1215: The Year of Magna Carta

1215: The Year of Magna Carta

1215: The Year of Magna Carta

By Dan Danziger & John Gillingham (2004)
Buy this book
Buy this book

On 15 June 1215, rebel barons forced King John to meet them at Runnymede. They did not trust the King, so he was not allowed to leave until his seal was attached to the charter in front of him.

This was Magna Carta. It was a revolutionary document. Never before had royal authority been so fundamentally challenged. Nearly 800 years later, two of the charter's sixty-three clauses are still a ringing expression of freedom for mankind: 'To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice'. And: 'No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or in any way ruined, except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land'.

1215 - THE YEAR OF THE MAGNA CARTA explores what it was like to be alive in that momentous year. Political power struggles are interwoven with other issues - fashion, food, education, medicine, religion, sex. Whether describing matters of state or domestic life, this is a treasure house of a book, rich in detail and full of enthralling insights into the medieval world.

Fact of the Day

A Templar knight, as well as being chaste and vowing to avoid luxury, slept for just four hours a night, attended up to seven masses a day, and fasted three times a week.

Quote of the Day

"If civilisation is to advance at all in the future, it must be through the help of women, women freed of their political shackles, women with full power to work their will in society. "
~ Emmeline Pankhurst

On This Day

1579 Thomas Gresham, merchant, financier, and founder of the Royal Exchange, died suddenly, apparently of apoplexy. He bequeathed his estate, after the death of his wife, to the Corporation of London and the Mercers' Company to set up a college to provide free lectures to the public; Gresham College thus became London's first institution of higher education.
1916 The hospital ship Britannic, sister-ship of Titanic, hit a mine and sank, killing 30.
1918 Ten days after the Armistice, the German navy surrendered to the British in the Firth of Forth. 
1920 The assassinations of British intelligence officers ordered by Michael Collins in the Irish War of Independence led to thirty-one dead (from both sides) in what became known as 'Bloody Sunday'.
1974 21 people were killed and 182 injured when bombs exploded in two Birmingham pubs. The IRA was probably responsible, but the real culprits have never been found. The Birmingham Six, originally convicted of the bombings, were released because of dodgy police practices.
1981 The proceedings of the House of Commons were televised live for the first time.