is very expressly exploited by the founding fathers. But it's also a story that is a story, you know? This is a myth. It's, it's not really a reality. And unfortunately, you've got to bring people back down to earth by saying, mm, I'm sorry.
45:23 Speaker 04 Actually, we're talking about fishing weirs now because the people are actually being oppressed here.
45:31 Speaker 05 Yeah, for sure. You know, and. If we were to tell a more accurate sort of history of Magna Carta, you know, the title of the story would probably be, how long was it until you did actually when you're right? You know, and I'm saying that that is a generalization for the majority of the population. Obviously echelons of society have benefited for centuries, but for the most part, you're sort of having to stretch into the 1800s until you're really getting to a place where even the notion of giving the common person a right that could be generally considered, you know, enough to vote and subsistence, ability to own land and all of these things.
46:12 Speaker 05 That's really sort of the period in which these ideas are A, taken seriously and B, enacted into law. You know, it's not 1215, it's not 1225, it's not 1297, it's not the civil war.
46:25 Speaker 04 I mean, and I think that's ironic and probably tells a very important story in terms of historiography because consequently also the 19th century is this time where people are really involved in making nationalist myths. You know, everyone is really going back to the medieval period, very specifically to say, this is what it means to be English. This is what it means to be German, this new concept of being German. This is what it means to be Italian, this new concept of being Italian. And you go and you find a medieval document and you say, ha ha, see, there's always been this thing. And so you combine in this desire to have a national myth that justifies everything that your country is doing along with a desire for rights. And you've got a perfect storm, which is what Magna Carta does.
47:09 Speaker 05 Yeah, no, for sure. It's just that perfect cocktail of an idea that's sexy and seductive versus an instance that you can clearly pinpoint as being a marker or a beginning of. You know, funny, we talk about the 19th century because, because yes, you're right. This is the, the period across Europe where national ideas are born and, well, not born, but are, you know, becoming more popular and being used to build nation states. Within Britain, you know, in the 1800s, the clauses of Magna Carta are getting repealed left, right and centre. So you have this, you know, this interesting sort of juxtaposition. Actually, you know, you've got a century where the common man is probably gaining rights like he's never done before.
47:52 Speaker 05 But also the very document that we might now ascribe many of those rights to having started and coming from is actually getting scraped away in a very like legal, legal sense by the state. So actually, it's interesting the way that you, you have that juxtaposition happening in the time where people are thinking more about rights and nations and, and ideals and, and what that relationship between state and, you know, individual is. The practicalities of medieval, um, you know, the, the hangovers of medieval society are being scrapped left, right and centre from the statute book.
48:27 Speaker 04 Oh, that just says it all. Really, you know, you, you get left with the myth and all the actual rights are, are sanded off.
48:35 Speaker 05 Yeah, yeah. But, but again, you know, that's probably just another marker and demonstration of, of how outmoded and how outdated it was even by then. And yeah, it has been, or it is continually boiled down to that seductive, idealized, romanticized shorthand, the cornerstone of modern day law. The part of the golden thread of British history, the cliches can go on. Thing that guarantees your right as an individual, all of these things are true in the sense that Palimpsest idea of continued reinterpretation, there is a very concrete history that you can trace in which you're tracing a build up of the myth, basically. And you can point to all the moments, whether that be
49:18 Speaker 05 from Edward Cook, whether that's Sir Francis Berdette, whether that's Arthur Beardmore, whether that's Darkest Howe in the Mangrove Nine in the 1960s, whether it's Tony Benn in Parliament much more recently. All of these people have appealed to Magna Carta. All of these people are from different eras of time, have different socio-political backgrounds, are using it for different purposes. But what they all do is contribute to that sort of multi-layered fabric textured history that, that is Magna Carta and its myth. They're all contributing to it, but they're all taking different strands of what they believe to be most useful or most beneficial.
50:01 Speaker 04 Well, Stephen, I can't thank you enough for coming on today to, uh, rob everyone of a nice and handy myth. And complicate things. Thank you for being Captain Bring Down with me.
50:11 Speaker 05 No, that's, that's fine. Anytime that you wanna sort of bring the general mood of a nation down and just talk about how you, talk about how the rights weren't won at running me, you know, just give me a call.
50:23 Speaker 04 You're my boy, Stephen. Thank you.
50:25 Speaker 05 Quite all right.
50:27 Eleanor Janega? Thanks so much to Stephen once again for joining me and thank you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries that are released weekly and ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com/subscription. If you can't bear to be apart from me for a whole week, there are some fabulous films we've made there for you to enjoy, including the recent Medieval Winter, which Matt and I made. And where I caught the cold, you can hear in today's episode while I was wassailing my little heart out. Remember, you can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you have a moment, please drop us a review or rate us everywhere
51:11 Eleanor Janega? you listen to podcasts. It really does help new listeners find us. Otherwise, the wonderful Matt Lewis will be back on Friday for more medieval action. And I'll see you, as always, next Tuesday. Until next time.
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