Magna Carta, a foundational document from 1215, emerged from a power struggle between King John and his barons, establishing the first official protection of individual rights and influencing legal systems to this day.
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sources take us back in time that's
what's so exciting about them for us as
historians the sources I'm here to see
today at the National Archives are very
the ones we're going to look at today go
back all the way to the thirteenth
century and this one is one of the most
significant and influential documents
ever written Magna Carta Magna Carta
first written in 1215 is so important
because it's the first official
protection of the rights of the
individual some sentences in this
document are still part of English law
today what's so interesting about this
document is that there's nothing
immediately obvious to signify how
important it is but if we look a bit
closer we can actually learn a lot from
its appearance we can see the writing is
very carefully laid out and this is
because it's made to be read halt
Magna Carta was written at a time when
the monarchy and the richest landowners
known as barons were in dispute about
how much power the Kings should have it
was copied and amended many times the
Barons wanted the document to be sent
around the country so people could see
the new rules they were trying to
establish to limit the Kings supremacy
and listen to this no free man shall be
seized or imprisoned or stripped of his
rights or possessions or outlawed or
exiled or deprived of his standing in
any other way
so Magna Carta is saying that no man can
just be arrested and thrown into prison
he has the right to a fair trial now
this sounds pretty obvious to us today
but at the time this was a really big
deal this document but the question is
why was this needed at all in the year
before Magna Carta was first drawn up
there were rising tensions between the
king and the Barons this is a royal
wheat with orders from King John now a
royal writ is essentially a set of
orders or instructions which are sent
throughout the lands a little bit like a
government email or a letter today this
ragged piece of parchment can actually
tell us a lot about why the Barons
wanted the King to issue Magna Carta
listen to this King to the sheriff of
Devon know that we've given back all of
the lands which william of Mandeville
held from the same in your jurisdiction
and therefore we order you to give
possession of the same aforesaid lands
to Henry without delay being made so
what we see from this source is that
King John in 1214 was taken land away
from the Barons he was actually given
this land to his son Henry
at the time there were no laws to stop
the king taxing people or taking their
land whenever he felt like it but then
something happened that shifted the
balance of power away from the king this
is a letter sent by King John a couple
of months after the rate and what
interesting about it is that his tone
has completely changed at this point
john is fighting to protect his lands in
France and he's losing them to the
French King
he needs troops and Knights and so he
writes to the barons pleading for
support the king sends his greetings to
all his Earl's barons knights and other
faithful men but now the interest and
bit we ask most attentively to us come
to us without delay to the aid of our
land which needs to be won over the King
needs the support of the very barons
that he's been taxing and they're not
send in the Knights the balance of power
has shifted and the King knows it so he
agrees to issue Magna Carta [Music]
[Music]
so a few ancient bits of parchment open
an incredible window on one of the most
important documents in our history the
reach from King John demands and land
from the Barons followed by a desperate
plea by the king to these same barons
for help in his war against the French
and it all led to a long drawn-out power
struggle between successive kings and
barons with Magna Carta finally reissued
in 1297 and part of it including the
protection of individual rights are
still more today [Music]
[Music]
by really examining sources paying
attention to what they look like and the
language used we can understand power
plays centuries ago the sources we've
looked at really help us understand the
battle between King John and the Barons
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