Democracy Day - 750 years since Simon de Montfort's 1265 parliament

Westminster Abbey Chapter House

Magna Carta Project members appeared on BBC radio and television this week as part of BBC's Democracy Day (20 January) - a series of commemorations inspired by the anniversary of Simon de Montfort's famed parliament of 1265. Commemorations began on 19 January, when Louise Wilkinson appeared on Woman's Hour to talk about Eleanor de Montfort, wife of Simon de Montfort and sister of Henry III. Louise explained Eleanor's perspective on events and her role in the politics of the period. You can listen to this episode of Woman's Hour here, via the BBC website. 

On the same day, the BBC website published an article to which David Carpenter contributed: 'Simon de Montfort: The turning point for democracy that gets overlooked', explaining the significance of the 1265 parliament. You can read David's comments here. He contributed to an article giving a Welsh perspective on events, was interviewed for BBC Wales television and appeared on Good Morning Wales. He also gave live interviews for the BBC international service, as well as for BBC Arabic and Persian. David was also featured on Australian SBS Wolrd News. Later he also spoke on Hereford and Worcester local radio and on the Mark Forrest Show, which goes out across BBC local radio. You can view a video that David made for UK Parliament at Westminster Abbey Chapter House here. 

Sophie Ambler gave live interviews in Westminster Hall on BBC Breakfast, and also appeared in a special feature for BBC Parliament and Daily Politics, a radio version of which was also aired on the Today Programme. She also contributed a guest blog for the History of Parliament, which was featured on the Guardian live politics blog.

You can read Sophie's feature on Simon de Montfort's 1265 parliament, in which Magna Carta was confirmed, on the Magna Carta Project website, as well as David's recent article showcasing a new discovery about the changes made to Magna Carta by Montfort during the parliament. 

Launch party for David Carpenter's Magna Carta

9^th January saw the launch party for David Carpenter’s Magna Carta. The party took place in the Weston Room of King’s Maughan Library on Chancery Lane.

You can view David's Magna Carta on Amazon, and read his essay 'Magna Carta 800 years on' on The Guardian website.

Alice Taylor (KCL) introduces David

David with staff, past and present, from the National Archives. L-R: Nick Barratt, Paul Dryburgh, David Carpenter, Jess Nelson, David Crook, Sean Cunningham

Magna Carta series on BBC Radio 4

This week members of the Magna Carta Project will appear in a four-part series on Magna Carta broadcast on BBC Radio 4. The series, beginning on Monday 5^th January at 09.00, opens with an episode on ‘The Road to Runnymede’. It will feature MCP Principal Investigator Nicholas Vincent and Co-investigators David Carpenter and Louise Wilkinson, as well as British Library lead curator and MCP member Claire Breay. The team will discuss with host Melvyn Bragg the background to the Charter. Programmes 2, 3 and 4 will be broadcast on the following three days. 

You can find out more about the series, and access podcasts after the programmes' broadcast, on the BBC website.

David Carpenter's 'Magna Carta' is published with Penguin Classics

1 January 2015 saw the publication of David Carpenter’s new book, Magna Carta, with Penguin Classics. The book provides a new translation of the Charter, presented with original chapter divisions that throw new light on how Magna Carta was understood by contemporaries. 

Reading the text closely, David shows for the first time how the Charter reflected divisions in early-thirteenth society. He also explains the ideas behind the agreement as well as giving a new narrative for the events leading up to Runnymede.

In preparing his book, David has been tracking down copies of Magna Carta 1215, as well as later issues, in medieval records – research that has revealed the existence of numerous drafts of the Charter that were carried off from Runnymede. David’s catalogue of Magna Carta copies can be viewed on the Magna Carta Project Website.

The release of David’s book was featured in a BBC News article by Nick Higham: Just how important is Magna Carta 800 years on?

David has also written an article for the Guardian, which highlights some of his findings.

Together with fellow Magna Carta Project members Nicholas Vincent and Claire Breay, David will be taking part in a four part series on Magna Carta to be aired BBC Radio 4 in January 2015.

Click here to view David’s Magna Carta on Amazon. 

Magna Carta on BBC Radio 4's Beyond Belief

A depiction of Stephen Langton forcing Magna Carta on King John

Magna Carta Project Co-investigator David Carpenter appeared this week on BBC Radio 4’s Beyond Belief, to discuss the Church’s involvement with Magna Carta. David discussed the Interdict and Stephen Langton’s role in drawing up and upholding the Charter with the Dean of Salisbury, the Very Reverend June Osborne, and Simon Barrow, a Co-director of Ekklesias (a Christian think tank). You can listen to a podcast of the programme on the Radio 4 website.

Magna Carta Essay Competition

Professor Sir James Holt (1922-2014)

The Magna Carta Project has established an essay prize in memory of the late Professor Sir James Holt, the great expert on Magna Carta, who died earlier this year. Professor Holt's work on the Charter, including two magisterial books (The Northerners and Magna Carta) has formed an important part of undergraduate syllabuses for decades and continues to inspire students. 

The J.C. Holt Essay Prize will be awarded for the best essay by an undergraduate student answering one of the competition's designated questions on Magna Carta. The prize will be £250, to be presented at the Magna Carta Project conference at King's College London/British Library between 17 and 19 June 2015. The deadline for submissions is 1 March 2015.

The list of questions and full details of how to enter are available on the Magna Carta Project website.

'The men who were responsible for the Great Charter of 1215 asserted one great principle. In their view the realm was more than a geographic or administrative unit. It was a community. As such, it was capable of possessing rights and liberties. Magna Carta was indeed a statement of these rights and liberties, which could be asserted against any member of the community, even and especially against the King. The durability of Magna Carta is to be explained by the general utility of this central concept.' (J.C. Holt, The Northerners)

Henry III and Edward the Confessor

Edward the Confessor, 
 BL Royal 20 A II f.5

13 October is the feast of the translation of Edward the Confessor, spiritual patron of Henry III. In 1245, Henry began to rebuild Westminster Abbey in the Confessor’s honour and, from around the same time, made every effort to be present at Westminster on both of his patron’s feastdays (the other being the anniversary of the Confessor’s death, 5 January).  

How and why did Henry become attached to the Confessor? In an article for English Historical Review of 2007 David Carpenter argued that, in the mid-1230s, Henry began to look to the Confessor for a model of consensual kingship. This followed the fall of Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, who had exercised a malign influence upon the king between 1232 and 1234. ‘Imperious and impervious... he had boasted of “the plenitude of royal power”, ridiculed the principle of “judgement by peers” and hurried Henry into a series of disseisins per voluntatem regis . During his regime, the very future of Magna Carta had seemed at stake. It was on this form of rule that Henry turned his back.’

‘The spiritual life of King Henry III revolved around his veneration for Edward the Confessor. The abiding testimony to that, of course, is Westminster Abbey which Henry rebuilt in Edward’s honour, and where he still lies entombed beside the battered remnants of the jewelled and tessellated shrine to which he translated Edward’s body. The pre-eminence of the cult in Henry’s mind can be gauged from the number of paupers he fed each day, as revealed by the household roll for the regnal year 1259 – 60. On 5 January 1260, the anniversary of Edward’s death in 1066, the number was 1,500; on 12 and 13 October 1260, the vigil and anniversary of the saint’s translation in 1163 (always the more important feast), it was 5,016. The next largest total during the year was the 464 fed on the vigil and feast of Pentecost.

Many scholars have written about Henry’s devotion to the Confessor, none more brilliantly than Paul Binski in his book, Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets: Kingship and the Representation of Power 1200 – 1400. But there exists no detailed consideration of exactly when and why Henry became attached to the saint. Binski himself assigns the process to the 1220s and 1230s, without being more precise. He observes that "why Edward suddenly came to prominence early in the reign of Henry III is unknown". This paper will argue that Henry’s devotion to the Confessor was established in a very few years in the 1230s, to be exact between 1233 and 1238. It was the result of the peculiar circumstances of those years, circumstances which made Westminster Abbey redouble its efforts to attach Henry to the saint, and rendered Henry desperate for the support of a spiritual patron. A particular Westminster monk, Richard le Gras, the disastrous regime of Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, and Henry’s marriage to Eleanor of Provence are also part of the story.’

Read the full article online via the English Historical Review (subscription required).