Читать книгу A Concise History of the Common Law - Theodore F. T. Plucknett - Страница 32

The sureties of the King’s debtors were not to be liable until after the default of the principal debtor, and were to have the lands of the debtor until they were satisfied for what they had paid for him. There was to be one system of weights and measures throughout the land, and foreign merchants were to be allowed free entry except in war-time, their treatment depending upon the treatment of English merchants abroad (Chapters 8, 25, 30).

From this it will be seen that the provisions of the Great Charter which became permanent were those of a practical nature, while the revolutionary machinery invented by the barons to supersede the Crown was quickly dropped as unworkable and contrary to the current of English history.

The Great Charter was by no means unique in European history. Many kings and nobles about this time were granting charters to their tenants and subjects, and their general character was not dissimilar even in different countries. It has even been suggested that Spanish influence can be traced in our own Charter.¹ In 1222 Hungary obtained a very similar charter.² The difference between the English Charter and these other documents lies not in its contents but in the use made of it in subsequent history. The Charter gradually grew bigger than the mere feudal details which it contained and came to be a symbol of successful opposition to the Crown which had resulted in a negotiated peace representing a reasonable compromise. As time went on, therefore, the Charter became more and more a myth, but nevertheless a very powerful one, and in the seventeenth century all the forces of liberalism rallied around it. The great commentary upon it by Sir Edward Coke in the beginning of his Second Institute became the classical statement of constitutional principles in the seventeenth century, and was immensely influential in England, America and, later still, in many other countries as well.³ To explode the “myth” of the Greater Charter is indeed to get back to its original historical meaning, but for all that, the myth has been much more important than the reality, and there is still something to be said for the statement that “the whole of English constitutional history is a commentary upon the Great Charter”.⁴

Its immediate result, apart from the reforms contained in it, was to familiarise people with the idea that by means of a written document it was possible to make notable changes in the law. Within the period of ten years, four successive charters had made numerous changes in law and procedure. Was not this an indication that many other difficult questions might be settled in a similar manner? And as a matter of fact we soon find a stream of legislation beginning to appear, which we shall describe later.