Law · 15 June 1215 CE
Magna Carta
Runnymede, Surrey (England)
Facing a rebellion by his barons, King John set his seal to a charter of liberties in the meadow at Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on 15 June 1215. It declared the English Church free and set limits on the king's demands, but Pope Innocent III declared it void within weeks and civil war followed.
It was reissued in 1216, 1217 and 1225, and three of its clauses remain law in England and Wales.
Why it mattered
Magna Carta came to stand for the principle that even the king is bound by law: later jurists and the American colonists invoked it, though it began as a settlement between the crown and the barons.
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