chant, the agricultural implements to the peasant, etc.) . A peasant left without his implements would be no good for those from whom he held the land - who would do the work then? And where would the quit-rent come from? The merchants » support was invaluable to the barons, they knew they would have to make war on the king. Checking the king's power, the Charter was an instrument of perfecting feudalism and establishing a baronial oligarchy.Charter, however, acquired wider and more radical implications when the class composition was changed, when villeinage died out and the idea of ??freedom was no longer connected with land holding. As it was, it did not amount to much for the overwhelming majority of the population that did not enjoy the status of freemen, no more than a «romantic symbol» as some progressive English historians called it, but it was a great enough event in 13 th century England to make king John mad. [3, pp.53-54]
«He signed the Charter with a smile ... when he got home to Windsor Castle, he was quite a madman in his helpless fury. And he broke the Charter immediately afterwards », Charles Dickens says in his« Child «s History of England». As soon as he broke it, «they made war upon him,» declared him deposed and invited Louis, the French king «s son, to the throne of England. The moment the barons dispersed, John denounced the Great Charter and gathered an army. But Civil war was interrupted by John »s sudden death in 1216. His son Henry was only nine. Government was carried out in his name by a group of barons. They became stronger than ever before. Within this period the principles of Magna Carta came to be accepted as the basis of the law at least in theory.Carta meant great changes in the feudal system. Even more important, however, was the Charter «s influence on those classes in future centuries? the bourgeoisie and the gentry? who stood against the king »s powers and demanded a limitation of his rights. [5, p.60] Carta marks a clear stage in the collapse of English feudalism. Feudal society was based on links between lord and vassal. At Runnymede the nobles were not acting as vassals but as a class. They established a committee of twenty-five lords to make sure John kept his promises. That was not a «feudal» thing to do. In addition, the nobles were acting in co-operation with the merchant class of towns.nobles did not allow John s successors to forget his charter and its promises. Every king recognized Magna Carta, until the Middle Ages ended in disorder and a new king of monarchy came into being in the 16 th century.were other small signs that feudalism was changing. When the king went to war he had the right to forty days » fighting service from each of his lords. But forty days were not long enough for fighting a war in France. The nobles refused to fight for longer, so the king was forced to pay soldiers to fight for him. (They were called «paid fighters», solidarius, a Latin word from which the word «soldier» comes.) At the same time many lords preferred their vassals to pay them in money rather than in services. Vassals were gradually beginning to change into tenants. Feudalism, the use of land in return for service, was beginning to weaken. But it took another three hundred years before it disappeared completely. [4, p.28]
.4 Summoning of the First Elected Parliament in 1265
«s so...
