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Review
| Magna Carta, by Katherine Fischer Drew. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004. 256 pages. $45.00, cloth.
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| Katherine Fischer Drew, the distinguished scholar of early medieval legal history, here offers a fascinating exploration of Magna Carta in the light of a wide range of political, economic and legal developments, some dating back to the period of the Roman Empire. The book is part of the series, Greenwood Guides to Historical Events in the Medieval World, and follows a format designed to stimulate classroom discussion and active critical engagement. Drew provides her own historical interpretation in five chapters of analysis. These chapters and a selection of seventeen brief biographies of relevant kings, bishops and barons constitute the two principal sections of the book. Drew has also included translations of Magna Carta and other important English royal documents, an excellent supplementary glossary of the technical terms of medieval English law and land-tenure, as well as an informative annotated bibliography of further reading on English legal, political and social history. Two appendices briefly describe the crusading movement and trial by ordeal. |
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Chapters 1 to 4 of Drew's analysis, along with the bulk of the biographical entries, focus on the historical background to the signing of Magna Carta by King John. Though placing particular emphasis on developments associated with the dramatic reign of Henry II (1154–1189), Drew does not hesitate to take the reader much further back in time to illuminate the evolution of the relationship of England's kings with the most influential and powerful segments of the population: the Church, the mercantile towns, and the nobility. These chapters illuminate both how and why the combined opposition of these three groups forced John's submission in the summer of 1215. Drew locates the grounds of episcopal complaints against royal authority in the eleventh-century ecclesiastical reform movement, but also in William the Conqueror's establishment of an independent legal system for the English clergy in exchange for papal support of his 1066 invasion. Her inquiry into the relationship of medieval English towns with their monarchs extends back to the reign of Alfred of Wessex (871–899), while the roots of the political tensions between John and his barons are traced to the political structures of Charlemagne's empire. This is all masterfully handled, as is a chapter on the evolution of the Common Law in Anglo-Saxon and Norman England and the incorporation of its principals into Magna Carta. Throughout this narrative, Drew draws attention to the benefits of seeking the antecedents to and contemporary context of John's "Great Charter" across a broad geographical and chronological range. Towards that end, she includes among the biographies a short essay on the life of Frederick II (1195–1250) who as king of Sicily and German emperor faced similar difficulties in asserting royal authority over towns, the Church and the nobility in distinct but not entirely unrelated circumstances. Drew also allows students to compare the political successes and failures of Charlemagne, Alfred, Henry II, Richard the Lionheart and Philip II of France with those of John to achieve a deeper understanding of medieval law and politics. |
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On only one topic does the book not include as much detail as students and teachers might expect. Drew acknowledges that one of the most important aspects of Magna Carta is the process by which the charter of limitations on royal power which King John granted to his rebellious barons at Runnymede came to be viewed in later English legal theory and political discourse as enshrining the principal rights and liberties of all the king's free subjects including representational government, trial by jury, and other foundational features of Anglo-American politics and jurisprudence. Chapter 5 on "Magna Carta and Parliament" and the biographical entry for the rebellious baron Simon de Monfort (ca. 1208–1265) provide substantial coverage of the period from 1215 to the end of the thirteenth century, but the important legal and political developments involving Magna Carta in the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries are only sketchily addressed here and in the book's Introduction. Including a few additional pages on these topics (and perhaps a biography of the key Stuart-era Parliamentarian and legal theorist Edward Coke) would redress this slight imbalance in what is otherwise a comprehensive and beautifully-structured compilation. It is to be hoped that Greenwood Press makes the volumes of this series available in a paperback format so that instructors of relevant undergraduate and graduate courses will more readily incorporate Drew's book into their syllabi. |
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| California State University, Los Angeles |
Scott Wells |
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