Magna Carta 800 Years and Counting

My criminal justice students and I visited the British Library this morning to view an original Magna Carta (several originals were created by hand). I had considered taking them to Runnymede, the fabled meadow where the English barons forced King John to sign Magna Carta over 800 years ago in the year 1215. Apart from the time it would take to get there from London, I learned the British had repurposed the space to suit modern life. Runnymede is now considered an . . . Excellent place to run your dog! Find out more on the Visiting Runnymede with Your Dog website, where “well behaved dogs are welcome in our tea-room"—called the Magna Carta tea-room, of course. Don’t be fooled, though. Both the British and Americans revere the rights enshrined in Magna Carta. In our inimitable way, we Americans are just more outspoken about it. Take a look at the background of the photo. Look familiar? No, it’s not the Old Well at Carolina, another hallowed shrine. It’s a monument erected in 1957 by none other than the American Bar Association. You can see full images of the memorial here. Written 800 years ago, Magna Carta contains some objectionable provisions. Villeins (feudal tenants), women, and Jews did not fare well. Magna Carta also contains many outdated provisions. You can open the document to just about any place and find provisions about forests, ale, cloth-dying, knight service (and how to get out of it), and other concerns of the feudal age. More [...]