The 800-year old Magna Carta, limiting the powers of the English monarchy, is hailed as a foundation stone of modern democracy and civil rights. But not only is it more limited in scope than commonly supposed, much of it is humorously and oddly specific, at least to modern ears.
Consider a selection of lines from the acclaimed text:
“If a man dies owing money to Jews, his wife may have her dower and pay nothing towards the debt from it.”
“No town or person shall be forced to build bridges over rivers except those with an ancient obligation to do so.”
“All fish-weirs shall be removed from the Thames, the Medway, and throughout the whole of England, except on the sea coast.”
“There shall be standard measures of wine, ale, and corn (the London quarter), throughout the kingdom. There shall also be a standard width of dyed cloth, russet, and haberject, namely two ells within the selvedges.”
“All evil customs relating to forests and warrens, foresters, warreners, sheriffs and their servants, or river-banks and their wardens, are at once to be investigated in every county by twelve sworn knights of the county, and within forty days of their enquiry the evil customs are to be abolished completely and irrevocably.”
“No one shall be arrested or imprisoned on the appeal of a woman for the death of any person except her husband.”
As The Atlantic’s Uri Friedman suggests, this lacks the “timeless tenor of ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident.'” But don’t be disappointed! If you’re imagining proto-democratic Robin Hood types asserting their rights in the woods of old England, check out the much sexier Forest Charter, signed not long afterward: “Every free man shall lodge in the forest as he wishes”
A companion document to the Magna Carta, redressing some applications of the Anglo-Norman Forest Law that had been extended and abused by William Rufus, the charter re-established rights of access to the royal forest for free men that had been eroded by the Conqueror and his heirs. Many of its provisions were in force for centuries afterwards. … In contrast to Magna Carta, which dealt with the rights of barons, it provided some real rights, privileges and protections for the common man against the abuses of the encroaching aristocracy.
How’s this for some hot, nasty 13th-century libertarian action:
Every free man may, without being prosecuted, make in his wood or in land he has in the forest a mill, a preserve, a pond, a marlpit, a ditch … on condition that it does not harm any neighbour.
Also…
Every free man shall have … the honey found in his woods.
Honey.