A charter of liberties sealed by King John at Runnymede.
Magna Carta is a charter of liberties first sealed in 1215 during a crisis between King John and his barons. Surviving copies and reissues made it one of medieval Europe’s most famous political documents.
The charter was produced by royal government under baronial pressure at Runnymede. It was not a democratic constitution, but a negotiated settlement among king, church, and elite society.
Its clauses addressed inheritance, justice, taxation, church liberties, debts, forest law, and limits on arbitrary royal action. Some clauses were practical and immediate; others gained wider meaning later.
Magna Carta was annulled, revised, and reissued. Its survival in multiple manuscript copies shows how written charters could become instruments of political memory.
Later generations turned Magna Carta into a symbol of lawful government. That legacy is real, but it developed over centuries from a very specific medieval crisis.