Gone Medieval - Myths of Magna Carta

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

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.Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://uk.surveymonkey.com/r/6FFT7MK Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanorianaga 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. 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 Nolan 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. Its Latin guys pull it together. 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 fine 4,500 pounds. And 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 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. Stephen, welcome to Gone Medieval. Thank you very much, I don't know. Thanks for having me. 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 was sailing 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. 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 was sailing with Matt Lewis. So, you know, you only have yourself to blame really, you know. 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 1225 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? Oh, now you're testing me. Say, McNacarta. Sealed famously by King John at Ronnie Mead at the behest of his barons in 12th.

15th, 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, Belkshire border will know that it's a fairly expansive location. So very little archaeological remains.

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 spoiled. Unfortunately for him was a second child and his older brother was far more successful. In other, as you know, English of Richard the Lionheart obviously had his own

issues that people seem to neglect, 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 to 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. So, you know, after continued moments of overtaxation, of stealing their wives, of, you know, disinheriting, disembowing them of their lands, of getting the country excommunicated, people and the barons have had enough. And they're like, yo, John. Could you not? Yes, that's exactly what they went. Yo, John, it's time we meet in the field in running mead. 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 Saudi-Barkshire border.

Okay, so when these people are standing in a wet and boggy field, unlike me, while sailing, 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? It's a really interesting sort of question, and I think the general sort of 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, ported by the Archbishop counterpart at the time, Stephen Langton, doing their utmost to ensure that they no longer are getting bullied for one of a better word by King John. So a lot of those 63 clauses that

are sort of agreed, in the very commas at running mead are very much tied to what the barons want. So for your average medieval person, Magna Carta is probably an insignificant thing for them. 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 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, in averted 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 clause is sort of references a legal counsel of 25 barons, which means that basically 25 of them, if in agreement, could go to a... 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. 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 rights for men. And it's like, well, you know, that all depends on which men we're talking about, right?

if you're one of those 25 barons, sure, right? Correct, yeah. But I suppose then we have to ask the question, now we talk about it in this quasi-mythological way. How does it get the symbolic status as the seminal founding document for English law? This is a question that's vexed me for years, and not only vexed me, but actually is 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 palimcess. It's layers of layers of layers of meaning, interpretation that has evolved over those 800 years or 800 and 10 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 drew in 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. It's transmuted into a document that comes 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 actually sort of a reflection of itself that the meaning is drawn from the stories that we tell and how those 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 Wigs, the Victorian era, all these moments, they're parking back to almost a fictitious, highly romanticised 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 modern-day cop-purpose and sort of circumstance, not using it for its ability to sort out issues of 13th century governance. Yeah, I mean, I think that you're really bang on there. It becomes one of these things where you see what you want to see. If you are attempting to make a case against, for example, what you perceive to be in overreach of royal power, it becomes this obvious document to kind of pull out and show around. And I think that that starts happening already like about the time of the English Civil War, like in the 17th century. Yeah, it really does. And, you know, I guess if you were sort of, looking at it in a simple comparison, James I first, definitely Charles I, there are echoes of the sort of things that they're using royal prerogative,

their sort of concept of divine rights 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 one of a better phrase. So, you know, Charles I 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, the classic interpretation, is reinvents Magna Carta. Susie, 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 early 1600s. He uses it in his institutes and his legal writings as a vehicle to justify the notion of time and memorial, 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, particularly against sort of what people have always regarded as acceptable we're in England and sort of Britain. 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, and this idea of trying to drum up an imagined Englishness and an idea of English rights that everyone has always definitely agreed on. and then you like say wah ha here's Magna Carta you know and I mean I think certainly we also see it in play in 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 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 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 landover 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. Yeah, it really 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 reference 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 to States, you know, they're taken with them that sort of legal interpretation that's been devised by the likes of William Blackstone, Sir Egold Cook. And a lot of the sort of language of the original sort of founding charters of each of the 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 event in commerce within Magna Carta. So, you know, in terms of if you were thinking about drawing a straight line and a lineage, you could, if you were feeling particularly naughty, probably argue that actually, you know, within an American context, they'd probably have more direct ties to that history than potentially the British do now. But that opens a whole new can of worms.

How many episodes can we get out of this? Correct. But then I sort of think, you know, and there 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 there is these commonalities that have endured for centuries. And, you know, Magna Carta plays its part, albeit small, in that. Well, I think that you're kind of touching here on one of the things that I find most interesting about these mythologies of Magnifices

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 are the ideas that we find written down in Magna Carta, particularly novel, in 1215? 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 juror. And then,

you know, 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 fish whirs and, 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 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 has sort of held to account. So, yeah, no, I don't think there is anything particularly novel beyond 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. So within this as well, I'm quite interested in, I suppose, earlier conventions,

earlier laws that influence 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 specific. 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 get taught 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?

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 replaced to it. I mean, I think in terms of the trial by jury and fair and justice, 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, 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. 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 possible exception of these particular clauses? Yeah, I would say, you know, that would be a fair summary. Great, done. Thanks, Stephen did.

No, okay, 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. Yeah, exactly. Now, you're completely spot on. And, you know, I think it's, magnaculture in 1215 is never supposed to be a beacon of civil liberty, a foundation of, 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 Rony Mood is because John has been kicked out of London and he's sort of at Windsor. The barons at this day, the date of the day before, based in stains

and Rani Mood 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 because they start fighting pretty much eight weeks later it's in old 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 foundation of law and also civil rights, civil liberty. 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. Correct. 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 many parts of Magna Carta are still on the books today, really? Clause 39 and 40 basically become truncated into one and 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 other acts that have been bought in. So even sort of functionally within our modern day, you wouldn't be using those to get anywhere with an illegal argument. 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. What good old days they were. 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, which is just, I mean, I think it's partially, it shows how desperate people were during the pandemic.

But also, 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? 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 where we've always done this, you can't sort of, you can't take away my freedom, my civil liberties, 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 Cars was almost that short hand in a way that is quite unhelpful 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 running at running mead and, you know, the lady read 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 one 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, you know, nationalism, the idea of 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 McNacarta as their sort of white horse. 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, actually, it's a lot more complicated than that. And, you know, that's not sexy.

No, it's not. It's way sexier to just say, yeah, 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 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. Oh, yes. So in the Charter of the Forest, it comes in 1217.

It does, yeah. 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. Yeah. 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. It's on the books.

Yep. So, like, it's got like a 700-year run, absolutely beats the pants off Magna Carta, and nobody talks about it. You know, but I guess I'm out here fan-girling 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? I think it does very much. So, you know, as you've sort of referenced issued in 1217, and, The interesting thing about 2017, well, yes, basically it's a reissue of Magna Carta in which most of the more clauses that were pertaining to King John have stripped out. It's a streamlined version of Magnicata 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, it's efficacy, is more on the common man or woman. 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 pertained in 1215. Yeah, for me, this is the more significant document. It just fundamentally is, but I suppose it's because I'm team common people. There's nothing wrong with team common people. You know, come on, I love it. I love a peasant. Where are they going to get their wood for the winter? That's what I want to 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. 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 Opti Pry 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 War 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, freedom of right and civil liberty. But, you know, actually they were very interested in hearing of the sort of activities of the levellers 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 the Magna Carta, but obviously, you know, given the circumstance and the context of where they were and when they were there, Charter for the Forest would have been a little less of a headline-grabbing documents to refer to.

You know, I'm going to start making Charter of the Forest Awareness T-shirts. You know, ask me about the Charter of the Forest. Well, I think it could be a really effective sort of merchandise run for Gone Medieval. Absolutely. Right. But we've talked to the... a lot about, you know, concepts of rule of 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? Yeah, they sort of feature heavily because John, during his reign, ranages to to get England excommunicators. It is ironic then that it is the sort of Pope that comes to John's aid for one, 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 my current physician in the 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. obviously, you know, you can't bury your dead, 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. I think some of my favorite areas of governance, though, although you're banging on here. It's just all the fishing wares, isn't it, mate? Half of this is about fishing wares.

That is the most famous clause in Magna Carta, isn't it? The fishing wears clause. You can just tell in my voice that I've got excited about fishing wears. It really does demonstrate exactly how precise and specific Magnacartre of 1215 is to the context to which it's sealed. So the reason that fish and whirs are included is not because they are looking to protect the fish. It's because actually they are looking to maintain the Thames and the Medway. as a short of shipping merchant route.

And fishing wheels were essentially blocking those trade lanes. So that's why fishing is included. And it's the one that stands up because it seems so foreign against everything else. And it's even more foreign when you're comparing it to 39 and 40. 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. I mean, I suppose it's one of these things where, again, nerds love this. You know, I simply love a fish at wear 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 in order for the kingdom to function well.

Yeah, and I mean to your point on the fission ways, you know, if we were to follow your logic, the reason that people are putting fission ways in the terms is clearly because of a need. for to get fish, whether for food or 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 ten times out of ten, you'll find the context and the reason within 1214 or John's reign that is particularly a led to that having an inclusion.

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, orp interest, then it does seem to be a little bit odd. of a mixture, jury by peer, fish whirs, freedom of the church. But, you know, I guess,

you know, this is where I stand on my soapbox. There's an obligation on us to sort of, to tell people and sort of get into those conversations to, you know, ensure that history isn't being used in a deliberately wrong way. No, I think you're absolutely bang on. And, you know, also I bring up the fishing weirs within this context, because I think they encapsulate the irony. The irony, of using Magnaecarta 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 trade 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 come into play where the impoverished need to eat and they're being told, I'm sorry, you cannot have a way across this river because, 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. Yeah, totally, totally. And it's that sort of, I guess, steward to, to live. look at the historiography. Most of that

historography is about the king and the lads that are going to benefit from this document. I think increasingly this more social element is being explored, is being spoken about the likes of Nicholas Vince and

David Carpenter and others are increasingly situating it and explaining it within a much wider context and sort of unpicking. They're telling us all through written word or verbal presentation the reason why these things are occurring. But no, totally.

It is sort of an element of the story that hasn't made its way into common perception. And I mean, I guess 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 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 not really a reality. And unfortunately, you've got to bring people back down to earth by saying,

I'm sorry, actually, we're talking about fishing weirs now, because the people are actually being oppressed here. Yeah, for sure. You know, and if we were to tell a more accurate sort of history of McNacarta, you know, the title of the story would probably be how long was it until you did actually when you're rights? And I'm saying that that is a generalisation 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 given the common person a right that could be generally considered, you know, enough to vote, subsistence, ability to own land and all of these things. That's really sort of the period in which these ideas are, A, taken seriously and be enacted into law. You know, it's not 1215, it's not 1225, it's not 1297, it's not the Civil War. I mean, and I think that's ironic. I 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. 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 yes, you're right, this is the period across Europe where national ideas are born and, or not born, but are, you know,

becoming more popular and being used to build nation states. Within Britain, you know, in the 1800s, clauses of Magna Carta are getting repealed, left, right, and centre. So you have this, you know, this interesting sort of juxtaposition where actually, you know, you've got a century where the common man is probably gaining rights like he's never done before, 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 have that juxtaposition happening in the time where people are thinking more about rights and nations and ideals and what that relationship

between state and, you know, individual is. The practicalities of medieval, you know, the hangovers of medieval society are being scrapped left, right and center from a statute book. Oh, that just says it all. really, you know, you get left with the myth and all the actual rights are sanded off. Yeah, yeah. But again, you know, that's probably just another marker and demonstration of how outmoded and how outdated it was even by then. And yeah, it has been, or it is continually bored down to that seductive, idealized, romanticized

short-hand, the cornerstone of Monday law, the part of the golden thread of British history. the cliches can go on, a thing that guarantees you're right as an individual, all of these things are true in the sense that palimcessed idea of continued reinterpretation, there is a very concrete history that you can trace in which you're tracing a buildup of the myth, basically, and you can point to all the moments,

whether that be from Edward Cook, whether that's Sir Francis Bredet, whether that's Arthur Beardmore, whether that's Darkest Howe in the Mangrove Nine in the 1960s, whether it's Tony Ben 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 is Magna Carta and its myth. They're all contributing to it, but they're all taken different strands. of what they believe to be most useful or most beneficial. Well, Stephen, I can't thank you enough for coming on today to rob everyone. Nice and handy a bit and complicate things.

Thank you for being Captain Bringdown with me. No, that's fine. Any time you want to sort of bring the general mood of a nation down and just talk about how the rights weren't one at running me, you know, just give me a call. You're my boy, Stephen. Thank you. It's quite a right. 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 forward slash 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 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.