Magna Carta
Footnotes from Foundations in Liberty.
1
Albert Beebe White and Wallace Notestein, eds. “Magna Carta.” Source Problems in English History (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1915), orbilat.com.
2
James McClellan, Liberty, Order, and Justice, 23.
3
Timothy Sandefur, “Lex Terrae 800 Years on,” NYU Journal of Law & Liberty, vol. 9 (13 June 2015): 630–631, papers.ssrn.com.
4
The version used in this book is translated by Albert Beebe White and Wallace Notestein, eds., Source Problems in English History (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1915).
5
Normandy, Aquitaine, Anjou—regions in France
6
A royal official who enforces the law locally
7
Preambulatory purpose statement: God, church, and government. Foreshadowing of Mayflower Compact
8
Typically the land and peasant labor bound to cultivate it, granted by a lord (knight) to his vassals (tenants under oath of service) for their income in payment for the military service.
9
The legal care or guardianship of an underage person, minor
10
Pond or pool
11
Personal, transportable property
12
Guarantees
13
Having taken another’s property as a pledge for the performance of an obligation
14
From Latin scutum, “shield”: payment from a vassal to his overlord to avoid military service.
15
About, concerning
16
House used as a dwelling
17
A legal action
18
This foreshadows the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution
19
novel disseisin: court proceedings for recovering recently lost land-ownership rights; mort d’ancestor: actions to recover land lost due to the death (mort) of an ancestor; darrein presentment: legal complications arising from conflicting claims to an ecclesiastical benefit. All three of these (novel disseisin, mort d’ancestor, and darrein presentment) are assizes—sessions or sittings (from French s’asseoir) of a court justice, which included trial by jury.
20
A freeman who is also a landholder
21
A man who has full rights as a citizen
22
To punish by imposing a fine
23
A villager in rank below a thane and above a cotter
24
Tools for farming (plants and animals)
25
Financial penalties imposed for minor offenses
26
Danish word for an intermediate-size division of English local government and taxation, larger than a village and smaller than a shire; called a ward in northern England.
27
An administrative jurisdiction in England
28
A dam-like contrivance for catching fish in tidal waters
29
A legal writ ordering someone to do something
30
Namely, that is to say, specifically
31
A brown dyed cloth
32
A woven cloth
33
Unit of measure for cloth
34
An estate in land held on condition of paying homage to the lord
35
Holding land by rent in money, not by military service
36
Another type of socage holding
37
To dispossess or deprive
38
No excessive fines (precursor to Eighth Amendment to the Constitution)
39
The reversion of land to a lord upon the death of the tenant
40
The king “could also punish, by blinding and castration, offenders who hunted in royal forests” (library.law.ua.edu).
41
A geographical area under the administrative jurisdiction of a bailiff or sheriff
42
The border lands between England and Wales
43
Quieting