Magna Carta in its European Context

Most of the celebrations of Magna Carta in 2015 concentrated on it in a more or less exclusively English context. It is the argument of this article that the ideas of Englishmen about society, government and law were much the same as those of other Europeans at the time and that Magna Carta can best be understood in that wider context. Contemporary communities in other kingdoms were also securing charters of liberties. What distinguished Magna Carta was not the character of the liberties it granted, but its length and detail; these, however, reflected not different aspirations, but rather the particularly centralized and demanding character of English royal government.